SEVEN NOISES

We record collectors and music addicts are just one step below comic book fans. We are freaks. Last Saturday on Rough Trade East, London, it was the confirmation. People queuing from two hours before the time the store opened in order to get a copy of a limited record (most of them for the first Blur single after the reunion that, I have to say, many of them ended up on Ebay selling for hundreds, so for many that day was just a way to make business). Once inside, people running, pushing, throwing records on the floor, records being stepped over, fights for a last copy and queues of one hour long wait to pay. And I was one of them. I once found myself laying on the floor in order to get a copy of the Dum Dum Girls / Male Bounding split. It was chaotic and surreal.
But this year, even more than for the two previous editions, was the confirmation that people is buying records again and, although this means that I'm going to wake up early and probably miss some records in future editions, I just have to feel happy about that. Record Store Day has become to replace what waking up on Christmas Day used to mean when we were kids: feeling nervous and excited from the moment we wake up.
I got most of the stuff I wanted, at least the ones that were available in the UK, so I was happy with my purchases. Here there are some:

The best packaging comes for Sub Pop with the releases for the Dum Dum Girls / Male Bounding and Happy Birthday singles, joking about mp3s and the revival of records in a retro sleeve. And good songs that didn't make it to the albums Sub Pop has lately released from this bands.

The Caribou and Beach House 12" releases are also great. Beach House's Zebra EP, containing two different versions of the album tracks Zebra and 10 Mile Stereo plus a new track and the B side for Norway and Caribou's Odessa in four great versions, the original and three mixes by Junior Boys, Nite Jewel and David Wrench.

I also got a 10" compilation of Factory records with Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column that, although a bit cheeky, it's worth if just for the cover, a tribute to Fact001 and for the fact of playing Transmission and Ceremony without changing the record.

And now the weirdest collaboration ever, Hot Chip and Bonnie Prince Billy in a new version of Hot Chip's last single, the auto-tune joke I Feel Better that, although the long dance version you can find online is even better, it's funny and good at the same time and it's another proof of the versatility and sense of humour Will Oldham has outside of his own releases.

I got the Danger Mouse / Sparklehorse single if only because it would sadly be the last ever single I would get from Mark Linkous.

Other stuff I got was the Grace Jones 12", the Pavement Cut your Hair / Grounded 7", Cocorosie's Lemonade (with the beautiful Surfer Girl cover on the B side), the Mogwai / Fuck Buttons split, Surfer Blood's Swim, Wooden Shjip's Australian tour single, Charlotte Gainsborough's Sunset sessions 7", JAMC's re edition of Just Like Honey and the First Aid Kit / Peggy Sue split. Yes I know, I spent more than what I could afford but, with the high of the moment, you just can take and take.

Next month we'll see the first Dum Dum Girls release under her new label, Sub Pop, the mythic label that is still as current and interesting as on its first days, if not even more. This fact has made increase her popularity in the last months, although she hasn't released anything new since the Captured Tracks 12" (and a track on the Art Fag split). at Pitchfork they have been talking about her non-stop for the last couple of weeks so you'll probably know about this coming release, the first single to be taken out from her first LP I Will Be. Jail La La, the main track on this single, takes even further the 50s and 60s influences she's been developing on her previous songs. This is a re-recorded version of the track that has been available on her Myspace for a long time. It's a slightly cleaned less lo-fi version and so are going to be the rest of the songs on the album but don't expect her to go all hi-fi anytime soon as she's still comfortable experimenting with 4 track and analogue sound recorders. The B side will be a cover of Rolling Stones' Playing With Fire I can't wait to hear.

Dum Dum Girls - Jail La La.mp3

After months and months waiting for this release since having payed for it I finally received it yesterday through my door. I found out on the Art Fag website that they were having problems with the manufacturing but I have to say that they are not so attentive with the costumer service because I sent them a couple of emails to ask for what was wrong and I never heard anything from them. Anyway, the record's finally here and it's one of these records I'll be really proud of having got it in a couple of years. I have already commented stuff from the four bands here so a split release with new songs from them is good news for me. Everything according to this release have to do with dualities. Two American bands, Crocodiles and Dum Dum Girls, who have toured together before and are friends, and two British bands, Graffiti Island and Pens, who have also played live together and this is even the third time they appear in the same release. It's also two male bands on the A side and two female bands on the B side.
They stopped the orders a while ago due to the pressing problems and it's not mentioned if they will carry out some more anytime soon so keep on checking regularly if you want to get yourself a copy before it's too late.

Frankie Rose, of Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts fame, has left us already the coolest of the CVs you can have in just a couple of years. Apart from being a member of these two bands and quitting both of them, she's played live with Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, Blank Dogs and many other people. But if this wasn't enough, and quitting the drums for this project to take the lead role, she has her own new band, taking only her name for her first single Thee Only One, but already preparing her live debut with her new backing band, The Outs. And this single is everything you can expect before listening to it: the perfect mix of her two previous projects, a love for 60s melodies, noise-pop and a contagious dreamy chorus. Everything in 2.23 minutes. The b side, Hollow Life, it's more calm and dark but as infective as the title track.
Wait to see how she will soon reach or even overcome the fame of her previous contributions. And of course, is out on Slumberland records on a beautiful green vinyl.

Released 19/10/09

Yeti Magazine is an irregular publication it's been on for nearly a decade although they've just released seven numbers so far. You can only get it online and it's about, saying it on their own words, "a general interest magazine for people with marginal interests. Subjects covered include literature, film, unicorns, the stock market, black science fiction writers, Swedish trance-folk bands from the '60s, the roots of Alfred Jarry's Pere Ubu character, John Denver, horror vacuui drawings, streetcorner gospel musicians, sex and comic art".

Every single number comes with an 80 min CD with rare and unreleased tracks from the most interesting artists of the moment. I just discovered the magazine with the last issue, Yeti Seven, and some of the artists included are Dum Dum Girls, Woods, Crystal Stilts, Nodzz, Zola Jesus, Christmas Island, Grouper, and a total of 25 artists including some of the most interesting artists to have emerged this year in the American underground, the magazine is settled in Oregon, but also some international stuff including pop, punk, blues and whatever they think it's interesting. They promise that now the magazine is going to have a periodicity of three numbers per year so just waiting to see what are they going to have in number eight, to be published in October. you can get the magazine or subscribe to four numbers at yetipublishing.com

Here you have a couple of songs they included in the magazine to make you want to have more.

Since I reviewed the first Mayfair Set single, one of their members, Dee Dee, has signed up to Sub Pop with her main project Dum Dum Girls. And we know what this means: if there's one independent label in the world that still has a lot of prestige after 20 years of life is them, so she will be pretty popular by the time they publish her first album and the single with the same name in a couple of months. Blank Dogs, on his side, has also released his last album, Under and Under, that has also got him more popularity.
Now they come back again with a new EP, this time a six song 12' that takes a step further that mix of 80s pop they established with the first release. And if they keep on doing these beautiful songs together this side project will probably get to be as notorious as both their other projects. Junked!, the opening track is close to K Records and Dark House and Cease to Be sound like a proto-shoegaze demo. And in all these songs we can see how Dee Dee's voice sounds every time more comfortable and Blank Dog's bass lines some of the most imaginative since the British post-punk invasion.


The Mayfair Set - Dark House.mp3

And yes, the obvious thing to do after a post about Blank Dogs and another one about Dum Dum Girls was to talk about the project they both have in common and could one day beat their one-person bands in popularity. If Blank Dogs is dark, noisy and full of synths from the past and Dum Dum Girls songs are pop-punk Vivian Girls style they go somewhere else when they are together: They reduce the tempo and the noise to clean up the melody into a shinny and optimistic twee pop very K Records that makes the whole thing more accessible than anything they've done before.
If the non-stop creativity of these two workaholics was enough with their multiple releases they publish outside The Mayfair Set it looks they will not slowdown and will also be extremely productive here. This is their first ever release together published a couple of months ago but they already have plans to take out more singles for Woodsist, Zoo Music and, yes, Slumberland and a LP at some point this year. Keep on checking their myspace for future information.

Dum Dum Girls is just one girl, Dee Dee, which I don't really understand as this sounds like a full band. Know the Vivian Girls? So yes, Dum Dum Girls should be as famous as they are as friendship is not the only thing she shares with them because she performs a kind of garage-punk version of 50s /60s girl bands as well. The melodies are even catchier than theirs and the voice more melodic. Longhair, Mercury Mary and Let It Be Me, the three songs in this already sold out 7" single are three beautiful pop songs really inspired in these old vocal bands or even The Ramones as they are filtered through punk noise. She also have a 12" record out (hurry up, not many copies left) and a lot of releases coming this year: a couple of 7" singles, some splits and her first LP at some point next Autumn, all of them with beautiful covers of girls and girls love. Everything published through the every time more interesting labels Zoo Music, Captured Tracks, Hozac and Art Fag home of, between others, Blank Dogs, Woods, Box Elders, Brilliant Colors or Crocodiles.