SEVEN NOISES

Yesterday I was meant to see The Fresh & Onlys, who were playing with Deerhunter, for the first time. Thanks to the fact that some gig promoters think that putting the first band at 7.30 is normal, I missed it completely, and missed half of Deerhunter's set as well. So sad about it, I was really looking forward to it.
At least I managed to get to the merchandising table by the end and I got this one-sided 7" from Hell Yes! called Witchy Woman. The fact that's a one-sided and only one song record can put you out of the fact of getting it. It's not particularly cheap and still don't know why but Hell Yes! specializes doing this, which I quite don't understand. Specially with The Fresh & Onlys that have a new single out every couple of weeks and probably plenty of songs to put on them. Anyway, the song starts a bit like The Doors' When the Music's Over minus the annoying keyboard and it's probably the longest song they've ever done, reaching 5.11 minutes and also more psychedelic than the songs on their last EP for Captured Tracks, still my favourite stuff from them.

The Sandwitches, a band whose two out of three members were formerly part of The Fresh & Onlys, appeared like a blow of fresh air a couple of months ago with their eclectic and fun debut album How To Make Ambient Sadcake and rapidly got the attention of people and blogs all around. Their mix of 60s pop bands, folk, and shining melodies made this album a timeless record that could have been published any time since the 60s, although their naive DIY sound makes it quite contemporary as well. And this week just arrived their first 7 single release out of this album, the perfect and most upbeat track Back to the Sea, a tune stolen from Spector girl bands and surf boy bands as if it was played by a high school band on their first take. This should be Calvin Johnson's favourite new tune if it's not yet. And on the B side, the new track Beatle Scream with its simple arrangement is another reason to get this single

This single, out of all the publicity they're getting, it's been sold out from pre-release, but available from some suppliers such as Rough Trade and Juno so hurry up to get your copy.

The Fresh & Onlys are definitely one of the protagonist bands of this year, having released three singles, one split single a tape album and two LPs in less than 12 months: this is hard work taking into consideration that some members of the band have other "pay the bills" jobs. And to say goodbye to this year they do it releasing a new single on Woodsist with two previously released songs both on the long deleted Bomb Wombs Cs and now on vinyl for the first time. The band that gave us one of the best tracks of the year, the garage-pop gem Black Coffin, rescue these two tracks that have the same garage-pop feeling of all their releases, although with a more Lo-Fi sound than their latest LP, where they approached a more "professional" sound (although not sure if these are going to be the same versions of the tape as I haven't got the single yet). Having already recorded what will be their third LP it doesn't look like they will slow down next year so I hope they will get more media attention as they deserve it. Check the rest of their records if you haven't done it yet as they all deserve it.