Sunday, July 28, 2013

EP Grab Bag vol. 37



A heavy night of rockin’ and drinkin’ has taken a toll on poor old Elvis Dracula. He attempts to recover the morning after with a stack of recent submissions. 

When your head is splitting after a night of hard spirits, you have to ask yourself, “will Baileys in my coffee help me this morning or put me back into the grave?” This morning requires just a dash. Or maybe a dash of acid…nah, I think Haunted Leather will do just fine.  These British rockers take the sludgy and slow end of the psychedelic stream, and weave together some great sludgy riffs. Available digitally, but the red vinyl looks like it may be a portal to another world. 



I don’t know if Emo ever left completely, but it has seen a resurgence of late with new groups digging from the faster and jangly side of scene and eschewing some of the lame fashion and edifying elements.  Nobody, Ever is from the UK and they hit some of the more common beats you would be familiar with if you own a couple things from Vagrant Records. It isn’t bad, not my cup-of-tea mind you, but some adolescent teenager is just waiting to make this their favorite record to scrawl on their notebook. 


This is a bit more soothing now that the hangover has really kicked in. Dreamy, lush waves of synth and piano roll right over my head as this Oakland based groups cassette spins in the deck. There are a lot of folks making this kind of stuff nowadays, but I would put this a bit above a great deal of the competition. The selective use of samples, and the eerie quality some of the loops produce, makes this more than just New-Age inspired background noise. 



We make a leap across the pond for this next release, and a change of pace (literally). This set of instrumental hip-hop tracks from Holland plays to one of my soft spots: left-field experimental dance music. Try saying that three times quickly, hipster! But really, this is music you can dance around your room to on a moonless night while not entirely making the leap into club music territory. If you only listen to one track, check out “Night Train.”



It seems like this round of submissions is heavy on UK acts. Are the British responsible for my hangover? Was Lyndon LaRouche right all along? No wait…fuck that asshole.
This is a great record to finish my coffee to. The monotheistic religions of the world may not hold back the zombie apocalypse, but the primitivism embodied in this spiritual, chant-like psychedelic music may just do the trick. The vocalist lacks some of the bombast, but I get a Lungish vibe from these tracks. The first track, “Oranj,” clocks in at a measly nine and half minutes, building to a fevered pitch that only rock and roll can accomplish. Highly recommended. 

Ok, time to get off to work. Ending with a few psychedelic pop songs from this California based band is fine retreat towards the working day. Strange and off the wall, these lo-fi creations are dedicated to a fallen author that may have never gotten his dues. If you enjoy a mix of 80s synth music paired with 60s fantasy laden lyrics, you have your fit.  

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