Friday Random...

2 posts in like, what, six days? I know, I know I'm out of touch with the people, up here in my ivory castle occasionally tossing scraps of scribbled on Post-It notes down to the waiting throngs. But how long will they wait? Well hopefully until the always fun and completely unpredictable zaniness of the friday random. That'll placate the masses for sure, a bunch of links to feed the ADD minds of the current listening populace who will surely forgive and forget any of my transgressions, real or imagined, incurred in absentia.

While my listening ear has been decidedly distracted lately a good single will always perk me right up. I've got two of those for you. The first is by a band called Duplomacy. I heard a song called Remember This playing on the XM radio the other day and it totally sucked me in. It's a slowly unfolding slice of dream pop that doesn't ask much from you, but washes over so pleasantly in a head nodding kind of way. The album All These Long Drives (ironic that I first heard it in the cary, huh? I so love irony) is part and parcel to "Remember This": dreamy, sleepy, jangly, kind of a slow-core-Galaxy-500ish-lullaby-swirly-romantic thing.

The other single that's been making me smile is the new one from Portastatic. They've put out a nice little 4 song internet only EP to promote their October release Be Still Please. On said EP is a song called Sour Shores and is as good as any piece of driving guitar pop that Mac McCaughan has written. Good stuff.

There's some other good stuff out there that you really should check out:

White Whale's WW1 is excellent.

M. Ward's Post War has a good shot at being the best record of the year.

The new Hold Steady is going to be great from the 5 songs I've heard, but I won't post anything because Craig Finn might get mad at me.

The soon to be released Pernice Brothers album is going to be excellent. And stop calling it "chamber pop". I hate that term, what the fuck does that mean. Though I must admit to being baffled by why Joe would want to rerecord "Grudge Fuck" which was an amazing song on Massachusets. It's like, why remake Titanic or The Omen? They were great as is. Just for the sake of adding strings isn't a good enough reason. But still, it's Joe Pernice so he gets a pass.

Have a good weekend.