I’m a bit late on this one, but in September Mike over at Pocket Full of Chump Change posted his thoughts on “Mosquito Nets”, the debut album by Reports. The review is here, and you can download “Mosquito Nets” in its entirety.

Thanks to both these sites for helping get the word out. (Have you written about stuff that’s released on this site? Be sure to let me know.)

It’s worth noting that Martin from Reports is the one helping to keep this site entertaining, with a bunch of posts under his belt. Not only is he a talented singer and songwriter, but he can put pen to paper (ahem) too!

Thanks so much to Linda Laban for writing a great article, and to the Globe for printing it.

Note that the picture of Reports that accompanied the story was taken by Patrick Piasecki.

Globe readers – welcome! Take a look around, there’s lots of great music on the site for you to listen to and download.

Download the entire release as a ZIP file.

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Tulsa on MySpace.

Tulsa have a digital only “Hunting With Cats” EP currently available, and their newest EP “I Was Submerged” is coming on October 9th 2007; you can purchase both online from Park the Van Records. For those in the Boston area, Tulsa is playing a CD release show on Tuesday September 25th, 2007, at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, MA, with Helms and Hats and Glasses.

These songs from Tulsa don’t sound like Tulsa. Yet Tulsa wrote them. Go figure. “I wish I had a Gun” was first heard on a john waters cd compilation. It was sung by Mink Stole. Two thirds of the band is from baltimore so it triggered warm feelings of the homeland.

The band bashed these songs out live without much sleep in their bones. “Fill their holes with angel eyes” comes in between the ep the band completed recently and the record they will begin to record in the fall.

Download the entire release as a ZIP file.

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Shrinking Islands website, and Shrinking Islands on Myspace. You can also purchase the their debut album “In The Black Carpet” in various formats from Sort of Records.These songs were recorded at Pine St. Laundry by Shrinking Islands, May-July 2007. Mixed from 4-track cassette to digital files at Pipeline! Studio, July 2007. The cycle, sometimes referred to as The Mellancamp Trilogy, was written as it was recorded onto the 4-track and tested out at shows.Following the In The Black Carpet album, these songs satisfied an impulse, possibly initiated at a GBV tribute night, to play succinct rockers with some more Feelies motorik action – or heartland chug if you will. The cloak and dagger lyrics heard on In the Black Carpet are now dappled with Kiwi sunshine and generous fuzz and tremolo supplements, as they ride The Bats’ daddy’s highway straight onto the J. Cougar Farm-Aid stage, replete with above-the-head claps. Please listen to this with the windows open, or down, but preferably with the aid of boombox placed in a windowsill overlooking a sizzlin’ grill.

That’s a very, very good thing.

This past Wednesday at the Paradise in Boston, Singer and Battles were on the bill.  Singer, a brand-new band featuring members of US Maple (among others), kicked off the evening.

Now, it’d be hard to overstate how much I loved and respected the music of US Maple.  They stood on the shoulders of giants such as Beefheart, and then took that music to the nth degree; they were unrepentantly difficult and unique.  Any follow-on project has to bear the expectations implied by those words, and I was afraid Singer would disappoint.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case at all. Singer came onstage sporting a 2 guitars/bass/drums lineup, and from the word go they reminded me of US Maple v2.  The meandering, abstract guitar lines were there, if a bit bluesier than before, while the rhythm section held things down in a more concrete way.  The biggest change was the vocals: all four sang at times, and there was no clear lead vocalist as they all took a turn at the mic, with two or even three of them singing lead at the same time.

The last song was the most different.  It started with Todd Rittman switching to a small drum kit, with both him and regular drummer Adam Vida playing a drum roll on their snares.  Bassist Rob Lowe switched over to a mini-organ and played deep, droney bass notes while singing occasionally, and guitarist Ben Vida played a repeating line that sounded like a cross between shattering glass and a crackling campfire.  Over the next 8 or so minutes the piece evolved, sounding at times like a Neu-style Krautrock workout.  It was an excellent piece, and I definitely hope they do more like it in conjunction with their more conventional songs as they go forward.

They proceeded through a solid set of about 40 minutes, pretty impressive considering they’re a brand-new band with less than 10 shows under their belt.

Complaints?  I thought some of the songs lent themselves to a more abstract style of drumming, similar to Kevin Shea in Storm and Stress, instead of Adam Vida‘s more straight-ahead work.  Especially with the bass holding down the fort, there was room in the music for it.  To be fair, it’s a minor nitpick; Mr. Vida is certainly more than capable behind the kit.

Overall?  Two big thumbs up.  I can’t wait to hear more, and hopefully they return to Boston before too long.

As for Battles, they were simply awesome.  I gotta disagree with Will Spitz’s review of their set as “emotionally unaffecting”; from the minute Dave Konopka came out to start their set they had my attention, and they just killed it.  It was my first time seeing them live – I missed all of their earlier Boston shows, for various reasons – but I was really into it, and judging from the crowd’s reaction I wasn’t the only one.  Yes, the last third of their set dragged a bit, and I think they’d do well to add more vocals to their songs, but it certainly wasn’t “surgical”; they rocked, pure and simple.

My post on Singer has been getting some notice, with a commenter named Mike mentioning that they now have a MySpace page up. No music or any other info besides tourdates, and it’s hard to read, but it’s a start.

I’m seeing them next week with Battles here in Boston, so expect a full report afterwards.

For more info on these videos click over here for the first post in this series.

Recently, it got even more interesting: a couple months ago the guys from Echoplanar Films started coming down and filming some of the sets. There’s already a few clips up on the Pipeline! site in the video category, and as time goes on I’ll post clips here as well as over there.

Below is a clip from the very first set they shot, by the band Tulsa.

Click To Play

A Breast Cancer Benefit for Mona Elliot with…

Helms
Black Helicopter
Seana Carmody
Vox Humana

$10, 9pm.

More soon…

Who are Shrinking Islands? Right here:
They Don’t Watch Me – from the album “In the Black Carpet” (buy it here)

Why mention it? Besides being great friends of mine, they’re busy recording their debut release for Inman Street Records, due in a few weeks (hopefully).

Here’s the rest of the bill for Wednesday’s show:

Hands & Knees
My Teenage Stride
A Sunny Day In Glasgow

Ahh, nostalgia.

Turnout for the DVD showing was really weak, but the DVD was a great representation of a Jesus Lizard show. Here’s a sample:

Plenty of other Jesus Lizard clips on YouTube for your enjoyment, and you can buy the DVD online at Newbury Comics.

Thursday June 7th – Jack Wright, Agnes Palier, Olivier Toutlemonde
Pierre Menard Gallery, 10 Arrow St in Harvard Square, Cambridge. 8 pm.

Friday June 8th – Jandek (with Eli Keszler, Jorrit Dijkstra, and Greg Kelley)
Boston ICA, 7 pm. presented by The Critique of Pure Reason

Friday June 8th – Sunburned, Birds Of Delay, Emeralds, Astronaut, Puritan Agenda
Nom D’Artiste, 25 Edinboro St. #5 in Chinatown. 9 pm.

Friday June 8th – Major Stars, UV Protection, Helms
The Milky Way,  403-405 Centre St. in Jamaica Plain.  10pm.

Saturday June 9th – The Divorced
The Distillery,  516 E 2nd St. in Boston. 8pm.

Sunday June 10th – Lexie Mountain Boys and others
Infrasound loft.  Call Weirdo Records (617-666-VILE) for details.

Monday June 11th – Melt-Banana, Doomriders, Neptune
Middle East Downstairs, 472/480 Mass Ave in Cambridge. 9pm.

Friday June 15th – Warmer Milks
Twisted Village,  12 B Eliot Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge. 617-354-6898.

The CDR can be purchased at The Paper Cities website.

—–
I’ve been a huge US Maple fan for years. When I first heard them sometime in the mid-90′s, I was absolutely floored; the music they made was so alien, yet amazingly compelling. The first time I saw them live my brain melted out of my ears. They were that great.

Battles is a more recent band that I’ve been really impressed with. Their initial EP’s melded instrumental rock with electronics in a very satisfying way. I’ve only heard a couple songs off their new album – I haven’t picked it up yet, but will soon – but the addition of (heavily effected) vocals merely raises the bar.

What’s the connection? I missed Battles when they played in Boston a month or two ago, so when I saw a listing for their upcoming show Wednesday July 18th at the Paradise, I was happy.

AND! I noticed one other thing! Opening up for them is a band called Singer. According to the listing, Singer features “Rob Lowe, Adam Vida, Ben Vida, and Todd Rittman”. Todd Rittman is one of the original members of US Maple; Adam Vida was brought in to play drums on their last album and tour.

Much googling insued, but there’s scant information about this new band available online. The best I could do is a post on the messageboard of Modern Radio, a small record label out of Minnesota. Someone who appears to be Adam Vida writes:

“AJV posted this on May 25th, 2007 at 02:01:41 pm
Speaking of polarizing bands… Here’s a new one.
SINGER:
Todd Rittmann (US Maple)
Adam Vida (US Maple)
Ben Vida (Town and Country, Bird Show)
Rob Lowe (90 Day Men, Lichens)

We’ve been invited to tour with Battles in July. We’ll be in MPLS (where Ben and I grew up) on July 11th, 2007 at Triple Rock. You gotta see Rittmann is bringing to this… that’s all I’ll say.

Best, Adam”

Follow this link and scroll all the way down to the bottom to see the post.

I couldn’t find a myspace page or any other info. If anyone knows anything, please leave a note in the comments; suffice it to say I’m quite excited to hear what these gentlemen have to offer!

The Boston show is June 7th at the Avalon.

I saw them live at the Middle East soon after, and was really impressed by the manic energy they brought to the stage. Sometimes I feel that bands forget they’re entertainers; these four sure didn’t.

They’ve had an album in the can since the middle of last year, waiting for a label to pick it up and release it. You may know the rest of the story; instead of an album, we get Read Yellow is breaking up.

Old news, though. So what motivated this post? I’ve recently been listening to the “Knocks From the Underground: The Best of Underplayed Boston” compilation again, after having snagged it at the release show a few months back. There’s a bunch of good stuff on it, but the once song that kept jumping out at me was Read Yellow’s “Soul Sister”. It jumped out a lot, actually; for a while I played the song endlessly.

“Soul Sister” was recorded during the sessions for the new album, as was “Pia Zadora”; you can listen to both songs on the band’s myspace page. If those two songs are any indication, that new album was easily going to be their best.

Oh well.

Most Bitter
Antiques
Sprouls

Monday May 7th at 9pm
at Charlie’s Kitchen – 10 Eliot St, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA

A solid 3-band bill at Charlie’s, what better way to cap off a Monday? Most Bitter will be selling CD’s of the album linked above, if downloading mp3′s isn’t your thing. I’ve never seen Antiques or Sprouls live before, and I’m definitely looking forward to it. See you there!

Meanwhile the Hot Stof blog, out of the Netherlands, has two brief and positive mentions of Reports. The first is from earlier this month, with the second mentioning the LP release along with a link to mp3 versions here on Inman Street. Thanks!

Finally, I fixed the site so it looks fine in Internet Explorer 6. IE7, Firefox, and all other major browsers should do you right as well. Please drop me a line if you’re having difficulties.

There are still some lingering issues – Internet Explorer 6 users know what I’m talking about – but I’ll be taking care of those shortly!

Download the entire release as a ZIP file.

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What is music? What is friendship? What is innocence? When the members of DAS KITCHEN stopped playing TECMO BOWL and plugged in the 4-track, little did they know that they would open the GOLDEN VAULTS of knowledge that store the answers to such questions. From their humble beginnings in a dirty ALLSTON kitchen, to their humble middle period performing in public only twice for college students and then GEESE, to the humble and somber moment when members parted ways, it was a period of rigorous experimentation. Since they shunned the stage and only joked about releasing this music, this archive is the world’s first chance to examine these inept yet singular sound baubles.

They were their own biggest fans- still are- and biggest critics to boot. Fueled by MOLSON keg cans and saag paneer, the sessions often got quite heated and malodorous. A neighbor once informed them that it was difficult to sleep while DAS KITCHEN music was performed. Other times, they marveled at the petal-unfolding beauty they discovered within and felt good when a young student in CHINA wrote them a fan letter. Years later, the dust has settled on the tapes from which these introductory tracks were culled. This isn’t even the raging, really out, die-hard stuff, more a survey of the most accessible landscapes traversed by the group. It’s not hard to make ridiculous comparisons to established artists: Casios get kosmiche in the manner of CLUSTER, sample collages touch on the ethnographic concerns of THIS HEAT, the outlandish clattering of THE SHADOW RING is audible in retrospect. Not that the group was aware of any of those groups at the time! BLUEPRINTS? More like brewprints. Anyways, what’s important is that someone got around to making us get around to make this stuff available, and here it is!

]]> http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/003-das-kitchen-golden-vault/feed/ 0 http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/002-most-bitter-the-denatonium-benzoate-ep/ http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/002-most-bitter-the-denatonium-benzoate-ep/#comments Sat, 21 Apr 2007 23:45:15 +0000 Ramsey Tantawi http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/002-most-bitter-the-denatonium-benzoate-ep/ Songs:
1. Sunset in Dixie
2. Past One O’Clock
3. The Wrong Flower
4. 4a.m. Wonder Room
5. Utter Alien Thought
6. It Isn’t Me
7. (Crix)

Download the entire release as a ZIP file.

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Most Bitter website, and Most Bitter on Myspace.

After working in the improvising musical ensembles Meathawk and the Meathawks, Norwegian Wound, and the Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, no one was quite sure what to expect of a solo project from Jeff Breeze. Instead of exploring the freedom of being alone, Most Bitter fuses poetry and loops to create engaging song forms that exist in their own world. Whether adapting the last lyrics of Vladimir Mayakovsky, new lines from Holly Anderson, or his own words, the results are an engaging and sincere reevaluation of classic song forms.

]]> http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/002-most-bitter-the-denatonium-benzoate-ep/feed/ 4 http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/001-reports-mosquito-nets/ http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/001-reports-mosquito-nets/#comments Sat, 21 Apr 2007 23:44:11 +0000 Ramsey Tantawi http://www.inmanstreetrecords.com/blog/001-reports-mosquito-nets/ Songs:
1. Sassy Glasses
2. Yr Honor
3. Radio
4. Sewn To Your Mind
5. Outside
6. Move & Glow (pt 1)
7. Move & Glow (pt 2)
8. Showers
9. Exit Plan
10. Quarters
11. Mosquito Nets

Download the entire release as a ZIP file.

Purchase the vinyl version of the record directly from the band!

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Reports website, and Reports on Myspace.

Mosquito Nets was mostly recorded in one day in May of 2006. It was then taken apart and slowly reassembled by Farhad and Martin over the course of the next 6 months. The tape echo came out, the reverb tank poked its head in, all sorts of toys joined in the piece by piece reworking of the initial live demos. What began as a quick day to lay out some ideas turned into leisurely tinkering until everything was just so.

Both Dream Syndicates come to mind as possible founts of inspiration for this record, but in the end, picking out soundalikes seems futile. This is a pop record, first and foremost, and one that draws from its influences rather than just quoting them.

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