Round Up Time Again – Part 2

Round Up Time Again - Part 2

Following on from our Round Up Part 1 post yesterday, comes 16 more tracks from the in-box, our favourite blogs and the web in general for your aural delight.

Kicking us off are Summer Hours and their single Close and Closer from forthcoming album Closer Still. Although they may initially sound simple, closer listening reveals complex song structures with intricate bass and guitar melodies.

Cobalt Cranes blend elements of desert, psychedelic and shoegaze sounds, taking a modern approach to classic California rock. Their debut LP Head In The Clouds (out April 9 via their own Anticc Records) is heavily influenced by hard rock album narratives of the early 1970s and versatile shoegaze rock of the early 90s, as well as modern sounds. The band is offering up a free download of the title track.

Download Cobalt Cranes – Head In The Clouds mp3 (from Head In The Clouds)

After spending time as a musician in both Nashville and New York, Kait Lawson returned to her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee to record her debut album, Until We Drown. Her uncompromising songwriting takes a wry, yet deeply personal look at broken homes and fractured relationships in songs that are haunted by Guthrie and Kerouac, regretful cigarettes, midtown Memphis, squandered youth, temporal angels, perfume from the graveyard, goodbyes and the lies of Judas. Download the wonderful Place In The Ground.

Seattle’s Pickwick released a three song covers EP this week. The first track is the Richard Swift penned Lady Luck featuring collaboration with Sharon Van Etten and is available for free now on the band’s website. The EP also features covers of Damien Jurado and The Primitives.

Pere Ubu return with their first new studio album for over three years this month, the thirty-fifth anniversary of the group’s debut (The Modern Dance). Lady From Shanghai will be released on Fire Records and has been picking up some top-notch reviews. This is a disorienting mix of midwestern groove rock, “found” sound, analog synthesizers, falling-apart song structures and careening vocals. It is a mix that has mesmerized critics, musicians and fans for decades. Click through for a free download of the brutal and bruising 414 Seconds and of another album track Free White.

January also sees Fire Records reissuing two spectacularly beautiful albums; Eyes Rind As If Beggars by cult NZ noise pop band The Garbage and The Flowers and the beautiful and bewitching SOS JFK from Josephine Foster’s first band The Children’s Hour. Here’s a track each from those records for you to enjoy…just click through to download for free.

The Lovely Bad Things are a garage-punk four piece who will release The Late Great Whatever on February 26 via Volcom Entertainment (cassette on Burger Records). Taster track Fried Eggs is a gem of a taster.

Download The Lovely Bad Things – Fried Eggs mp3 (from The Late Great Whatever)

We posted recently about the stunning track Honey by Torres and her minimal, ragged and raw self-titled debut is released next week. This is Mother Earth, Father God.

Download Torres – Mother Earth, Father God mp3 (from Torres)

At just 24 years old, Keaton Henson’s songs, artwork and poetry are known by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Yet he is a virtual stranger, whose anonymity is no accident. Keaton has never posted on social networks, has not played live until very recently, and barely leaves his hometown or his bedroom. Lying To You is the superb second single from his forthcoming album Birthdays which can be pre-ordered from here.

Rice Cultivation Society are an indie rock band based out of Long Island, NY who cherish the DIY work ethic. Self-produced, Sky Burial is not your typical DIY record. Influenced in part by Tibetan philosophy, it’s often a meditative record, clean and spacious with soaring guitar riffs – check out first single Honey Hide and another free track King Midas.