Category Archives: Ambient

Introducing >>> The Kindling

by

Introducing >>> The Kindling

Broken minor keys, cracked vocal harmonies, fireside percussion, and tv static dreams. The Kindling make sad, strange and beautiful music. Drawing influence from the uncompromising recording spirit of Sparklehorse, Mount Eerie, and Tom Waits, The Kindling were formed to breathe supernatural life into the songs of singer Guy Weir.

After their debut EP From Out Of The Wreckage, the band’s second EP Half Light is a collection filled with pale ghosts and half-remembered dreams. From the widescreen Morricone-esque introduction The Longwave to the twisting minor key shuffle of the EP’s centrepiece Hunting Stars, and the luscious boy/girl harmonies of Breathe In.

The EP is set for digital release via iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon, Spotify, and all the usual digital suspects on 27th May. Have a listen.

And as a bonus, from the previous EP…

New Album From Arborea

by

New Album From Arborea

Arborea has a new album Fortress of the Sun coming out on April 30th on the NYC label ESP-Disk.

At the vanguard of the avant-folk scene, they effortlessly combine the delicate and fragile with the traditional, weaving together a beguiling mix of ambient sounds with gentle psychedelia, Appalachian folk and indie rock.

Take a listen to a selection of tracks from the album below.

Order it here.

More Rounding Up To Be Done

by

Round Up Time Again - Part 2

We’re still rounding up all those new releases, new tunes, good tunes, and more to keep your day as varied and joyous as ours…Ha!

And so we have another ‘cop-out” post prompted by another fearsome backlog, which has once again kickstarted our anxiety over (a) failing to keep up, and (b) failing to give the appropriate time and text that these releases deserve and (c) failing to deliver.

So while we worry about all that, here are some of those tracks for you to enjoy.

First up is the psych-pop trio Gospel Gossip who have just released a new self-titled album, and have made two tracks available for streaming from it. Listen to Except You and Simpler Times.

.

Next is The Deep Red Sky whose Frightened Rabbit touchstone is clear from the moment you hear their impassioned Scottish brogue on Zombies (Things Don’t Stay The Same), heartfelt and epic, it comes from new album Plans out this month.

.

Ghost Lights play a beautifully sweet, occasionally melancholic, blend of folk with jazzy undertones. Their six track EP is called Saltwater, and A Train Is Coming is our favourite track from it.

.

Recently Ezana Edwards of Brooklyn’s Night Manager and Ryan Grubbs of Sacramento’s Ganglians formed a noisy, trash-pop trio, Blood Sister in San Francisco. Here are their two singles Bart Simpson and Why Would You, both available for free download.

.

New Mexico indie rockers Sad Baby Wolf have featured on MM more than once, and have now announced the release of their debut album, Electric Sounds, out on the 9th April. Formed by lead singer Marty Crandall after ten years with The Shins, the band is a homecoming project with longtime friends that has steadily been building momentum. Have a listen to the title track and head to their Bandcamp page to order the album.

.

British five-piece Treetop Flyers have also announced the release of their debut album, The Mountain Moves, out June 25th on Partisan Records. The album was recorded amidst the picturesque beaches and rolling hills of Malibu, at Zuma Sound, a studio originally built for Rick Rubin. With their quintessential vintage West Coast sound, it’s perhaps fitting that the band laid down their outstanding country soul debut in the canyons of Southern California. This is album opener, the driving Things Will Change.

.

After relocating from Brooklyn to San Francisco, Flower Orgy is back with a new three-song 7″. Nate Luce assembled an entirely new cast of characters for this release and they’ve peeled off some of the fuzz giving us a window into Luce’s honestly sincere songwriting. Our Song is available May 14th as a limited run of 150 copies vinyl 7″ and digitally from Fire Talk Records. Pre-order here.

.

We love this cover of The Cars Drive by Young Unknowns – it has been around for a good while, but we couldn’t resist a re-post. The b-side to this special digital covers single is a version of the Springsteen classic I’m On Fire. Visit their Bandcamp page for more tunes.

.

Bat And Ball are a London five piece and their track We Prefer It In The Dark is a beguiling slice of indie rock that has insistently burrowed its way into our affections and bodes very well for the future.

.

With sunny guitars and fuzzy synths, Brooklyn based power pop sextet Teen Girl Scientist Monthly (TGSM) released their debut full-length album Modern Dances last month. You can get it via their Bandcamp page here and they’ve also offered lead track Summer Skin as a free download.

.

Oakland female garage pop duo, Upside Drown latest single is the simply titled, but naggingly catchy Go.

.

My fear of horses comes from being savaged by a pony when I was small. However, the band Ponies Will Bite You! is thankfully a far more palatable offering, with a style that is folky with pop leanings – think The Lumineers, Nickel Creek, Ed Sheeran and Iron & Wine. They have released a debut EP called Argyle, which you can listen to and download for free on their Bandcamp page. This is the sweetly rolling title track.

.

LI-ON GREVIER is a Toronto music collective, an assembly of musicians and artists who have recently released a self-titled debut album (name-your-price offer from Bandcamp here). From it, we have picked the oddly named When All Hope Has Wanned, which is simply a fabulous track of psych-folk.

.

Drawing on influences as diverse as The Kills, Animal Collective, Daft Punk, My Bloody Valentine, and The Beach Boys, East London-based three-piece Les Mistons have announced that they will be releasing their new single Overcoming Fear on Monday 13th May.

.

And finally, LA indie outfit Torches have announced the release of their new four track EP If The People Stare to be released on May 6th via Bandcamp and Soundcloud. The band has also offered up a free download of their new single When You Gonna.

MM Shorts 338: Wickerbird

by

MM Shorts 338: Wickerbird

Wickerbird (self-described as a “small, small folk project“) started out in the wilds of Washington State. His debut record, The Crow Mother, was wrought in seclusion and his latest, the five track EP, The Westering, serves as a spiritual addendum to its predecessor, a quiet post-script, long lost and forgotten in the frost.

With ambient washes and echoes of dream pop, this record is the dying sun, laying down in the west, yielding to the night and the beginning of a journey in the dark… again, it’s out digitally next week on March 26th.

You can pre-order for just $2 from their Bandcamp page here.

New Single From White Woods

by

New Single From White Woods

White Woods is the project of Julia Kugel, better known for her work as the guitarist and vocalist for Atlanta’s riotous garage rockers The Coathangers.

Under her solo moniker, Kugel delivered a heartfelt blend of golden-oldies and subdued Americana with her debut single on one of our favourite labels, Suicide Squeeze last year. Now she is back with another offering, exploring the same kind of sultry vintage sounds that made her first 7” sell out so quickly.

Big Talking, takes The Coathangers’ attitude, unplugs it from the amps, and delivers its admonishment with a graceful AM radio vibe. On the flipside, Corner Town conjures the sex and strut of David Lynch’s pop-culture nods to the 1950s.

Available digitally worldwide or on a 7” limited to 500 copies (100 on glow in the dark, 400 black) with an accompanying download code. You can pre-order here.

Mad Mackerel’s Best of the Month: February 2013

by

Mad Mackerel's Best Of February 2013 Mixtape

Here is our selection of the best of our February downloads together with a few brand new tracks to dig into.

So go on. Knock yourself out.

Blank Realm – Cleaning Up My Mess
Sitting somewhere between the melancholic churn and burn of Mercury Rev and the noisy squall of Sonic Youth, the four-piece gleefully meld psychedelia with punk and pop and even a smattering of blues licks, all to fantastic effect. (Click through for a free download).

.

Black Pus – 1000 Years
Slightly deranged, often furious – it is a cacophony of drums, loops and repeating phrases and rhythms, but with a pop heart. (Click through for a free download).

.

Úlfur – So Very Strange
Ambient folk featuring enchanting vocals by Alexandra Sauser-Monnig of Mountain Man.

.

Andrew Leahey & The Homestead – Summer Sleeves
The sound of the modern South: organ, harmonized guitar riffs, pedal steel, and three-part harmonies all in the mix.

.

Express and Company - Gold In Your Pockets
Recalls the work of Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo.

.

Vandaveer – Pretty Polly
First taste from their forthcoming collection of reinterpretations of age-old traditional folk songs and murder ballads.

.

Charity Children – Elizabeth
Rousing folk anthem – their tribute to the bullied and downtrodden.

.

Pure X – Things In My Head
Guitar jangle, but with added ominous sonic undertones.

.

Burning Condors – Honey Trap
Blues-punk par excellence.

.

Brave Baby – Lakeside Trust
Prime toe-tapping, head-bobbing example of infectious guitars and percussion.

.

New Mexico – Alpha Male
Joy Division-esque rumbling bassline over which a compelling synth harmony and a muscular garage rock riff battle it out for supremacy. (Click through for a free download).

.

LA Font – Onshore
Wry look at at a relationship in decay that is big on hooks, tipsy guitars and a windows-down groove.

.

Fantasmas – No Soul
Brooklyn based four-piece that hold the Washington DC punk scene and the no-wave era of Sonic Youth close to their hearts.

.

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside – Party Kids
A retro swagger through rockabilly tinged rhythms and classic garage soul.

.

Criminal Hygiene – Alan I’m In Love
Another bitter pill of noisy, visceral skater-punk that demands to be played at maximum volume. This is needle in the red territory, and all the better for it.

.

Download The Futurebirds - Virginia Slims mp3 (from Baba Yaga)
Near-six minute pedal steel washed, country tinged, pure, unadulterated joy of southern fried rock.

Download JP Whipple – Home (Is Where I’m Leaving) mp3 (from Ghosts)
Gently plucked strings, scalpel sharp lyrics, black humour, sorrow, and not a little wisdom delivers something sitting somewhere between an (even more) stoned Arlo Guthrie, Damon Moon and Wooden Wand.

Download Thee Oh Sees - Minotaur mp3 (from Floating Coffin)
A more subdued (though still dark and brooding) take on their frenzied garage-psych.

Download Quiet Hollers – Road Song mp3 (from I Am The Morning)
While it clocks in at less than two minutes it is still as tale of extremes – of despair and woes, of worn boots on dusty highways, but of hope and redemption too.

To finish, we have new tracks of beguiling minimalism from Low, and Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus covering Free Energy’s Hey Tonight. Finally, from Uncut magazine’s Best of New Music free cover disk, a track of perfect dazed, paisley pop from The Holydrug Couple, and Mount Moriah’s countrified take on weird new/old America with White Sands from their second album, Miracle Temple.

Download Patrick Stickles – Hey Tonight mp3 (Free Energy cover)

Download The Holydrug Couple – Counting Sailboats mp3 (from Noctuary)

Download Mount Moriah – White Sands mp3 (from Miracle Temple)

Videos of the Day: Blackbird & The Storm || Crash & The Coots || The Blackwater Fever || Loch Lomond

by

The video for Blackbird & The Storm’s track Broken Wings was shot on Super 8 last summer in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. It perfectly suits the samples of crickets, toads, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, hummingbirds, songbirds and wings-in-flight which are mixed alongside musical instruments and Marie-Juliette Bird’s intoxicating voice.

We also have the irreverent and effervescent indie rock of Crash & The Coots and their video for Bottle Rhythm which comes from new EP Hill Rise. From Australia the garage blues of The Blackwater Fever and the video for the appropriately titled (in this house anyway) Don’t Fuck With Joe and lastly MM faves Loch Lomond’s video for Your Eyes, which can be found on new record Dresses.

.

.

.

.

New Single From The Oyster Murders

by

New Single From The Oyster Murders

The Oyster Murders will be releasing Lost to the Birds as a single.

Originally available on the US version of their album Winter of the Electric Sun, the song originally started out with an acoustic guitar and an ambient chorus which contained the title lyrics. They ended up taking these lyrics out of the chorus when they started singing a more upfront melody in rehearsal. However, they kept Lost to the Birds as an apt summation of the themes in the song.

So now you know all that…have a listen.

.