Mad Mackerel’s Best Of The Month: July 2012

Mad Mackerel's Best Of July Mix.

You know the score. Some of our favourite downloads from the past month neatly parcelled up into one tasty mix and decorated with a few new tunes too. Nearly forty in all. Jump in!

Download Wye Oak – Spiral mp3 (from Adult Swim Singles Series)
A change of approach and tempo from experimental folkies

Download Unnatural Helpers – Hate Your Teachers mp3 (from Land Grab)
Raging. Ferocious. Punk

Download Wake Up Lucid – Feel It mp3 (from Feel It)
Combines sex-drenched vocals, high octane guitar, and a glorious lo-fi sludge that is garage rock at its purest and most dangerous

Download Keston Cobblers’ Club – For Words mp3 (from One, For Words)
Sweetly harmonious, banjo led folk song

Download White Wires – All Night Long mp3 (from WWIII)
Fun, infectious, and recalls some of the very best of the power-pop tunes of the late 70s

Download Deep Time – Homebody mp3 (from Deep Time)
Densely melodic slice of restlessly minimalist indie pop

Download Sun Sister – Sore Eyes mp3 (from Sun Sister Single)
Lo-fi dreampop with warm melodies, gorgeous reverbed vocals and rough jangly guitars

Download The Black Cadillacs – Choke mp3 (from Run)
Pure rock –  strong guitar melodies that are matched with catchy lyrics

Download Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians – Annalog And Her Hopeful Diaries mp3 (from Annalog And Her Hopeful Diaries EP)
Psychedelic whirlwind tinged with an unattainable nostalgia for a western era of dusty corrals and one-horse towns

Download Talk Normal – Bad Date mp3 (from Sunshine)
Hypnotically brilliant blend of punk and krautrock

Download People’s Temple – Looter’s Game mp3 (from Looter’s Game 7″)
Keeping a groovy, 60s psych vibe going

Download Wobbly Lamps – Alice The Goon mp3 (from Wobbly Lamps)
Takes an intro that sounds like it has been dragged kicking and screaming from a sweaty Detroit basement club in the 60s, attaches it to a thrumming, hypnotic riff, and then slams a sleazy proto-punk chorus over the top

The Lovely Sparrows – While Sailing
Gorgeous, pastoral folk

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Download The Felice Brothers – Lincoln Continental mp3 (from God Bless You Amigo)
Classic ramshackle Americana. Just about as good as it gets!

Download Aaron Embry – Moon Of The Daylit Sky mp3 (from Tiny Prayers)
Spare, captivating, and beautifully simple folk

Download Cate Le Bon – What Is Worse mp3 (from CYRK II)
Beautifully reminiscent of The Velvet Underground at their weary, foggy best – an uncomplicated and unadorned slice of late night melancholic pop

Download Damon Moon & The Whispering Drifters – Ten Sleep, WY mp3 (from Lungs, Dirt & Dreams)
Fractured, unassailable beauty that begins with a sentiment any of us over a certain age can identify with, before it breaks out into a more expansive guitar showdown/meltdown

The Wilderness of Manitoba – The Ark
Beautiful slice of chamber-folk

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Download Grassfight – Nassau mp3 (from Icon EP 2)
With shades of Interpol in the hypnotic, propulsive percussion, echoes of Dinosaur Jr in the swirling guitar, and a classic indie deep, monotone vocal, the track successfully ticks all the necessary boxes for a post-punk extravaganza

Freedom Fry – Summer In The City (from Summer In The City single)
Infectious, sunshine indie-pop at its very best

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Download Two Gallants – My Love Won’t Wait mp3 (from The Bloom And The Blight)
Rollicking tune showcases the duo’s heavier side

Download Outer Minds – We Are All Stone mp3 (from Behind The Mirror)
Perfectly judged garage-psych voodoo rumble, with a reverential nod to the Doors

Download Lord Huron – Time To Run mp3 (from Lonesome Dreams)
Galloping, infectious dusty folk chime

Download Spook Houses – American mp3 (from Trying)
Lo-fi slacker indie rock loaded with the energy of the band’s rambunctious punk roots

Steakhouse – Spider Bite
Hear the sound of Johnny Cash’s electric guitar come floating in over the hypnotic, pulsing rhythm and be seduced by the strange blend of krautrock and C&W

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Download D.B. Rouse – Never Home Again mp3 (from The Good Land)
Another folky gem from travelling troubadour

Kalle Matson – The Shore (from Lives In Between EP)
Folk with an experimental edge that is equally at home dropping in a bit of punk distortion as it is with some funky basslines

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Download Delta Spirit – Tear It Up mp3 (from Delta Spirit)
Another brilliant uptempo cut from outstanding recent album

Download Denver – Reno mp3 (from Denver)
Perfect country twang from Blitzen Trapper led indie supergroup

Download The Mountain Goats – Cry For Judas mp3 (from Transcendental Youth)
New album cut from quirky indie-rock royalty

Download Chelsea Light Moving – Frank O’Hara Hit mp3
Trademark guitar squall and distortion from Thurston Moore’s new project

Download John Murry – Southern Sky mp3 (from The Graceless Age)
Emotive and soul-wrenching mix of Americana and electronica

Download The Wild Leaves – Sister mp3 (from Sister)
Evocative and poignant, the notes sweetly swirling around the room like dust mites in the sunlight, as though the story it tells could have been hummed on back porches for decades gone by

Last American Buffalo – That Woman (from Here She Comes)
Brilliant blues stomp and folk swagger

Download Woodpecker – Married To The Movies mp3 (from Thanks Anyway)
Indie folk and banjo ramble including occasional bloodcurdling zombie screams

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The Most Powerful Telescope In The Universe – Lectures On Quanta (from Lectures On Quanta)
A brilliant psych-pop nugget of mellotron led drone

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And to finish off, here is Pony Boy’s The Murder Ballad Of Carrie Lee, inspired by an actual teenage couple who gained notoriety during a cross-country crime spree in the late 1950s as well as a first taste of Hot Freak Nation. We have the beautifully crafted psych tinged rock of The Asteroid Shop and the melodically rich and compelling new track Fifty Fifty from The Luyas.

Download Pony Boy – The Murder Ballad Of Carrie Lee mp3 (from The Murder Ballad Of Carrie Lee single)

Download Hot Freak Nation – All The Right Things mp3 (from Lifetime To Lifetime)

Download The Luyas – Fifty Fifty mp3 (from Animator)

Download The Asteroid Shop – Alone mp3 (from Distant Luxury EP)

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