Bright Eyes – The People’s Key (2011) [Saddle Creek] // Grade: B-

On “Haile Selassie,” Conor Oberst sings about the end. “All of our days are numbered; I’m taking some comfort in knowing the wave has crested, knowing I don’t have to be an exception.” Though Omaha’s wunderkind may have cut his image on behaving like he was nothing but the exception, it’s been since 2007’s mystical trip Cassadega, that the ever-longhaired, 31-year-old Oberst grew more obsessed with Sci-Fi books by the likes of Vonnegut and Wells to create what he calls a humanist record.

The People’s Key, recorded over a year in their hometown of Omaha after a pair of solo releases, a supergroup offering and some protest shows, is that record. Offering up ten heavy new songs that continue in an attempt at furthering their range outside of the ‘roosty Americana shit’ they seem to be shying away from, players Mike Mogis, Nate Walcott and guest appearances from The Faint, Autolux and Cursive members, dot the album with hazy synths, Cure-like guitars (closer “One For You, One For Me” is a treat), driving power pop (“Jejune Stars,” “Triple Spiral”) and muted, midnight blues warbles (“Approximate Sunlight”) to make it certainly one of the more assessable Oberst-related efforts of late. Encompassing and meandering, the 46-minute People’s Key is a collection that begs more questions then it can answer, largely in part from the fragmented side-of-the-road monologue ramblings of Refried Ice Cream member Denny Brewer which stitches the thing together. Dotted with spirituality, the theory of evolution, why a pomegranate is called a pomegranate, extraterrestrials and nods to Hitler, Eva Braun, smoke trees, Zion treks, black machines and a macaw named Jules Verne, Oberst deals, this time, with a more universal fear, one that we all tend to quiver about every once in a while- the future and how humanity will adapt going forward.

In recent interviews the singer expresses concern with walking into a room to see heads bowed to cellphones, people texting away like robots. Though already scratched by some, Oberst’s latest set of qualms  make his band’s 9th collection– and possibly last– a thought provoking trip at least. Still a lovesick poet belting from a rocking chair about things he’s powerless to fix, Oberst sings on single “Shell Games” about a greater concern: “Death obsessed, like a teenager, sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar, still angry with no reason to be at the architect who imagined this.” Moments like this help to make The People’s Key a Bright Eyes’ album- the downright confusion, the concerns and the fact that you’re left to figure it all out. Whereas the early catalog went after how he could leap from outside of his bedroom and away from his waxing neuroticisms to deal with the outside world looking in, we’re now finding the wide-eyed ‘Next Dylan’ transcending to some humanitarian stance where he’s eager for greater enlightenment, acceptance and awareness from this outside world of his.

Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)

Vs.

Pavement – Slanted & Enchanted (1992)

The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be? What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…

Our rainy Saturday morning was spent building Jesse Gordon’s Volume Thrasher at Fast Folks here in Austin. It’d been a while since Jesse had a fixed freestyle bike and he was pretty stoked to come up on a new frameset. While Eric and Jesse were building it up, I decided to document the process and I’m stoked on how it came out.

Jesse was one of the original RavenFeeders here in Texas. Whatcha know bout that? After snapping his BMW fork, he decided to hang up fixed freestyle and just ride his track bike. After I moved to Austin, he started to see a big of resurgence in the “ride / relax” mindset and decided to pick up a Volume Thrasher from Natalie at Fast Folks. After building it up Saturday morning, we took it out to shoot some photos and ride around. Check out his OG DART New Era!

Мишка x Ellen Stagg x Kristen Pyles Skate Deck ($50.00)

You all remember this photo right? It’s testament enough to the power of the images (and the twin forces of nature contained within) that the words “lookbook Kristen” have fully integrated themselves into the vernacular of Мишка’s extended family and fans. There’s not a day that goes by where there isn’t a whole influx of people coming to our site searching specifically for lovely Kristen.

The work that Ellen Stagg and Kristen Pyles did on that special Fall ’10 lookbook was straight up bonershorts yo. We know it, you know it, the internet knows it. So, to commemorate that, we’ve given Kristen her very own skate deck and tee-shirt! How could we not? The deck is 7 3/4 and comes in five random color stains (Blue, Red, Purple, Green and Orange) on the reverse side.

Мишка x Ellen Stagg x Kristen Pyles Tee in Black & White ($32.00)

They’re both available right now, in-store and online! As you can see, the deck’ll garner you the sultry image of Kristen, undergarments ‘n all. The opposite side is a random color. Definitely a great buy, but you might be tempted to avoid grinding so as to preserve the sexiness. Just sayin’.

If you can’t skate, but still want to walk down the street and have people look at the chest on your chest, pick up the Kristen tee! It comes in white and black, and you basically get a meta-bear mop tee as well! It’s like having your erotica and watching it too. Only a handful of the decks and tees were produced so get’em quick, because these are bound to sell like hot cakes. Very hot cakes.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
—
Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA

Happy post President’s Day folks! We know you were doing some light day partying yesterday, and we ain’t holding it against you. Heck, we only get so many 3 day weekends a year: why not crack a few beers before 4PM or call up that one dude who you swear heard makes deliveries whose name is either “Frank” or maybe “Fresh”? That’s your god given right. So today, it’s recovery time. And why not soundtrack the whole experience with this brand new mix from BL§§D ØU†?

Destroy MP3s is just the thing you need to get you through this frustratingly snowy day. It features new tracks from BL§§D ØU† and †‡† (who have a split release coming up soon) as well as a mix of the new Britney Spears song with the Mortal Kombat theme. Which is definitely something I’m very happy exists. It’s also got some remixes from new BL§§D ØU† side-project EEEE. Damn this is a good mix.

Download BL§§D ØU†’s Destroy All MP3s (Click Here)

Dirty Beaches – Badlands (2011) [Zoo Music] // Grade: B+

Dirty Beaches debut LP Badlands, appropriately, sounds like something you would find on a cassette tape half buried in sand on a dirty beach. A relic from a time long past (the late 50′s to be precise) that’s been ravaged by the elements, twisted and fuzzed. In further titular significance, the mood of the album also is clearly inspired by the film by Terrence Malick and song by Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps not in narrative content, but thematic to be sure. Teens, young lovers, people who are down on their luck, stuck driving down the same misty highway.

Often just a voice, a doo-wop bass line and oodles of reverb, Badlands is not complicated music. Nor should it have to be. The production values are the opposite of glossy, lending the record a feel not of imitative nostalgia but actual temporal age, as if transposed from decades ago. So, if you like surf pop, then you will like this record. Songs like “True Blue” and “Lord Knows Best” are wonderful torch songs, with slow-burning melodies and heave use of “ooh ooh”s which, in my mind, is always welcome. But Alex Hungtai, the only permanent member of the band as far as I can tell, also flirts with garage rock (“Sweet 17″) and even ambient music (“Black Nylon”). Not everything works, but the experiments never go so far as to disrupt the illusion.

More than anything, Badlands creates a mood. One that fits in with it’s lo-fi aesthetic, but is not caused. No, that would be too easy. Instead it comes from Hungtai’s voice, which often cracks and wavers, or his jittery guitar. It’s the undeniably feeling of instruments actually being played and recorded live. Probably on some dirty beach, watching the sun come up.

I bet you never thought you would hear Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” like this before. Spoek Mathambo gives his take on the classic song in a dark tribal sounding yet danceable video which features a cult of spooky little kids covered in milk. The vivid imagery was possible thanks to Pieter Hugo who is one the most influential photographers in South Africa.

The video is said to chronicle teen gangs and township cults. This is the fourth single off Mathambo’s debut album Mshini Wam. You may remember when Spoek tore shit up in Paris with Ninja (fuckin) Sonik.

25 whole years. Doesn’t that just warm your ice cold Gerudo heart? Though it’s sort of heard to believe, it was 25 years ago today that the first LoZ game was released (at least in Japan). What a franchise it has become. Very easily arguable as the best ever, an argument I’m willing (and hopefully able) to make. 15 affiliated games and many millions of dollars later, it has yet to tarnish it’s reputation. We’re just gonna pretend those CD-i games don’t exist.

Link has gone from a pixelated little sprite to a well rounded, fully 3D animated, still spritely (but in a different way) gaming hero. The Master Sword has rightfully taken it’s place among the ranks of fiction’s greatest weapons, and the Triforce…well, you gotta be able to Triforce yo. Hyrule is an exceptionally deep and detailed gaming world, full of an unforgettable cast of characters. The music…oh, the music. Let’s just take a moment to thank Shigeru Miyamoto and the team at Nintendo for giving us this so auspicious of a gift.

Oh hells no it just real heavy at 350 Broadway as everyone’s favorite metalcore band The Acacia Strain popped in before their show at The Gramercy Theatre. The group has been touring nonstop in support of their latest album, Wormwood. This isn’t the first time the band has found the store and mostly likely won’t be the last (in-store anyone?). Frontman Vincent Bennet was rockin’ a quality Kill With Power fitted and the boys bypassed the giant New Era in favor of the gigantic Simon.

They should borrow that thing and wear it on stage or pay someone to run around à la Eddie from Iron Maiden. If you are going to make it in metal you gotta have a mascot or at least the illest Мишка gear. Bennet actually runs his own clothing company if you’re into being straightedge and stuff (you probably should since drugs are bad, kids)

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

The Tempers – Vol. 1 (2010) [Self-Released] // Grade: A-

Seattle trio The Tempers describe themselves in no uncertain terms. “We are what rock and roll will be next…what disco should have been,” their website reads. “We are a three-headed monster eating pop music alive.” I don’t know about the first bit—the pop ‘n’ sugar masses probably aren’t ready for this much corpse paint and disco was, in retrospect, exactly what it had to be—but that last sentence; yeah, that one’s dead on. Vol. 1 is a lurching, monstrous mass of creep-dance, strange and theatrical, fueled by acid-trip synths and a voice like bestial opera. Little’s familiar about these sounds; you could shove ‘em next to Liquid Sky or Geneva Jacuzzi, the theatricality of a Gogol Bordello or the conceptual weirdness of a Karin Dreijer-Andersson, but The Tempers are ultimately untraceable. Where did that monster come from? Why is it eating our cities?

And it’s an easy monster to love—the beast with a heart of gold, you know, Frankenstein and the flower—provided you’ve got a taste for the stage-lit macabre. Everything about Vol. 1 is eerily emphatic: the gypsy trance of “Nile Style” and “Speaking in Tongues” circus organ, a hulking near-Italo bass on “Alone Again”. And Corina Bakker’s voice, that swirling, trilling, growling ghoul of a thing, projecting to the back row even in a whisper; hers is a voice that shatters rooms, sends villagers running. But it’s all so warm and embraceable, those disco lilts and slinky guitars, that you’re utterly compelled to go down the rabbit hole with them. To dance and move and hulk right alongside that gilt-hearted monster, because The Tempers, they may be eating pop music alive—but they’re spitting it back at you with an other-world sheen. Ungodly good stuff.