we brave bee stings and all

stoically maintaining his total lack of care for that band that is oh-so-popular this week, mr. mammoth wants to tell you about thao nguyen's new album in a friendly, conversational, and possibly mocking fashion. mr. mammoth hopes that that is okay with you.

like most children, thao nguyen was born. twelve years later, she picked up a guitar. unlike many children who played guitar, she didn't use it to get chicks. or give it up after college. no, she stuck with it - thao ain't no quitter. in addition to these inspirational thoughts, she needed something to do at her mother's laundromat. then, some blah blah, she released an ep, was inspired by lilith fair (gag, anyone?), and has a band called the get down stay down. awesome name, no? they have just released their second record, the super cutesy titled we brave bee stings and all, on kill rock stars, and it's way excellent. if you're fact-repping, her first album, like the linen, was totally named for the laundromat.

lots of people will tell you thao nguyen sounds like chan marshall. those people are mostly wrong. she sounds a little like chan marshall, but it's kinda just cuz they both a) are from the south, and b) sing some form of blue music (chan handles the blues, thao the bluegrass). also, on "beat (health, life and fire)," the first track kill rock stars leaked from we brave, thao does kinda channel chan's huskiness, but it doesn't last - the vast majority of we brave are quirky little ditties, sweet and endearingly childish (especially on the distinctive young-kid ballad "big kid table"). thao's sophomore album is her first post-graduation (from william and mary), and is studded with stories of exploration, development and anxiety, all playfully arranged with buoyant banjos and subtle beatboxing (thao's secret talent).

we brave bee stings and all is notable for its disparity of styles as much as its overall enjoyability (definitely a word). "swimming pools," the album's overwhelmingly best track, is heavily steeped in bluegrass picking, while "feet asleep" features a horn section worthy of a honky-tonk circus. the penultimate "travel" is a brisk trot, ear-catching in a field of slow, easy songs, and rewarding from all the pickin' going on.

it's not a stretch to imagine thao & el get down stay down in a brightly-lit lounge somewhere, serenading happy, well-adjusted people with their cheerful anthems, but thao's lyrics sometimes hide behind the perkiness of her tunes. the well-titled "fear and convenience" highlights a sadder side of thao's love life ("i have see fear and convenience / i have never glimpsed romance"), and easy, beatboxed hit "bag of hammers" has what may be the album's best lyrics: "the trick is / you do not get on that interstate bus / the catch is / you stay and see what becomes of us," delivered with thao's characteristically off-putting nonchalance.

there was a time, not too long ago (you may well remember it), when bands actually had to release a full album before the rivers of praise cascaded over their shoulders (ok, last vampire weekend crack of the week), but, even more than that, prove that they could learn and improve over time, incorporating new tricks and talents into their songs. having been through a whole heap together, thao nguyen and the get down stay down have a better working (and songwriting) relationship, and have clearly matured in the two years since like the linen was released. now managed by kill rock stars' ex-honcho slim moon (man, i would kill for that name), thao etc. have written a slick and sensitive folk pop record that will turn as many heads as nod to its catchy beats and mouth its clever lyrics.

thao nguyen & the get down stay down hit new york on feb 4, opening for death vessel at the knitting factory. they play boston on the 3rd, and move on from there. they're also opening for xiu xiu on their national tour.

"bag of hammers" & "swimming pools"

buy we brave bee stings and all from

awesome song day! - "cassius"

awesome song day! is a spontaneous feature, when i am moved by a song's singular awesomeosity and feel the urge to share its awesomeness with all of you. the song below is awesome.

foals - "cassius (live on xfm)"

if there is one thing i wish indie rockers would learn from hip hop divas (and nas, who is not a diva), it's how to pull off a diss track. i would love nothing more than to have massive indieland feuds (a dream matchup would be team love and southern lord) and bands writing songs about how much the new vampire weekend sucks (yeah, you weren't actually expecting me to like a buzz band, were you?). i'm not sure if "cassius" really falls into the "diss track" category, since it's unclear whether frontman yannis philippakis is singing about this french band, but i'd like to imagine that he is, especially when he sings "cassius it's over /you're second best second best second best second best." sounds like a diss track to me, and it fits into the pre-existing anglo-franco conflict. as a proud supporter of scotland (as if you couldn't guess, right?), i just want to say: go france!

seriously though, cassius does kinda suck. check it.

even if the idea of an electropunk diss track doesn't appeal to you, you should like this song anyway. it's all elbows and sharp guitars and groovy post-dance beats and too-skinny jeans. sounds like the perfect recipe for success, doesn't it? hmmm...didn't i say i don't like buzz bands? at least foals has an original sound, instead of ripping off paul simon.

foals play bowery ballroom on 2/12 (who has no thumbs and his ticket for this already? mr. mammoth) with also-awesome team robespierre. they then play silent barn (915 wyckoff in ridgewood) with tba guests on the 13th, and chop suey in seattle on the 14th. those are their only american dates. hope cassius don't show up for their 4 dates in france/see other (mostly sold-out) tour dates at their myspace.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, you can get more live traxxxxx (it's funny, because foals have a song called "xxxxx") at the fan-run foals band dot com.

pre-order the cassius single here; it's released in the uk on march 10.
foals' debut antidotes is due april 8 on

in the future

three januarys ago, a widely read, distinguished music zine named pitchfork media called black mountain's self titled debut a "best" record, making the band a household name (in austin, chicago, and my headphones at least). black mountain is a grateful debt paid to late 60s guitar rock (with interest), music of the future that owes it all to the past. a common story, really, but black mountain digs deeper and, consequentially, offers greater rewards for the studious. anchored by frontman stephen mcbean's dynamic and pathos-ridden voice (imagine jason molina without the deadpan), black mountain is reverential yet inventive, blowing all misconceptions away with "modern music," a saxophone-laden anti-pop track, or "druganaut," a funky dead jam, determinedly drafting a different blueprint for this band. it is doubly ironic, then, that in the future, black mountain's second album (and, nominally, its most forward-reaching) is less progressive than their debut, and much more rewarding.

from its first notes, it is clear that black mountain is channeling something deeper for their future. they've shed their playful and nervy attitude, as well as their saxophonist, for a future more ancient than possible, keeping pace with heavy retro-rockers everywhere. mcbean and fellow bandleader amber webber eschew the lighthearted creativity of black mountain, shelving its derring-do and toe-treading in favor of a more mainstream aesthetic of gritty prog-rock. it's both a commercial and aural shift. in the future is a satisfying, reverb-rich epic of crunching guitars and tremulous wails that begs to be louder and longer - a progressive hard rock album that was released forty years too late (and arrived right on time).

along with their new brooding stares (check out this photo) and heavier tunes, black mountain have embraced an appropriately dire outlook. jagjaguwar's press release compares the band's sophomore album to freshman year of high school, a supposedly liberating time, "the first real taste of independence in the quest for absolute freedom." last time i checked, the first year of high school was a truly frightening experience, choked with budding pituitary glands and vicious cliques, and in the future is a much better soundtrack of anxiety and rebellion than of independence. like an alienated adolescent, in the future is moody and disenchanted, an exorcism and escape. there's no cheekiness in the title of "stormy high" - it's the national anthem of a stoned fantasyland. this is outcast rock for kids who played dungeons & dragons, then retreated into a smoky haze.

what black mountain have dreamed up is a post-apocalyptic dark ages, with heroes, villains, and crunching guitars. like an eight minute dystopian vignette, "tyrant" (the future's ostensible single) is a morality play acted through dynamics, a ham-fisted loud-soft-loud-soft "effigy" for the new millennium. "tyrant" is still brutal, an aural rendering of one likely apocalypse that is delivered like a B+ science fiction screenplay, emotive without any attempt at finesse. (on the other hand, who ever wanted subtlety from a hard rock futurist nightmare?) "tyrant" delivers the goods, a neat little package of guts and guitars sweetened by amber webber's prophetic howling, so evocative that you can, if you close your eyes, see her renting her garments and vowing vengeance on the cruel dictator in a wide, pan shot of the wreckage of her burnt house (appropriately tolkienesque, i feel).

though black mountain have retired some of the tools from their self-titled, in the future does feature other important developments, like that of amber webber. in a role expanded from her relegated use on black mountain, webber's vocals consistently shape songs and define their most rewarding moments. her wailing on "tyrant" and "bright lights" form those songs' cruxes, and her solo, alice-in-weirdland "queens will play" - though it suffers of a progression that promises more than its payoff delivers - is darkly portentous and heavy. webber still does regular duty on harmonies, but even then she works in tandem with mcbean, providing tantalizing and haunted vocals that accentuate and enrich his own. their interplay is one of in the future's best features, her keening laments and harmonies really filling out their sound.

what, despite its flaws, makes in the future such an appealing album? well, for one thing, black mountain go totally medieval on our asses, ditching the quirky 60s amalgamation for a solid shot of hard rock, no chaser. no surprise that they were invited on the last queens of the stone age tour; in the future is the best kind of stoner metal, luxuriously heavy and plush with intensity. the album starts on the right foot with "stormy high," a swaggering neo-viking war march that only improves with volume, a characteristic the album shares. fuzzball "evil ways" lingers , thanks to a screeching guitar and mcbean's raw vocals, and the ballad "angels" shows off a different side of the band entirely. at the tail end of in the future is black mountain's greatest opus t0 date - the sixteen minute "bright lights." it starts gently, switching "bright light" and "light bright" around lyrically, mcbean and webber chanting ritually, and abruptly lurches into fifth gear, bellicose and bristling for a fight before dissolving into a dreaded spacey-pedal-fest, a bad decision that it never fully recovers from, though it puts up a good show - the last minute and a half of "bright lights" might be the best on the record.

in the future is a more successful album than black mountain, for its commercial appeal as much as its sonic one - richer, deeper, and blissfully heavier than anything their debut could have suggested, in the future is the work of more attuned yet less confident artists. my own enjoyment of in the future notwithstanding, it is a stylistic regression for black mountain, a hedged bet, regurgitating the past for fresh ears. slavishly constructed, this is an easily digestible homage liberally slathered with inspiration, instead of the other way around. no small part of in the future's importance is this eponymous conundrum: if this is the music of the future, why does it sound so much like the past? if anything, black mountain is the future, lessons learned from ancient masters, reinvigorated and refreshed, and not merely an accomplished mimicry. in the future apes the old and calls it the new like some orwellian thought program, a self-imposed verbal hurdle that is never quite cleared.

"stormy high" & "tyrant"

follow this sweet little .gif to jagjaguwar's online store.

black mountain embark on their north american tour on thursday in seattle. they play your city ___.

aesop rock @ southpaw, 1/22/08 (myspace secret show)

well, i couldn't feel my fingers or toes by the time we got in, but we got in. boo-fucking-yah. i won't bore you with stories about the line or the security (is it always like that in park slope? i had to prove my camera was a camera!), and cut straight to the chase: great fucking show. i'd never seen aesop rock before, and have always wanted too, especially since the moste excellent none shall pass was released last year. def jux's biggest star pulled out all the stops for the über-intimate myspace secret show at southpaw, giving love to the crowd and spitting verses til he was out of breath, bringing mad guests on...a really great show that was even sweeter because it was free.

naturally, def jux was in the house, and aes corralled labelmates hangar 18 as openers, who proclaimed themselves "rap's best interracial group" by way of an introduction. funny thing is, they might be right (also, it's not exactly a packed category). a party rap crew like the beastie boys (but with more flavor), hangar 18 is dirty, funny, and a hell of a good time. at one point during the set, mcs wind and alaska took a quiet moment to tell the crowd about some serious shit going down, and how we live in hard times, when there are two major issues we all need to take seriously - trapped in the closet and drinking. book these guys for your frat house right now. with their slick, joking rhymes, they seemed the odd man out in the def jux stable - a critically minded label known best for the acerbic rhymes of aesop rock, labelhead el-p, or whiz kid cage (when was the last time you heard some serious discourse about bitches and barhopping?) - but they were fun and definitely got the crowd going. also, they sampled "jump on it," which was pretty funny.

"baking soda"
buy sweep the leg from definitive jux.

"take no chances"

there was virtually no between-set downtime, which was awesome - aesop rock, rob sonic, and dj big wiz hit the stage maybe ten minutes after the departure of hangar 18 to deafening cheers, opening with none shall pass's first track, "keep off the lawn." though his eyes were half closed, aes was fucking spot on, nailing verses and really bringing his songs alive, adding callbacks and chants that kept the crowd involved. rob sonic, aes rock's compatriot and producer of "dark heart news," was his cheerleader, adding another voice to his raps and finishing his verses, and the two working in perfect tandem. in a myspace blog post written right after the show, aesop rock said "rob sonic and wiz, of course, were on point. we're like 3 massive peas in an even larger pod at this point. a hip hop pod."

unsurprisingly, aes performed most of the tracks from none shall pass, including killer versions of "39 thieves," "dark heart news," and "bring back pluto." the biggest applause, however, was reserved for his older work - a reworked version of "no regrets," from labor days, which cut its normal running length of 5+ minutes to under 3, and encore "daylight" were probably his biggest hits of the night. not one to hog the mic, aes gave rob sonic two turns in the spotlight, who busted two joints from last year's sabotage gigante. dj big wiz also had a solo turn, building a beat from scratch as aes and rob took a breather. throughout the night, the two mcs teased us, telling us about the special guests waiting backstage, but i don't think anyone guessed how many there were. el-producto came out with a brand new mustache to do a track from i'll sleep when you're dead, battling through the flu to deliver the goods, which was fucking awesome, but the best hadn't come yet. asking "does anyone here like freestyles?," aes dropped a few verses before slug (from atmosphere) walked out. then el-p returned, followed by yak ballz and despot ("world's tallest rapper"), who is one of def jux's most recent signees. they all busted dope rhymes and despot climbed on rob sonic's shoulders, and it was clear they were having as much fun as we were. aesop rock finished with "coffee," which the crowd had been hollering for all night, a fitting end to a great (free) night of music. thanks myspace!

"dark heart news (feat. and prod. by rob sonic)"
buy none shall pass from definitive jux.

"no regrets (remix)"

sometimes they collide

have you ever tried to have a conversation about music with someone who hasn't really listened to anything since 1973? it's fucking hard. so many of the words we use to describe music are only understood by us, people who listen and follow it religiously, and have absolutely no correlation to a) how music actually sounds, and b) any conventional use of those words in english. one of the most irksome genres (for its practitioners as much as for its nomenclature) is shoegaze. while it is easy to understand (music that makes you want to look at your shoes), it's really time for shoegaze to get the proverbial axe. most bands that embrace "shoegaze" as a self-descriptor generally play crappy progressive music - songs that start with a lone, cold-sounding guitar and grow, over seventeen achingly boring minutes, into some cacophonist mogwai ripoff. christ. fortunately, the hectors are hip to the shoegaze game, and brazenly combine the best elements of that failing genre (yup, there are a couple of those) with a mainstream rock sensibility that make their songs both edgy and easy to enjoy. having just released sometimes they collide, their second ep, for tarantism records, the hectors are getting all antsy in their pantsy and ready to prove that, though shoegaze has no future (and thank god for it), that doesn't mean that we can't get something decent out of it before it goes.

one of shoegaze's most potent (and worthwhile) attributes is its distinctive guitar sound, which characteristically starts delicately, pinpointing notes that hang in the air, then gradually builds into a wail, screeching with distortion and epiphany, thundering and glorious. for most bands, this takes an achingly long time. the hectors consistently do it in under five minutes, and with actual melodies and honest-to-goodness dynamics. what a rare find. as their press release says, "the hectors write and perform songs about geeks ('cold star'), thugs ('carol and sanford'), slackers ('proof of sale') and dreamers ('i drove all the way from bridgeport to make it with you')", but rick parker (BRMC, dandy warhols) buries frontwoman corinne dinner's vocals deep in the mix, accentuating the depth of her voice but also losing many of her lyrics. the loss is negligible, since the hectors' fierce guitar layering rightly deserves it be the focus - album highlight "a million fingers" showcases the interplay between lead robert bonilla's and dinner's guitars, dynamic and ominous.

only the hectors' second release, sometimes they collide is impressive, and puts the band in good position to get snapped up by a serious label. with strong hooks and charismatic guitar work, sometimes they collide bring to mind a gentler silversun pickups (a band that mr. mammoth is a big fan of). the hectors have successfully fleshed out the skeleton of shoegaze into a serious pop force, and future work from this band is sure to be as enjoyable and expansive as this ep is.

"cold star" & "a million fingers"

buy sometimes they collide at your local independent record store.

awesome song & dance day! - "i wish that i could see you soon"

awesome song day! is a spontaneous feature, when i am moved by a song's singular awesomeosity and feel the urge to share its awesomeness with all of you. the song below is awesome.

herman düne - "i wish that i could see you soon"
giant, herman düne's fifth album, was released by source etc. records in europe.

french anti-folksters herman düne were awarded the honor of having written the 89th best song of 2007 for this gem, a sweet, catchy love ditty, but the best part of the song is the video, directed by toben seymour. two different versions of the video have been released, the "work in progress" one and the completed one, and i have to say, i think the work in progress one is way cooler. but check 'em both out and see what you think. i guarantee this - you're gonna be jealous of herman düne's dancing ability.

fake gold

you might recall that i didn't sound particularly impressed with team robespierre when i saw them last, opening for yeasayer at the friction party. that's because i wasn't, and one of the band's singers really (really) needed a shower. but i really liked their aesthetic, living on the fringes and loving it, and i bought a t-shirt and picked up a sampler the band was handing out, because, hey, sometimes these things grow on you. lucky i did, because fake gold, the bruising 5 song sampler/ep, has been in my headphones all week, and i just can't get team robespierre out of my brain.

where does their appeal come from? i'm not a fan of punk, but that's the clearest architect of team robespierre's sound, a fierce, infectious blend of joy and anger. understandably disenchanted with the global web of deceit spun by authority figures, team robespierre is striking back with an arsenal of spastic electropunk songs that rarely clock in at more than a minute and a half. sometimes furious ("big deal") and sometimes wry ("88th precinct"), fake gold is as much an observation as a critique, but team robespierre don't let their resentment get in the way of having a hell of a good time. some of the choicest lyrics on fake gold are in "ha ha ha," where they yell "i'm not looking for a job / i just wanna be a heartthrob!" that shit is priceless.

one of team robespierre's punkest tendencies (and most appealing qualities) is their almost universal lack of musical ability. the band has two lead singers who play instruments (and trade off on the mic), and two musicians who sing backup (and a drummer who dives off his kit), so song structure isn't the team's strongest suit. generally, it seems that whoever doesn't sing plays an instrument, so some songs have guitar ("ha ha ha") and others have keyboard ("black rainbow"), and some have both ("laika"). one quality common to all of team robespierre's songs is how badly they make you want to get into a stinky sweaty mosh pit and dance your heart out in a physical cacophony of elbows and knees.


more a cathartic release than music you listen to on headphones, team robespierre is really intended to be heard in a live environment, where your face can be dive-bombed by any member of the band. their energy is infectious, but the team's members are their own biggest fans - they rock the hardest and dance the jitteriest, and crowd surf as much as possible. i was really excited when i found out they were opening for foals (who i've also been enjoying lately), and i really hope the crowd at bowery ballroom is gonna be down for some serious spazz-dancing. if you can't wait that long (or doubt the danceability of bowery), team robespierre is having a record release party on february 1 at death by audio. be there or be a stooge.

team robespierre's debut full length, everything's perfect, will be released on 1/22 on impose records. (thanks for the tip mike!)

"88th precinct" & "ha ha ha"