TS 6/15/12 The Usual Grab Bag; Things That Play On Repeat in My Mom's Car...

...because somehow she tolerates these noises! Stream 'em, and this...

*denotes new arrivals and additions to the KDVS library

*Lake    "Gravel"    Gravel 7-inch    (K Records)    Olympia, WA
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*Shana Halligan    "True Love"    Shana Halligan    (Lady Swank)
*Iamamiwhoami    "Goods"    Kin    (To Whom It May Concern)    *forthcoming album, Sept. 2012
*Human Woman    "It's Gonna Hurt You"    Human Woman    (hen)    Iceland
*Bamu Express    "Walk The Shame"    Awful Earlies    (self-released)    Sacramento, CA
*Violent Vickie    "The Frame"    Violent Vickie    (self-released)    San Francisco
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Algebra Suicide    "Little Dead Bodies"    Little Dead Bodies 7-inch    (Buzzerman)    1986
*Broken Water    "Orange Blossom Stains"    Tempest    (Hardly Art)    Olympia, WA
*Crash Normal    "Ice Forest"    Your Body Got A Land LP   (Kill Shaman)
White Fang    "Unchain Your Brain"    Positive Feedback Cassette    (Gnar Tapes)    2011 Portland
White Fang    "Alien"    Positive Feedback Cassette    (Gnar Tapes)
*Yves/Son/Ace    "Please Don't Go"    Please Don't Go 7-inch    (Kill Shaman)    aka Matthew Ford
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Doll By Doll    "Palace Of Love"    Palace Of Love 7-inch    (Automatic)    1979 UK
Alexander    "All My Life (I Love You)"    All My Life I Love You 7-inch    (Sundazed)    1972 material backed with 90s cut; Canada
Hotlegs    "Lady Sadie"    You Didn't Like It Because You Didn't Think Of It LP
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The Merry Go Round    "Live"    The Best of the Merry Go Round LP    (Rhino)    1966 Hawthorne, CA
Grapefruit    "Round Going Round"    Around Grapefruit    (Apple)    1968 UK
The Cuff Links    "Run Sally Run"    b/w I Remember    (Decca)    1970 w/Ron Dante of The Archies
Robin Ward    "Wonderful Summer"    b/w Dream Boy    (Dot)    1963
Don & The Goodtimes    "And It's So Good"    b/w I Could Be So Good To You    (Epic)    1967
Beau Dollar    "(I Want To Go) Where The Soul Trees Grow"    7-inch Radio Promo    (King)    1970
Delaney & Bonnie and Friends    "Wade In The River Jordan"    7-inch Radio Promo    (Columbia)    1972
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Dorothy    "Softness"    I Confess 7-inch    (Industrial)    1980 UK

I can't seem to stray away from Bamu Express' latest full-length Awful Earlies! I've raved about Sacto multi-instrumentalist Chris Anderson before, but this is time he's really done it. This most recent self-release blends 80s electronic dance-scapes with distorted lyrics delivered so languidly (and I'll say this again too, because it's true) that Human Ear and Co. would be proud. However, to pin this guy down as simply "throwback" or "nostalgia" would be a true understatement to Anderson's adeptness in deriving a unique contemporary sound while pulling from the past. Here's a couple choice tracks from Awful Earlies -- expect Anderson's label debut on KDVS Recordings before the end of 2012!

And if you dug that -- Bamu Express's Koto Samples EP extracts bits of Japanese koto playing so elegantly that you have to actively listen for them in "Let It Down." When my friends and I first started envisioning a Portlandia-esque cable access program (which has since turned into a satirical morning show about Davis, CA) this is the track we picked for our theme song. Listen, just don't say "cacao!"


So cassettes... I still buy them and I keep waiting to run into some thirteen year-old kid who's never seen one. "I'm not old, I merely enjoy vintage mediums!" But what is it about cassettes that draws us late 80s/early 90s babies to this ultra lo-fi plastic vehicle of sound? If you keep up with your local D.I.Y. music scene then perhaps you already know they haven't become completely obsolete. Which brings me to another question: Can you still buy a new car with a tape player? I feel myself about to break into a tangent  -- my point is I bought a White Fang tape when they played at Luigi's in Davis last month and it's still in the tape player in the car (which by the way, is a 2002 Tahoe. It's the people who work in or move to Davis that drive fuel-efficient vehicles, not the ones who actually grew up here. We had a GM Suburban when I was a kid!).
    White Fang's Positive Feedback is fun and unrefined because it was made to fit the medium, and it does so by almost comically taking advantage of typical cassette tape idiosyncrasies. These are the kinds of jams you want to hear laden with tape hiss and (intentional) pitch shifts. The minute-forty long "I Can't Skate" just wouldn't rattle you as well without the lack of production quality and the jarring jump into the a-side's standout song "Unchain Your Brain." It's as if they'd recorded one track, rewound the tape and rerecorded over it. It makes me laugh every time I listen to it because it's so obviously a cassette, but that's part of the listening experience. It's not so much about separating each individual song as it is about just making a fucking tape!