Featuring members of MGMT, Amazing Baby, Historics, and a fronted by solo artist Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Brooklyn Ill Fits, after forming earlier this year, could only hit the ground landing. From what we can tell from their only track released so far (streaming below) the group plays a pleasant pop-rock with psych elements, slightly reminiscent of David Bowie’s output from somewhere around the "Let’s Dance" period. Ill Fits is playing Glasslands on September 10.

Loop B recently relocated from Brazil. For some weird reason, for 3 weeks in June I ran into him everywhere; The Super Coda, Ze Couch, various functions presented by PAS.  If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Loop you’ll understand what I mean when I say that his presence marked those weeks with the discrete sensation of stumbling into one of Pynchon’s novels.
So I book him.  Here’s the skinny.  Proceed with caution.
A cache of objects transforms the stage; a broken PC keyboard, mixing bowl, plastic sword.  Loop announces he’s “using small things.  No washing machine tonight.”
Loop embarks to accompany, on things, various recordings of slightly damaged Brazilian dance tunes, rapidly sheathing/unsheathing his sword, bouncing a marble (that proves uncooperative) in his bowl, consistently dancing in place.  And all throughout the tension builds to outgrow itself, palpable in a way that’s abominably rare in this life, the realization of pure, unadulterated disbelief, extended all the way down to the bottom of the abyss, wherein lies a –
Strangely shaped hub cap?
Part of a kiln?
A Bundt pan?
Whatever it is, Loop places it on his head and bangs away on both sides with chopsticks, a stereophonic grin peeling off his face and flapping through the audience (which has tripled over the course of his performance).  And that’s how it is, until the backing track sambas it’s final samba, absurdly departing this world as one might imagine a drunk nun.
QED.  WTF.  That’s all, folks. – Valerie Kuehne

The Oh Sees come out swinging with their second LP, Carrion Crawler/The Dream due out November 15th off In The Red Records. John Dwyer’s esoteric use of the guitar provide unforeseen melodies, atop nostalgic 1960s drum grooves. The title track “Carrion Crawler” sucks you into a daze thanks to drummer Mike Shoun’s classy ride cymbal usage and the album is a great adventure through and through. The band has come a long way, emanating from John Dwyer’s solo break, to a now solid-gold five piece. Check out their website for some far-out artwork and tunes and catch them at The Treasure Island Music Festival on October 16th. – Ed Guardaro

Dead End Social Club Records has announced the release of the debut LP by Olympia, WA indie infused punk band Happy Noose. Happy Noose is a trio of friends that came together after having played in many other bands spanning several decades in Olympia, WA.  "Their music is straightforward enough: good-time, plangent, dirty pop… music aches with desire… Morose, yet joyful. Fumbling, unsure but with a real swaggering gait."

-Everett True-

Seven Seas by happynoose

Rin Tin Tiger brought down the house at this years Noise Pop fest opening for Max Bemis of Say Anything at the Bottom of the Hill, and from Seattle Washington to Dallas Texas they continue to captivate audiences with their unforgettably energetic and upbeat folk-pop. Check them out live at The Depot (Cesar Chavez Student Center, SFSU) on Thursday September 1st – it’s a free show! – (as posted in The Deli’s SF Open Blog – post your band’s blogs, videos, and Mp3s here).

After one album, one EP, hundreds of show and one of those period most bands experience at one point or another when some "pieces" are lost and then some new one found, Big Tree is back with a new album, entitled "This New Year" and scheduled to be released in early October. Driven by Kaila McIntyre’s malleable vocals, the band plays electric alt-folk with frequent psych-rock-of-the-hippie-kind influences, and an occasional jazzy twist. Their music often conjures up images of free love, high nights at the beach, and – at times – those famously ineffective but nonetheless enthusiastic street demonstrations of the 60s. At least that’s what we hear in the advance single "This Fall", streaming here. Check out also the album title-track here, released as a single in March.

Download Mp3: Big Tree – "This Fall"
 

Think of slightly less composed vocal harmonies, yet more endearing lyrics, and the general girl group panache of The Vivian Girls but with a more punchy, punky edge, and you get TacocaT.  The band has been together for several years now without garnering the recognition they deserve to separate themselves from the milieu of their contemporaries, but they’re a very solid band who put on an up-beat, fun show.  Definitely my strongest recommendation for a live event in the next couple of weeks.  Anybody notice how the Rendezvous has been selecting some great bands to play their venue recently?  8:00 pm, Wednesday, September 7th- be there!

Washington to Brooklyn, 20 year old Brad Oberhofer (whose band placed 6th in our 2010 Best of NYC poll for emerging NYC artists) is one of the NYC scene’s brightest hopes. The "kid" stunned critics and fans in 2010 with a series of songs that went beyond Brooklyn’s trend of surf-influenced lo-fi, showing uncommon songwriting skills and imagination in the arrangement department. Powerhouse label Glassnote – also home to Mumfor & Sons, Phoenix and Two Door Cinema Club amongst other – just announced the signing of Oberhofer. While waiting for the new release under that label though, White Iris Records is putting out the band’s latest single "Gotta Go / Mahwun". Don’t miss the band at Music Hall of Williamsburg, opening for NYC scene mainstays Les Savy Fav on 09.06.

French, Brooklyn based songstress Julie Peel has the rare ability to pen beautiful and touching songs – and she does it with enviable consistency. Here’s a dreamy, rather sad gem from her debut album "Near the Sun". Julie just announced she’s nearing completion of a new record, shceduled to be released before the end of the year.

Mainland – ex Mainland Fever – on September 5th will be releasing a new EP entitled "Summer Sick". The band is also launching this rather beautiful video of the title track, which has a peculiar square format.

Mainland – Summer Sick [Official Video] from Ian McClerin on Vimeo.

Released March 29th, 2011 by Perennial Records, Peripheral Star is an EP to be reckoned with, and its craftsmanship deserves more than a passive listen from the music community at large.  Broken Water, the three-piece from Olympia, Washington, consisting of Kanako-drums/vocals, Abigail-bass/vocals, Jon-guitar/vocals, have composed some of the most well-balanced, enthralling shoegaze rock to come from the Northwest, or the rest of the nation for that matter, in a long time.  

Seattle is not known for producing shoegaze bands of exceptional merit- traditionally, and oftentimes derisively, the Seattle scene has been depicted by music critics as the comically woodsy, rootsy home of acoustic guitar fingerpickers and gentle harmonizers belting out their forest-loving tunes in picturesque locales abundant around Washington.  The astronomical rise to international fame of The Head and the Heart do nothing in service of changing this image.     

The song "Kansas" opens with an ominous, vaguely foreboding bass riff that dominates the vibe as Jon’s sharp guitar slashes into life, follows a descending scale, and then cuts again.  In mood, this song, and much of what Broken Water do, is related to the whole of the very great album by Apse entitled Spirit.  What Apse failed to do at times that Broken Water is highly skilled at doing is adding enough muscle to their compositions, adding the split-the-sky eruptions that rise above the beautiful, warbling din, thereby breaking the listener through the tranquil or torpid threshold that can beset anyone listening to large doses of music.       

"Okane No" absolutely explodes with guitar-string-bending riffs swimming in reverb, and not just the placidly adopted reverb sounds of many bands in this genre, but the kind of labored over sound that has a specific place, is used for a specific purpose.  Broken Water’s sound teeters on a precipice that demands a high level of skill- their music is a tempered chaos, augmented by exceptional song-writing abilities that have a knack for movement within music, all combing to deliver high-impact listening bliss. 

Broken Water – Peripheral Star by pygmylion