Skyline Pigeons Live In A House Of Mysteries

Santa Barbara/Los Angeles, California-based Roxanne and Caroline Teti, sisters of the indie rock/psych-pop band Skyline Pigeons, are celebrating the release of their debut full-length album, House of Mysteries with the release of a couple of songs for your downloading pleasure.

House of Mysteries is an 11-track collection inspired by the traumatic and liberating experience of loss and rebirth, following the Santa Barbara wide fires that claimed their home - and all of their possessions.

You've seen it on the news. Devastation over wild fires. Displaced families, priceless family heirlooms gone, and everything people once had now ashes. We watch this from the comfort of our homes on the news, feeling bad for the faceless people we see on our TV screens, but that feeling soon dissipates as the next horrific 5 o'clock news story comes on. However, what if it wasn't just a news broadcast? What if it was your life? Your reality? And you lost everything?

Each song on House of Mysteries takes the listener inside the emotional journey of such a reality, the way one travels from room to room of a home. Skyline Pigeons are able to use each individual song to explore, uncover, and confront the hopes, scars, and fears that become buried in the human subconscious. While each song maintains independence, their essence is familiar yet fresh, the way a chapter of a book flows freely yet is bound by story—a story with songs intriguing and soul biting.

For Skyline Pigeons, music is more than just a career it's a form of therapy and a way of channeling all those emotions into something productive.

Download: Tennessee
Download: Lucid
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The Bell Give You Your Fair Share

After two successful releases (Great Heat and Make Some Quiet) on the Badman label, The Swedish pop trio The Bell have just escaped from a close-to-the-polar-circle-studio with new material in the bag. After being locked into a small log cabin on one of the Scandinavian mountainsides for a week, they emerged with six new tracks to be released as Your Fair Share of The Bell.

For the already initiated, the third album will stretch a bit further into the band’s earlier presented soundscape foundation. The post-punk pop and the good drench of indie influences are still present- and that with a modern touch, make The Bell continue to create sounds from far away that dig their way right into your head. And stick around.

Download: I Will Be The One To Bring You Down
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Tic Tic BOOM!

Los Angeles synth-rockers Tic Tic Boom! have released their third EP Before the Sun Rises, available now on all the usual sites, sources, and shops.

After a year of tirelessly playing shows and releasing acoustic versions and remixes, the band's latest EP showcases a different side of Tic Tic Boom! “[Before the Sun Rises] deals with concepts of life and death,” explains frontwoman Leilani Francisco. “How all things are cyclical and we're all just a small piece of an enormous never-ending puzzle. It's about struggling to understand your place in all of that.”

With floor-shaking bass synths, sweeping and sometimes jittery arpeggios, disco-drum beats, and distorted guitars, all under Francisco’s dreamlike vocals it's a little bit of an electronic heaven delivered to your ears.

Download: Constellation Boy
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Jonathan Boulet Keeps The Beat

Sydney upstart Jonathan Boulet gives you his new single, 'This Song Is Called Ragged', from the forthcoming album We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart.  Say that three times fast!

Anyway, a swirling, percussive uprising of the most positive kind, 'This Song Is Called Ragged' will be released digitally and as a double A-side 7" picture disc bundled with 'Trounce' on May 28th on Modular Recordings. The digital release will come with remixes by fellow Sydney noisemakers Dro Carey and Jonti. It's the second track to be taken from Boulet's self-produced sophomore record, to be released June 8 (AUS), June 11 (UK/EU), June 12 (USA).

If you were looking for a glimpse of summer a few months early, Ragged is the first hint of the warmth and sunshine to come. 

Download: This Song Is Called Ragged
Listen: Trounce
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Anchorless Sails On

A while back we posted a couple of tunes from Anchorless on our Twitter and Facebook pages and they went over pretty well. We'll give you three guesses as to who's back?

Yes it's true...Anchorless has returned with an album in tow. Every Nook And Cranny consists of nine songs recorded with energy and passion, and it's an album not afraid to admit that it is all about a good pop-song. Recordings and mixing were done by the band’s own Jakob Reichert Nielsen, the mastering was handled by Brian Mørk Hansen and the artwork was beautifully executed by Nikolai Bejder of Bemerk (Kashmir, Kitty Wu a.o.).

The album, much like their earlier works are fantastic.   With hints of The Shins, REM, and even The Smiths in their songs, there's a lot to like about Anchorless.  This is an energetic, effervescent release that has such a strong pop sensibility that the band has seen fit to cram pop in every nook and cranny. 

Download: Hammett's Fiction
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Leave It To The Fixers

British band, Fixers are preparing to invade the States and in the process of doing so are releasing their first US EP, Pop Meat/Your Corruptor, on April 24th via Dolphin Love Records. 

With an aesthetic that blooms from Beach Boys-era harmonies and surf samples, Fixers assert themselves as a band to watch, with endless hooks and a love for experimentation.  Using these tools, Fixers create songs that are all over the place and refuse to sit still.  From the acappella harmony of, "Another Lost Apache," to the endless rolling drums of, "Crystals," the band harness a variety of approaches to make your legs akimbo, you arms outstretched, and get your feet moving.

If Pop Meat/Your Corruptor, hints at what’s to come from Fixers we're in for a lot of jumpy indie in the future. They never sacrifice the big melodies or the experimentation that makes them great and the result is a sun-drenched, fuzzed out, joyride that hopefully will find it's way onto a full length album.

Download: Crystals
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Hide In The Sanctuaries

Balancing the jangly guitars of the 60s with the arty cool of 90s indie rock, New York City quartet The Sanctuaries are a welcome addition to a scene that has so often lost sight of songwriting. With each member of the band providing a distinct and essential role in the group’s formula, their songs range from the bouncy pop of "House of Noise" and drifter ballads ("Heaven is a Mountain," "Bedouin Tea") to the Kraut-influenced drone of "Soft Crime,” creating a sound that is equally classic and contemporary.

Beautifully recorded by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, JEFF The Brotherhood) in his Nashville studio, The Sanctuaries' debut, Annette, has an essence of timelessness. Stylishly performed and produced, The Sanctuaries have released a timeless jangly treat.

Download: Heaven Is A Mountain
Download: She Got Bit
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Afrobeta Throw A Wig Party

Miami's Afrobeta are a stunningly sexy electro pop act that creates songs as seductive as a South Beach night. With an eye on the dance floor and a sound that's so poptastic it's about ready to explode Afrobeta's album, Under The Streets, is destined to be anywhere but underground.

With sparkly synths, Miami-like beats, well-polished production and absolutely massive songs, Under The Streets is a stellar debut that's as slick as its cover would seem to indicate. As for their new EP, Wig Party it's packed to the gills with huge hooks, instantly memorable choruses, and melodies that melt in your ears, there's so little the matter with these records that they might just both be perfect. At times sounding like New Order in a dance off with Expose, Afrobeta are completely modern while being influenced by the sound of Miami’s present and past; they are truly awesome at what they do.

Download: Love Is Magic (DiscoTech Extended Remix)
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Haunted by Apollo Ghosts' Landmark

You've Changed Records excitedly announces the release of Apollo Ghosts' new album, Landmark. Out on May 15, the album follows the group's Polaris Prize nominated 2010 release, Mount Benson.

Apollo Ghosts third album is about an island paradise, doing the dishes, and love. Adrian Teacher wrote most of music for Landmark in Sackville, New Brunswick (that's Canada folks) and finished the lyrics in a small cabin on Protection Island, after shopping for a weekend’s worth of groceries.

Landmark is the most domestic and personal album the Ghosts have recorded. The songs are deeply informed by the concept of home, the worries of aging and lost love, sexuality and abandoned friendships.  And while that sounds depressing as hell, as you'll see by the track below...it's anything but.  It sounds as if Landmark for all it's frailties is going to be a rollicking good time!

Download: What Are Your Influences
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Unicycle Loves You

In 2010, Unicycle Loves You stripped away the studio gloss of their self-titled 2008 debut and took a large step forward with the release of Mirror, Mirror. With frontman Jim Carroll in complete control of the recording process, the resulting record was one far more true to the band's vision, and more representative of their influences.

Once again handling the roles of songwriter and producer, Carroll has dug even further into his Sebadoh/Guided By Voices-influenced home-recording roots for Unicycle Loves You's latest record, Failure.

Loaded with buzzing guitars in the red, highly addictive melodies, and lush boy/girl harmonies, Failure combines the best elements of 90s indie rock and dream pop for a refreshing Pop Art sound.

Download: Garbage Dump
Download: Wow Wave Cinema
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Have You Got Deep Time

Austin's Jennifer Moore and Adam Jones are truly one-of-a-kind. For years, they've been charming and bewildering critics with their singular brand of oddball art-pop as Yellow Fever (sometimes "YellowFever"). Their years under this handle are a legacy, yes, but also a kind of chrysalis, one that Moore and Jones are now bursting forth from with a new name and a renewed energy to their idiosyncratic sound.

Behold Deep Time, whose "debut" self-titled album will be out June 26th. This nine-track marvel is described by Ian Svenonius as a "catastrophe for the forces of predictability and boredom." Not that we'd ever want to argue with Sir Ian but "Clouds" is the first hint at what Deep Time have been brewing in their psychedelic coccoon. And it sounds like vintage Stereolab without the endless jams. It's got that vibe to it and we love it.

Download: Clouds
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Take A DIVE

DIVE craft a sound that is at once familial and frost-bitten. Indebted to classic kraut, dreamy Creation-records psychedelia, and the primitive-crunch of late-80's Seattle, the band walk a divisive yet perfectly fused patch of classic-underground influence.

One part THC and two parts MDMA; the first offering from DIVE chemically fuses the reminiscent with the half-remembered building a musical world out of old-air and new breeze.

Sounding like a vintage Drums meets something like Teenage Filmstars lost in Felt's recording studio and you have an idea of what DIVE are attempting to achieve. It's quite good stuff that's swirly, breezy, slackertastic, and ridiculously good. The perfect encapsulation of classic sounds with a modern twist DIVE should really end up soaring more then heading in a downward trajectory.

Download: How Long Have You Known
Download: Bambi Slaughter (Cobain cover)
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Strangers & Sensual Harassment Shine On You

After a ten day break we've emerged from our cocoon to begin posting once again.  And really, I couldn't have written this any better if I tried.  Happy Monday folks, thanks for sticking around.  We here at POP! Stereo HQ really appreciate the support. 

Anyway, when a band finishes a new album, there’s certainly a temptation to break out the Mad Dog 20/20, order a fleet of stuff-crust pepperoni pizzas and veg out to some classic Twin Peaks re-runs for the next few weeks or even months, that isn’t always the best instinct.

Following the buzz behind late 2010’s Alpha Draconis (quite possibly a Slytherin spell) , Sensual Harassment has been holed up and busy at work in a crowded studio that’s begun to resemble a synth-nerd’s episode of Hoarders. While waiting for their record to come back from the mastering engineer, the band has decided to tackle some remixes to stay fresh and focused for their new releases later this year.

This time around, Sensual Harassment takes the plaintive and down-tempo gem from the auspicious UK band Strangers and flips it out into a synth-charged thumper, amplifying the original track to near anthemic heights. They pretty much knock it out of the ball park here and if this remix is a taste of things to come the mastering engineer better get his arse in gear!

Download: Strangers - Shine On You (Sensual Harassment Remix)
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