I've Found My Mojo

The Mojomatics are a two-man band -- MojoMatt (vocals, guitar, harmonica) and DavMatic (drums, percussion) -- based in Venice, Italy.

The duo released the Devil Got My Woman EP on Shake Your Ass Records in 2003 and began to tour relentlessly through Italy and the rest of Europe, opening for such incredible bands as Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The (International) Noise Conspiracy and Old Time Relijun. The German label Alien Snatch agreed to release the duo’s debut album A Sweet Mama Gonna Hoodoo Me in 2004. Songs For Faraway Lovers, the second Mojomatics full-length album was released in 2006.

The band embarked on another European tour, playing in Italy, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Norway and opening for such bands as Black Lips, Arctic Monkeys, Gogol Bordello and Radio Birdman. The band's new record Don't Pretend That You Know Me heaps together hillbilly blues, old country, folk, and bluegrass and injects it with the melody of British Invasion pop, firing it all out with the breakneck energy of the best garage/punk/rock'n'roll.

The end result of all that is a record that is filled with dance floor mayhem in sta-press slacks. They're freakin' brilliant garage rock fueled fun that you'll find difficult to stop listening to.

Download: Miss Me When I'm Gone
Download: Clean My Sins
Download: Wait A While

Junglist Massive!

“To understand pH10, start by imagining The Beastie Boys growing up on Slayer rather than Afrika Bambaataa. Then, you’ll need to figure out how records created with no electric guitars in site manage to be this damn heavy. Finally, a lesson or two in over driven analog circuits at the community college is in order. - Alternatively you could just pop in one of their disks, start shaking your ass and it’ll all come to you naturally” – Time Out London

Brooklyn-based pH10 has been making records and playing shows for ten years. Concerts are hyped up parties with intense visual projections, a massive wall of sound and strange occurrences including strobe light helmets and dancers wrapped in vacuum hoses. Having played all over the US, Canada and Europe, pH10 has developed strong performance skills to back up their studio recordings. This is a finely tuned stage show that leaves audience members danced-out and smiling. Although the pH10 crew insists on light-hearted antics in their performances, they take their productions seriously.

Check it...

Download: Enter the Underground (ft. Pete Miser & Jamalski)

The Department of Eagles

The Department of Eagles originally started in 2000 when New York University assigned freshmen Fred Nicolaus and Daniel Rossen to share a room. To pass the time during an uneventful spring semester, the two began making music together, collecting samples and turning them into songs using pirated software and a microphone borrowed from their neighbor Chris Taylor.

In 2004, Daniel joined Grizzly Bear where he ran into Chris Taylor once again. During that time, Daniel was obviously pretty busy handling vocals, guitars, and even songwriting for the group. His partner in crime Fred, on the other hand was working 9 to 5 but still found time to come up with ideas for DOE.

By the end of 2007, the sun and moon had aligned and the old duo began to work on their latest album, In Ear Park. In Ear Park is a colorful and expansive album, an intimate and personal collection of songs; much of the material that Daniel brought to In Ear Park draws on memories from his childhood, especially those relating to his father, who passed away in 2007 and to whom
the album is dedicated (the title track is a nickname for a park in Los Angeles that the two
used to visit). Many of Fred’s contributions relate to similar themes of nostalgia and mortality, giving the album at times an elegiac feel. In Ear Park is also full of joyful moments, lush production and concise songwriting.

It will be released this fall on 4AD.

Download: No One Does It Like You
Download: In Ear Park

Swimming in The Coral Sea

The Coral Sea's lead singer and songwriter Rey Villalobos makes sure to always carry his acoustic guitar with him everywhere he goes, just in case inspiration strikes. One of such places was his car, where the rudiments of the majority of the new album were composed.

The band has created a sound that is emotional and vulnerable, as well as structured, layered with atmospheric ambiance. They have blended gorgeous orchestral arrangements with indie rock for a warm, dreamlike quality.

Think Yo La Tengo or Sigur Ros coupled with David Bowie. In describing The Coral Sea's debut album, Firelight, Relative Theory Records said, "Very few times do you see a band come out of the gates with such emotion and amazing structure as The Coral Sea. I can only hope that this is not their peak, and that The Coral Sea continues to provide us with wonderful albums in the future."

Check them out for yourselves...

Download: I Know You'll Find A Way
Download: More Than You Know

I'm In A Temporary Residence

Temporary Residence is one heck of a record label. Musically, they're all over the place in every sense of the word. From heavy as fuck sludge rock to DFA endorsed remixes, the label covers it's bases and then some.

They've had a busy 2008 releasing things from everybody including your mom. As of late they've released stuff from Prints, Maserati, Genghis Tron, Young Widows, and The Loved.

As a service to you, here's a sampling of some of their more recent releases...

Prints
Quickly following their debut full-length, Prints return to stir the pot with a little more pop, their usual dose of psychedelia and an intoxicating amount of dance. Once again produced at home by multi-instrumentalists Zac Nelson and Kenseth Thibideau, the songs here were originally conceived as b-sides for a proposed single for "Too Much Water" from the group's eponymous debut. By the time three new songs were completed, they stood too strong on their own to be pushed out as b-sides, so the decision was made to forfeit the single and instead offer the songs as a stand-alone EP.

Download: Yippy

Young Widows
Arriving two years after their debut, Settle Down City, Old Wounds completes Young Widows' transformation into a top-shelf rock band firing on all cylinders. Forging the best parts of Nirvana, The Jesus Lizard, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Fugazi and The Melvins, Old Wounds is a series of dynamic, thoughtful tunes anchored by cavernous grooves that will certainly push most speakers to their breaking point.

Download: Old Skin

The Loved
Formed in 1996 and disbanded less than two years later, The Loved were an accidentally mysterious pop trio from the unlikely locale of Louisville, KY. In truth, they were just three ordinary guys making Beatles-inspired pop with a few nods to some 70s and 80s guitar gods. Their shows became notorious in Louisville; loud, sweaty affairs where the crowd knew all the words to songs that weren't yet recorded, much less released (a remarkable feat in the age before downloading or record leaks).

Download: Lydia/Spinning

Genghis Tron
The inaugural album in the ambitious Board Up The House Remixes series opens with Zombi's Steve Moore expanding the very beginning of "Board Up The House" into a sprawling European film noir soundtrack; Jesu's Justin K Broadrick takes the schizophrenic grind of "Colony Collapse" and transforms it into a dirty booty-bass track just screaming for a Missy Elliott hook; Rob Crow incidentally pioneers Mariachi-core by adding some Spanish guitar and festive vocals to "Things Don't Look Good"; and Eluvium reimagines the 10-minute closer "Ergot" as an outer space funeral dirge for the 24th Century. Packaged in a jacket featuring "remixed" album art by Jon Beasley, this pressing is a limited edition of 1,000 copies on a special colored vinyl that corresponds to the artwork.

Download: Things Don't Look Good

Follow the Deer Tracks

The Deer Tracks are David Lehnberg & Elin Lindfors, both children of the Swedish town of Gävle.

Despite participating in other projects (Leiah, Ariel Kill Him & Twiggy Frostbite), all roads led them into the electromagnetic mist of melodies that became known as Deer Tracks. And so, around the turn of 2006/07, they met to shape electro landscapes as sparkling as the snow and ice that sheeted the long and hard winter nights. As one would expect in Sweden!

Deer Tracks songs are expansive airy ambient like compositions that sound something like M83 meets Eno meets Bjork out in the snow in mid-January. They're chilly tunes that are glistening and beautiful with just enough of a pop edge to them to allow them to freeze your brain.

Good stuff then that's as epic and wide open as Scandinavia.

Download: Yes This Is My Broken Shield
Download: Slow Collision
Download: Before the Storm (Sizemoreisms Deer In The Headlights Remix)

The Sunset

Bill Baird is the brains behind Austin based band and recording project {{{SUNSET}}}. Formed in 2006 by Baird the band has already released two full length albums on Austin label Autobus; 2007's Bright Blue Dream and 2008's The Glowing City. Both albums are literally filled to the brim with psych and shoegaze pop brilliance.

The band's music is sort of like an amalgamation of Beck, Bowie, Eno, The Flaming Lips tripped out on some Syd Barret era Pink Floyd. Currently on a white-hot creative streak, {{{SUNSET}}} is prepping even more releases for 2008.

Here's a fun fact about the band, the band tours in Baird's '84 Mercedes station wagon, which is rigged to run on waste veggie oil they're picking up from restaurants. Ridin' on 24" Dubs and fuelin' it all on grease!

Download: Zombies
Download: Graveyard Dog
Download: The World is Awaiting