NEW Mercury Rev!

Break out your favorite graphic design program: Yep Roc Records and Mercury Rev want you to design a poster for the band!

The poster will be printed and distributed to everyone who pre-orders the CD or LP version of Snowflake Midnight, the latest album from Mercury Rev to be released 9/30, from the Yep Roc Web Shop.

To submit your designs, just reply to this blog post on Mercury Rev’s MySpace page with the image embedded in the comment or with a link to where the image can be viewed.

**Note: Please submit 5" x 5" minimum, 72 dpi, rgb jpgs for proofing.**

The winner, chosen by the band, will win the glory of having their work printed and distributed to people across the United States!

Contest ends 8/18. So get crackin! Oh and check out the NEW NEW NEW Mercury Rev track below.

Download: Senses on Fire

My Milky Way Arms

What would happen if the Beach Boys were stranded in space on a spaceship made out of synthesizers? My Milky Way Arms might have an idea as they're pretty much are making the kind of music that the Space Shuttle crew takes along with them in orbit.

My Milky Way Arms EP, My Milky Way Arms is a dreamy head trip of intergalactic travel that's like post shoegazing for the nu-rave generation. The songs on My Milky Way Arms are airy, wispy, and barely there. Drenched in harmonies from the heavens each of the five songs here are lush and palatial with a mellow vibe that feels as big as the galaxy.

From the Brian Wilson inspired, "Unbearable Lightness of Being," to the nearly ambient rays of, "Sunshine," My Milky Way Arms is an absolutely fantastic record of serene spatial pop that sounds like the best record Slowdive never recorded.

Epic and as vast as the Milk Way itself, My Milky Way Arms is music for aliens created by a duo of musicians who might not just be from around these parts to begin with. Seriously short and sweet at but completely awesome stuff that will make you look towards the heavens.

Download: Magneto (AAAAHHHH!!!!)
Download: Unbearable Lightness of Being
Download: Sunshine

The Summer of Twee presses on!

This Is Ivy League is a bit of an alter identity for it's members. You see, the two members of This Is Ivy League, Alex Suarez and Ryland Blackinton, have a day job with super emo stars Cobra Starship. When they're not receiving 10,000,000 Myspace plays on their page, they're not holed up somewhere not playing with their hair, but instead writing pop music that would make most emo kids question why they're hung up on being so miserable.

This Is Ivy League's album, This Is Ivy League is a masterful whirl of sugary twee pop perfection. It's as if Alex and Ryland were possessed by an AM Radio and forced to write jangly pop ditties about love and erm the weather. About the easiest comparison would be to say This Is Ivy League sounds as though Belle and Sebastian had American accents, listened to a lot of Matinee Records, and figured that every song must be happy.

The eleven songs on This Is Ivy League are just about perfect in every way and sound as if they were hidden away in an attic for 30 years and found by the band purely by accident. The first three songs alone are so incredibly good that they could very well be singles of the year; if it were 1974 they would be giving the Carpenters a run for their money.

Truly the definition of pop perfection, This Is Ivy League is a stunning record of happy go lucky music that's in such a good mood, it's infectious. The songs on This Is Ivy League are crisp and springy and overjoyed that you're listening to them and after one listen you'll find yourself just as elated.

They might be emo stars during the day, but you get the sense after listening to This Is Ivy League that the members of This Is Ivy League truly love making music of this nature far more than they do for their day job. Whether they do or don't is unknown but here's hoping that they continue to make records as This Is Ivy League for many years.

Download: The Richest Kids
Download: London Bridges
Download: You Me and the Moon (Magnetic Fields cover)

XX Teens Take Over

Having already released their album in the UK, XX Teens will release their debut album Welcome To Goon Island through Mute on September 30, 2008.

The 11-track album - produced by Sheffield’s Ross Orton (MIA, Fat Truckers, Bromheads Jacket) - features the single "Darlin'" which will be available digitally later this year. The NME calls "Darlin'" "A berserk swamp-rock thriller… scary and brilliant, like a ghost that tosses you off as you sleep."

Welcome To Goon Island is born from the great British Art School tradition, the core of the band having met at art school in Southend. Vivid and expansive, the album is political, innovative, and joyous – it rumbles, rolls & swings coming to an end with the swirling psychedelia of "Sun Comes Up" and a moving eulogy from British peace activist Brian Haw.

Check out the bizarre video for Darlin then download it...



Download: Darlin

This Ain't Your Brothers Blood Brothers...

Jaguar Love features Johnny Whitney (vocals, piano) and Cody Votolato (guitar, bass) both formerly of The Blood Brothers, and J Clark (drums, bass, keyboards) who used to play guitar for Pretty Girls Make Graves. They've played a string of west coast dates opening for Queens of The Stone Age, and Matador put out their debut self titled EP this past June.

Their record Take Me To The Sea comes out on August 19th and it's a shambolic shuffly jumpy rock and roll affair that's so far away from being anything related to any of their former bands you'd never know these guys all used to be maniacs...well maybe not J Clark but PGMG's is still a bit different than Jaguar Love.

Anyway, check out the tunes...

Download: Highways of Gold
Download: Bats Over The Pacific Ocean

Holy Sons O' Musicians

Aside from recording and touring with his other critically acclaimed bands OM (Sub Pop / Southern Lord) and Grails (Important Records/ Temporary Residence/Neurot Recordings), Emil Amos also records and tours under the name Holy Sons. On September 23, 2008 Partisan Records will be releasing an expanded release of Holy Sons apocalyptic masterpiece Decline of the West.

Decline of the West represents a vital intersection of style and method in Amos songwriting and production, combining his genre-hopping tendencies and no-rules mixing methods with the more hook-driven, straight-to-the-jugular phrasing that he has been honing for the last 15 years.

Amos musical resume reads like a dream wish list for most musicians. Outside of Holy Sons, Amos is the new member in the globally renowned Om and a producer/songwriter of his other band Grails. He has performed both on stage and collaboratively with the likes of Daniel Johnston, Will Oldham, Damo Suzuki, Jandek, J Mascis, Smog, Polvo, Quasi, Sir Richard Bishop, Scout Niblett, Six Organs, Devendra Banhart, and Mark Kozelek.

Decline of the West is named after and conceptually began with Oswald Spengler's pessimistic assessment that the Western culture is revealing the classic signs of a society's decay and end. The record was recorded at Amos' home studio in late-night recording sessions that stretched over three years, during which he played every instrument and then mixed and re-mixed each track. Decline of the West is his most stylistically varied effort to date, and a linchpin of Amos' catalogue.

Download: Gnostic Device
Download: I'm Healed
Download: Things You Do While Waiting For The Apocalypse

Chaos!

Spencer Seim is a busy man, when he's not abusing guitars for Hella, he's the drummer for The Advantage and now when he's not doing either of those bands he's now his own musical adventure known as sBACH.

sBACH sounds like Pat Metheny on acid hanging out with Mr. Bungle and John Zorn in a strip club doing even more drugs and then taking unicycles to a recording studio to lay down some tracks. It's insane metallic instrumental mayhem that's so quick the songs don't even have titles.

sBACH is the sound of metal mayhem that shreds all it sees. If you're left standing after listening to this record in its entirety then consider yourself lucky. If you've got padding in your room or enjoy being torn to bits than I suggest you download the song below and when the album comes out on August 19th buy it with extreme caution; you might just shuffle off your mortal coil from holding it in your hands.

Download: Three