Neov's Windvane Released

Hailing from a small village in eastern Finland, two brothers Anssi and Samuli Neuvonen started making music way back when they were children.  They formed the band Neufvoin, released a few well-received EPs and toured throughout Europe. But, after a series of line up changes, the members started a new life in 2012 under the name Neøv.

Several areas of the band's hometown, Kuopio, are built on islands as the city is surrounded by lakes. As one might suspect such an environment worked it's way into the sound of the band.  Their songs are expansive but quiet, grandiose but intimate.  And when it boils down to it...good.

They've just released a new single and Korallreven remix of 'Windvane.' Windvane previews the band's debut album, Orange Morning, to be released this winter and produced by members of Rubik.

Download: Windvane
Download: Windvane (Korallraven Remix)
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Letting Up Despite Great Faults

Letting Up Despite Great Faults has released the first single "Visions" off their new album, Untogether, due out Oct. 9. The new track "sums up the sentiment of the the whole release," says frontman Mike Lee. "Confident, with a sense of being lost," Untogether is an album that radiates infectious melodies, heartbreaking sentiments, and danceable dreampop.

The new album sees the band continuing to refine and expand their sound, picking up where last year's Paper Crush EP left off. The EP's lead single 'Teenage Tide' was featured on the television show 90210, with Rolling Stone calling it "a blissful, shimmery track" and USA Today raving, "it captures the essence of teen dreams." In 2009 the band released its self-titled full-length, which was met with unanimous critical acclaim.

Download: Visions
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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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Catch The Rays from pacificUV

pacificUV was formed in the late 1990’s in Athens, Georgia. Half the band wanted to sound like a psychedelic Jesus and Mary Chain tripping on Nyquil, while the other half wanted to play one chord for 45 minutes to determine its color. Somehow, what emerged from these disparate goals was their critically acclaimed, 4 years in the making, self-titled debut album that Rolling Stone called a “masterpiece”. The perfect mixture of noise and melody, the first LP was a sprawling ambient landscape that revealed a myriad of influences, from shoegaze to 60’s rock, to slow core to post-rock.

Following a move to Portland, Oregon and the release of their second LP - Longplay 2 - in 2008, the band moved back to its native Athens, Georgia and spent the last two years recording its third, and best, record, WEEKENDS.

The lyrical inspiration for WEEKENDS is the disintegration of a romantic relationship. What does one do on the weekends once love has disappeared? The pill case inspired album art suggests one answer.
From “Funny Girl” and “Ballerina” to the hangover ballads of “Going Home” and “Baby Blue”, WEEKENDS is sequenced to suggest the highs and lows one might experience on any given weekend when attempting to forget the past.

Download: Funny Girl
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The Caseworker Takes On A National Runner

It's not every day you hear a song about a long-distance runner from Ethiopia, much less one that sounds like a long lost Ride tune. But in the case of...er...[The] Caseworker that's exactly what they've written.

With ‘National Runner’, [The] Caseworker have an instant pop classic on their hands. The song’s consummate balance of drone and chime features a heady mix of hypnotic guitars and driving rhythm section, all perfectly offset by Conor Devlin’s starry-eyed vocal. Learning that the track is an ode to famed Ethiopian Olympic long-distance runner Miruts Yifter makes all the more sense after being doused in its heady atmosphere.

It's an awesome tune for someone that's famous for one heck of an Olympic race and if it's any indication how the rest of their music sounds we're in for a marathon.

Download: National Runner

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Learn The Tennis System

The noisy, earnest legacy of the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and Ride lives on in the expansive, catchy-as-hell pop songs of Los Angeles’ Tennis System.
Matty Taylor (vocals and guitar), Misha Bullock (drums and, on occasion, guitar), Christopher Norman (guitar and, on occasion, drums), and Guylaine Vivarat (bass) are masters of loud and dirty anthems, but rising above the noise that blankets them are Taylor’s beautifully sung, dreamy lyrics inspired by both love and art. Listen hard, and through the distortion, threads of melody emerge; these are picturesque songs, full of woe, optimism and yearning.

Working with Ryan van Kriedt (Asteroid No. 4 and The Dead Skeletons), the band experimented with cello, bells, xylophone, synths and organ to add dimension and complexity to its sound.  The result of that experiment is called, Teenagers and it features the tune Arcane.

Download: Arcane
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Radiation City Hit The Road

Portland-based dream-pop outfit Radiation City have announced a coast to coast US tour behind their debut full-length, The Hands That Take You, out September 27th with Tender Loving Empire (Typhoon, Loch Lomond).

Radiation City originated when founding members Cameron Spies and Lizzy Ellison first put their heads together founding DIY cassette tape label, Apes Tapes, among a wellspring of other projects. Running a record label put the duo in a position of musical saturation, and after participating in multiple bands and side-projects, they decided to sit down and do it right and that's where Radiation City comes in. Now with their debut album in the proverbial can and things all done properly, the band are ready to head out on the highway...

The tour...
8.8 - Pendelton, OR - Great Pacific
8.9 - Boise, ID - Visual Arts Collective
8.11 - Provo, UT - Muse Music Cafe
8.12 - Grand Junction, CO - TBA
8.13 - Denver, CO - Yellow Feather
8.14 - Lincoln, NE - Clawfoot House
8.16 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry
8.18 - Chicago, IL - Strobe session
8.20 - Chicago, IL - Hideout Inn
8.21 - Youngstown, OH - Cedar Lounge
8.22 - Pittsburgh, PA - TBA
8.23 - New York City, NY - Pianos w/ Kitty, Daisy, & Lewis
8.24 - Brooklyn, NY - Spike Hill
8.26 - Baltimore, MD - TBA
8.27 - Philly, PA - JR's Bar-Gracie w/ Rivka
8.28 - Charlotte, NC - Snug Harbor
8.30 - Chapel Hill, NC - The Nightlight
8.31 - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
9.1 - New Orleans, LA - Siberia w/ King Rey, The Jonesbirds
9.3 - Austin, TX - Emo's
9.5 - Albuquerque, NM - Burt's Tiki
9.6 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress
9.7 - San Diego, CA - Tin Can Ale House
9.8 - Los Angeles, CA -TBA
9.9 - Los Angeles, CA - House Show
9.14 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom Of the Hill w/ Blackbird Blackbird
9.16 - Davis, CA - Sophia's Thai Kitchen w/ Birds and Batteries
9.24 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir (CD release show)

Download: The Color Of Industry
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Letting Up Despite Great Faults

Hailing from Los Angeles, California, Letting Up Despite Great Faults are excited to announce the release of their forthcoming EP Paper Crush, on Old Flame Records out on August 2. Letting Up Despite Great Faults is the sonic diary of founding member, Mike Lee.

Lee's interest in music started at an early age, picking up piano, bass and guitar. After rooming with two DJs in college, Lee started to explore sampling and sequencing beats, taking a cue from DJ Shadow, IDM and dance pioneers like Aphex Twin and Daft Punk.

This of course means that Letting Up Despite Great Faults sounds nothing like any of that.  Somewhere between Ride, Slumberland Records, and fields of heather is where you'll find Paper Crush residing.  The Anglophilia that Letting Up Despite Great Faults suffers from runs rampant here and you can hear it oozing out of every single riff.  This is the sort of record that has summer written all over it and had it come out in 1992 would have been declared single of the year by Melody Maker.

Charmingly brilliant stuff then.

Download: Teenage Tide
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Keith Canisius Is A Fish Out Of Water

Keith Canisius, American born (Cambridge, MA) living in Copenhagen, Denmark is determined to create beautiful, mood elevating, dreamy pop music sometimes with an explosive edge, and other times with a smooth and tender bedroom. Stubbornly he’s been practicing and learning how to produce his music on his own, putting out records every year since. Keith Canisius hates and loves genres so much, that he has decided not to worry about them anymore and just make whatever music he wants.

His newest album This Time It’s Our High released on Darla Records is his proudest work so far. The hard work and late night bedroom dreams are finally starting to redeem themselves he feels. After releasing 4 albums, an EP, and contributing to various remix and compilation albums in 4 years, Keith Canisius is starting to wake up from a long dream where This Time It’s Our High is serves as an interesting transition to a new one.

Download: Peoples Faces
Download: The Beach House

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School of Seven Bells Touring This Winter...

School of Seven Bells, whose album Disconnect From Desire is one of our Top 25 albums of 2010, are about to head out on the road. But before they do, they figured they'd release a new video AND a new track.

So while you're waiting for them to come to your town, you can watch/listen to "I L U," on repeat.

School of Seven Bells Tour Dates...
Dec 02 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5 supporting The Walkmen
Jan 27 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theatre
Jan 28 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox SoDo
Jan 29 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
Jan 31 – San Francisco, CA @ Warfield Theatre
Feb 02 – La Jolla, CA @ RIMAC Arena
Feb 04 – Santa Barbara, CA @ UCSB Events Center
Feb 05 – Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
Feb 07 – Salt Lake City, AZ @ In The Venue
Feb 08 – Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theatre
Feb 11 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
Feb 12 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
Feb 15 – Toronto, ON @ Sound Academy
Feb 16 – Montreal, QU @ Metropolis
Feb 19 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues Boston

Download: I L U
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Abby Gogo Goes and Goes

It's not quite appropriate to pigeonhole Abby Gogo as a shoegaze band and the garage rock shoe doesn't quite fit either. Rather, twin brothers Bon and Jon Alinson and company traverse an expansive middle ground where '60s pop sensibilities are tempered by elusive feelings of melancholy and elation. Previously releasing a split single with Carnivores in summer of 2009 on Double Phantom, Abby Gogo are now set to release their first full length on November 30, 2010.

The grinding intonations of every guitar tone and distant voice are captured with clarity, illustrating jagged sonic textures that serve the long bouts of repetition in the single "Louder Than Dreams". If you ever like early Verve singles or even the first album, you will absolutely love the raw psychedelics of Abby Gogo.

Download: Louder Than Dreams

Head Out To The Low Sea...

Quick and easy, short and sweet Friday afternoon post from the Low Sea.

Ireland-based duo Low Sea combine warped seasick-shoegaze, nostalgic pop melody and fuzzed-out dreampop, all cemented on a solid krautrock platform.

With sounds that reference everything from Suicide to Spacemen 3, A.R.Kane to Mazzy Star, Giorgio Moroder to The Big Pink, Low Sea's songs are a hazy journey between looming shadows and bleached-out light.

Download: Falling
Download: Never Yours

Seinking Ships Relive The Past

From the POP! Stereo History of POP! comes today's lesson starring Eric Matthews and Miki Berenyi...

Eric Matthews...He was once of the legendary Cardinal - the groundbreaking orchestral pop act that paved the way for everyone from The Polyphonic Spree to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Eric was also signed to Sub Pop and released the classic 'Fanfare' single (and an LP that MOJO cited as 'one of the 67 Lost albums You Must Own').

He decided to make an album with Ohio native Christopher Seink under the guise of Seinking Ships, that would be mainly instrumentals inspired by 80's soundtrack music. But somewhere during the recording of said instrumental album they decided some vocals would be great and the name Miki Berenyi comes up. Now note that Miki had pretty much dropped out of the music business after Lush.

Amazingly Eric found a way to get in touch, and sent her music. Even more amazingly Miki decided to become involved, and laid vocals on a few tracks for the album - a release that is entitled Museum Quality Capture.

Now with everything complete and Miki in tow, the record is set for release and shall be unleashed upon an unsuspecting public who may or may not remember any of this band's history.

Download: One Day Forever
Download: You Didn't Love Me (ft. Miki Berenyi)

Behold The Lazer Crystal

Lazer Crystal is a musical node comprised of three humans and various mechanisms. They are from the city of Chicago, Illinois and have thus far released two limited selections on the collectors imprint HBSP-2X. The first Hot Pink BMX single was printed in an edition of 300 copies and spray painted by hand, some with custom textile covers. The following EP1 release was even more unique. Lazer Crystal asked several artists to contribute artwork for another 300 copy limited release. The results were that approximately 50 people contributed designs and every single record ended up with a unique jacket. These were displayed "gallery style" for a special release on Record Store Day.

The members of Lazer Crystal are Nicholas Read (electronics & vocals), Josh Johannpeter (percussion), & Mikale De Graff (vocals & electronics). MCMLXXX is their first full-length and is released by the mighty Thrill Jockey.

Download: Bad Indian
Download: Hot Pink BMX
Download: Love Rhombus

Monster Movie...Returns

Christian Savill of Slowdive never gave up music when his most famous band called it a day. Oh no, rather than pack it in, Savill continued working with his partner in musical crime, Sean Hewson for well over twenty years. Over that span of time together, they've put together a resume of feedback driven guitar music that stretches as far as the eye can see. Originally teaming up in a band known as Eternal, the band went into seclusion for several years only to return later as Monster Movie in 2000. Over the course of this decade the pair have slowly aged their sound into something more pop driven than Slowdive and far more ethereal than most pop. Confused? You can hear this for yourself on their latest album, Everyone Is A Ghost.

No, Monster Movie don't sound like Slowdive. Instead, oddly enough, they end up sounding a bit like late period Ride throughout most Everyone Is A Ghost. They might hate me for saying that but really that's not a bad thing at all. You see, no other band took shoegazing, rock and roll, and indie and combined it into something that was palatable for the mainstream quite like Ride did. Here Monster Movie is doing something very similar with great results. So, comparisons aside, Everyone Is A Ghost is still a swirly noisy racket with lush synth arrangements added for good measure. But rather than being a duo of musos who love effect pedals and washed out keyboards more than life, Monster Movie construct something catchy tuneful amongst the haze. Whether they are at their moodiest or at their most upbeat, they manage to wrap their dreamy, distorted guitars around a synthy pop shell making Monster Movie far from being a scary proposition. In fact, Everyone Is A Ghost is so likeable that it's almost impossible not to find the tunes on this record appealing.

Monster Movie do a fantastic job at combining all the elements of music that they love the most into an arty combination of unearthly music with a brilliant pop sensibility. From the moody banjo on, "In the Morning," to the weary seasonal hymn of, "Fall," Everyone Is A Ghost is a well structured album of dream pop that sounds like shoegazing was brought into the future, updated, and sent back. It's a great record and if you've ever considered yourself a fan of the genre, you can't do much better than Everyone Is A Ghost. Revivalism has never sounded so broody and fantastic.

Download: Silver Knife
Download: Bored Beyond Oblivion

Butterfly Explosion

The Butterfly Explosion are a band from Ireland that blend powerful spiraling music with delicate vocals to form rich soundscapes of beautiful melodies, gliding between moments of ethereal dreampop and explosive sonic bliss.

Originally a solo home project of Gazz Carr, Butterfly Explosion has developed into a full blown band, releasing two EPs independently and touring North America, Ireland and UK. After doing pretty well by themselves, they're finaly preparing their debut full length album for release.

Entitled, Lost Trails, the album was produced by Torsten Kinsella (God Is An Astronaut) and will released March 1st 2010 through Revive Records. Following the debut album release, Butterfly Explosion will be touring between the UK(February) and Europe(April-May) with God Is An Astronaut, as well as the USA(March) where they will be performing at the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas.

Download: Closer
Download: Chemistry

Join the Alcoholic Faith Mission

Alcoholic Faith Mission started in Brooklyn, NY in 2006. The apprentices of dejection, Thorben Seierø Jensen and Sune Sølund, were wandering around in the raw wintry-streets, shooting the breeze and brushing on alcoholism when suddenly before them was big neon cross. This was a holy congregation called Apostolic Faith Mission. “It’s just like booze is to the alcoholic, they thought. A true mission to withstand an empty existence; an Alcoholic Faith Mission.

Three months later the duo’s underplayed and dogmatic debut, Misery Loves Company, was ready. Dogma’s for the album, which was recorded in a small bedroom in Copenhagen, was that recordings had to take place at night, lit by only candles and always under the influence of alcohol.

Two years later they went back to Brooklyn to seclude themselves in an old factory loft at 421 Wythe Avenue and came up with an alternative active creation process for the new album – perhaps one that was a bit easier on the liver. They tried on a selection of straight jackets for inspiration. Everything used to make the music had to be found within the loft’s four walls – creating some obscure, yet fitting sounds such as that of dictionaries beating each other to become an electronically muted bass drum.

This way of working turned into their second album; named after the street where they lived on – 421 Wythe Avenue. Judging by the single, "We All Have Our Shortcomings," the album is a hangover that feels good. It's a hazy slow building tune that swirls like a Sunday morning that never ends. Dreamy, shimmery, and really quite good, the single hints at an album that's even better. The Betty Ford Clinic never sounded so good.

Download: We All Have Our Shortcomings

The Besnard Lakes Are Back

The Besnard Lakes are offering a preview of their much-anticipated album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, with the standout single, "Albatross." The single will also be made available on February 9th (8th in the UK) as a vinyl 12" with the exclusive b-side "Four Long Lines."

"Albatross," is a beautiful dreamy tune that sounds like a warped California pop record fed through a distortion pedal. Think classic shoegazing ala Pale Saints and you kind of have the right idea. It's fantastic stuff that only hints at how awesome the full album will be.

This is one albatross around your neck you won't want to get rid of.

Download: Albatross

DeVries Turns A New Page

The latest entry from the POP! Stereo Treasure Trove comes to us from the past...deVries is the new band of Travis DeVries, of legendary Seattle band The Turn-ons. In August 2009, Spin Magazine listed The Turn-ons in its “100 Greatest Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard” story. Peter Buck of R.E.M. described them as “…simply my favorite new Seattle band. If I said that their sound was a combination of the Velvets, T. Rex and Spiritualized with a dash of Yo La Tengo, it wouldn’t do them justice."

de Vries sound hearkens to the reining days of Britpop/Madchester bands such as The Stone Roses and Suede. Travis’ lyrics touch on a wide range of range of topics from trans-gendered children (“Boys are Bores”), to global warming (“Slowing Down”), and economic upheaval (“Black Thursday Repeat”). His gift of weaving lush orchestration and intensely personal lyrics is a reminder of the days when music saved your life.

Download: Slowing Down
Download: Darkest Summer

I Love Monster Movies

Monster Movie return with Everyone Is A Ghost, the latest fuzzy downer-pop showcase from the London-based duo of Christian Savill of Slowdive and Sean Hewson of Eternal. 2010 marks the pair’s twentieth anniversary of working together and tenth anniversary recording and performing as Monster Movie. Since their inception in 2000, Savill and Hewson have been slowly developing their synth-kissed wistful and utterly distinctive sound. Everyone Is A Ghost weaves that signature sound through ten tales of misspent youth, and past loves and losses remembered.

Perhaps Monster Movie’s finest realization yet, Everyone Is A Ghost distills the sprawling and infinitely expansive floorboard-gazing fuzz-wall of Slowdive into ten perfectly-baked and intensely catchy pop songs played out on guitar, bass, piano, ukulele, percussion and a range of synthesizers. Buried deep in the duo’s carefully-crafted, hazed-out sonic mire are combinations of experimental-atmospherics ala David Bowie’s Low, flashes of dramatic ambiance, electronica-laced sunny pop nostalgia, and unparalleled male/female vocal harmonies.

Written and recorded in six cities across the U.S. and U.K in 2009, Everyone Is A Ghost features guest appearances from Ryan Graveface (Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dreamend), Sophie Pittaway and Rachel Staggs (Experimental Aircraft). Artwork was created by esteemed Rhode Island-based illustrator and musician William Schaff, who has previously set ink to paper for Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Okkervil River, Songs: Ohia, Kid Dakota and more.

Monster Movie’s Everyone Is A Ghost will be released on April 6th on Graveface Records.

Download: Bored Beyond Oblivion