Sacred Animals - Welcome Home EP

Sacred Animals is the moniker, though not a whole lot else is known about the man behind the atmospheric tunes that make up debut EP Welcome Home. Bon Iver, Thom Yorke, Grizzly Bear and Midlake are cited as influences, and that frames his sound pretty nicely, but it has its own unique aura about it. The vocals are certainly Yorke-esque, particularly on opener 'Wired, Islands' while the subtle instrumental swells and flourishes that characterise these tracks are worthy of Ed Droste and co. It's not the most immediate stuff, but this EP is really starting to grow on me now (admittedly, i had the exact same slow-burn experience with Grizzly Bear). There's a real evocative quality to these tunes and some immaculate attention-to-detail.

Just Like A Drummer wrote a great blog post about the EP here: http://likeadrummer.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/sacred-animals-welcome-home-2010/

This is my favourite track from the EP:

Chosen Seed by The Delphi Label

Stream: OOAL split 7" - C!ties + Guilty Optics

Out On A Limb Records have already released one excellent split 7" this year with the Windings/Vertigo Smyth double-header (http://tinyurl.com/36esk3x). The follow-up couldn't be more of a contrast stylistically. On one side there's the blistering 'White Teeth' by Dubliners Guilty Optics: it's very much in the same ballpark as album-of-the-year contenders Jogging, heavy and hardcore-influenced.

GUILTY OPTICS - WHITE TEETH by OOAL

The other side features the equally impressive 'Krakatoa' by Ennis-based band C!ties, an instrumental tour-de-force that shifts deftly from sludgy post-rock to lean, laser-precision riffing

C!TIES-KRAKATOA by OOAL

The 7" is released November 19th on limited edition vinyl complete with download codes. There'll also be a number of live dates in support:

November 18th – Róisín Dubh (Upstairs), Galway. Doors 11.30pm. Free Show (followed by OOAL djs)
November 19th – The Quad, Cork. W/guests TBC. 9pm. Free Show
November 20th – Brandon's, Ennis, w/ guests Jogging. 9pm. Adm: 3 Euro
November 21st – Dolan's Upstairs, Limerick w/guests Jogging & Baby Blue Eyes. Doors 6pm. Free Show
November 26th – Whelan's Upstairs, Dublin w/guests TBC. 8pm. 6 Euro/€10 with vinyl.

And on the subject of C!ties, their 2008 EP is available to download for free from their Bandcamp: http://cities.bandcamp.com/album/ep




http://www.outonalimbrecords.com/

Stream Games EP - That We Can Play

'Steeped in jazz fusion and midi funk from the 70s and 80s', Games is a collaboration between Dan Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never and Joel Ford of Tiger City. New EP That We Can Play is now streaming over at XLR8R : http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2010/10/stream-new-games-ep-we-can-play

'MIDI Drift' is one track featured on the EP:

MIDI DRIFT by Games

Also worth checking out is the double-cassette mix of ultra-slowed down classics Spend The Night With Games, which is also streamable on their Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/games

Here's Side A:

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side A by Games

Video: La Sera - 'Never Come Around'

Don't fuck with Katy Goodman.

La Sera - Never Come Around from Brady Hall on Vimeo.

The solo project of Vivian Girls' Katy Goodman, La Sera's 'Never Come Around' 7" is out now on Hardly Art, with an album release set for early 2011

Deerhunter - 'Helicopter'

You know when you already think a song is great and then you find out a bit of background to it which makes it even more devastating?

Via http://www.fluxblog.org/2010/10/i-keep-no-company:

"The liner notes of Halcyon Digest preface the lyrics of “Helicopter” with an excerpt written by Dennis Cooper that provides context for the words. Basically, the song is about a young gay Russian boy named Dima who fell into pornography and prostitution, and eventually was sold into sexual slavery to an organized crime figure. His ultimate fate is unknown, but one account had him dying after being pushed out of a helicopter over a remote forest in northern Russia. Anyway, it’s very hard to unlearn that context — suddenly every line of the song becomes unbearably sad, even the bits that were already painfully melancholy. The music is gorgeous, one of the most brilliantly crafted pieces of Bradford Cox’s career to date, and it perfectly conveys this feeling of frailty and powerlessness, and total doom. When Cox sings “now they are through with me,” it’s sweet and fragile and utterly devoid of hope. It’s terminal passivity."

Damn.