One Song

Rare Monk - Happy Haunting
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One Song: Rare Monk - Happy Haunting

Joel Frieders | June 30, 2017
Sometimes I listen to music just to hold my arms out at my sides like I'm flying a cute little airplane. Sometimes I breathe through my exposed teeth as I stare blankly out of my window.  Sometimes I do both of the above things with the proper soundtrack. Rare Monk came through with a gang of tanqueray on "Happy Haunting", sounding like a blissed out Band of Horses but without all that unnecessary plaid and clove cigarettes. It's like these jagbags hacked into my dreams, downloaded what I wanted to feel like, and then proceeded to both create and murder my original wants and transform them into these Rare Monk-ian demonstrations of audible perfection. Here's hoping this band doesn't go down in history as having the best intentions but the worse...
David Pritchard - An Admission of Guilt
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One Song: David Pritchard - An Admission of Guilt

Joel Frieders | March 14, 2017
Knowing absolutely nothing about David Pritchard, nor his 1977 album Nocturnal Earthworm Stew, I will admit to being completely fucking mesmerized by his track "An Admission of Guilt". I spent the better part of last week staring out the window at all of the shit being blown around by the 80mph winds and playing air drums in my own private David Pritchard universe, where noises aren't noises, they're sonic accoutrements bruv! As a self-proclaimed beat freak, I find these ever changing rhythms so fucking choice, it's akin to a full length feature film in just under 13 minutes. If only my attempts at making music this all over the place sounded this well put together. David Pritchard, even though you dropped this shit 40...
Hanging Valleys - Brother
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One Song: Hanging Valleys - Brother

Joel Frieders | March 10, 2017
Hit play on this song and then imagine me emerging, almost birthing, naked and lumpy, and fully coated with a thick transparent mucous, out of a large blooming flower. As I stand, I shake my hips to and fro, whipping the clear, sticky goop from my thighs to the ground surrounding me. I slowly take my hand and cup it around my opposite arm, and I wipe downwards, and more of the schmegma flings off of my arm onto the floor around me. Then I repeat with the other arm, while slowly, seductively, and sensually flinging the goop onto the already flung goop on the floor around me. Just as you start to become even more aroused, I make eye contact with you and ask "do you want fries with THIS?" and thrust my pelvis in your general direction.  Then as you tuck yourself back into yourself, you...
haerts, your love, indie, new song
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One Song: Haerts - Your Love

Tom Doz | March 3, 2017
I draw hearts on my Trapper Keeper for Haerts. I listen to Haerts in a rented tux with the untied bowtie dejectedly hung around my neck. I kick the dirt on the ground in frustration for Haerts. Why? Becuase every song sounds like 80's prom heart-break.  I FUCKING LOVE HAERTS.
Dead Sea - 8.50
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One Song: Dead Sea - 8.50

Joel Frieders | February 23, 2017
I clicked play on this sumbitch this morning after my kids got on the bus. It's been unseasonably warm, the windows are still all dew-ey, the sun was coming up to my right, and I'm only wearing my trademark hoodie and jeans as I drive myself to work.  Simply put, it's fucking comfortable outside righ meow.  Yet, the sad part, that most conscious humans on earth understand, is that we're experiencing this shift in seasons because we've been steady dicks to the environment. This song, "8.50", from Dead Sea has that sort of shimmering comfortable sweatpants and tube top pleasure laid out as a sort of framework for the track, but then the vocal is that odd sort of hopeless and meek murmur, somehow making the juxtaposition of the two sides the focal point of the track...
my education - Open Marriages
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One Song: my education - Open Marriages

Joel Frieders | February 21, 2017
My post rock appetite runs deep. Runs deep. So deep. So deep. {insert comment about how it puts my butt to sleep, but in a good way and not at all sexual} *pops hip* When my thrusting hip hop fists and pulsating electronic dance hips need a rest, I can always rely on instrumental brooding rock shit to carry me. My latest fascination is with my education, who just dropped the track "Open Marriages", which is a blend of 70s fuzz and late 90s romantic comedy soundtracks.  I fucking love overlaid guitar riffs, almost as much as I love a perfect intro into a song. "Open Marriages" has fucking both. Equal parts soothing and aggressive, there is something so fucking inspiring about a track that makes you want to both shut your eyes and clench your fists. Use...
mebitek - The Unconscious
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One Song: Mebitek - The Unconscious

Joel Frieders | February 13, 2017
I listened to this track more than a dozen times this weekend. Feeling like a take on something Saltillo would release, this shit has me comfortably brooding. As a sucker for strings that are tastefully executed, I'm even more of a minor key fanboy than one might imagine. The clackety clack of the drums almost feels like shackles being dragged across a dungeon floor and I fucking love it. Introspective and evil, I could listen to this for the rest of my life and not care it's so fucking comfy. No clue who Mebitek is, but The Unconscious has me hitting repeat all damn day.
Why - This Ole King
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One Song: Why - This Ole King

Brandon Backhaus | January 5, 2017
You only get one life.  And it might take the whole damn thing to come to terms with it. Admitting your faults and fears and insecurities is really fucking hard.  I find the balance between striving for betterment and feeling content to be a high wire walk over the churning insides of a violent cauldron. Leaning too far in either direction leads to the disarray of complete depression. It’s something that can leave you feeling not good enough, attractive enough, kind enough, competent enough, worthy enough. Enough.  You only get one life.  And I really want to live it.  Fuck New Year’s Resolutions! But if I was going to set a goal for the future, it would be to become more comfortable in my own hair-covered skin. To look in the mirror and see all that I’ve accomplished instead of all that...
Oddisee - Things
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One Song: Oddisee - Things

Brandon Backhaus | January 5, 2017
Next sunny day, as the winter blanket of clouds and cold offers a respite, as the bitter and hopeless glances at checking account balances fade to paydays, as the shit show of 2016 gives way to a new year full of stout resolutions and hopeful commitments, hop in whatever vehicle you have acquired in your life as your main form of transportation. Maybe the windows are down and you get your teenage girl on. Maybe headphones are atop your head as you hop on your bike and channel a Goonie or two. Maybe you put on some New Balance, jog out the door and get in touch with your inner Forrest Gump.  Whatever the means, however you listen, when you press play make sure that the track that comes streaming into the holes on the side of your head vibrating tiny bones and causing sound to enter your...
Hanging Valleys, TBD
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One Song: Hanging Valleys - T.B.D.

Joel Frieders | November 28, 2016
When I used to live in California, my roommates and I would sort of meet up around the same time every day after work. We'd dick around for an hour or so, talk about what food to cook or whatever, prepare to intoxicate ourselves, and then walk towards Sands Beach in Isla Vista, CA. There we'd then sit in silence and watch the surfers watch the sun sink into the ocean. I never really remembered us making plans to actually do that, it just turned into something that anywhere from two to seven of us would end up doing anywhere from three to seven nights a week.  Call it instictual, call it habit, call it the perfect time to separate mind from body, but it turned into something that I sort of carried with me into my early adult years. Now that I'm over 35, I don't have the luxury of enjoying...

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