Transpanther / Standard Recording / Joyful Noise

Formerly Castle Oldchair!

From the land of dusty water jugs with spiders and mud bits, from the depths of the spiraling staircase of eternal mental spirituality we come. Coming to bring you an experience of total improvisational bliss. We've been playing as a group like this for the past couple of years, honing our skills to listen and react to each other without fault, without conscious thought. You're listening to the cool night sounds of Japatucky... Thank you.

An intensely broad spectrum of sound and mood come with the music of Stationary Odyssey. Aaron Tanner and Brett Siler toe the boundaries of modern music with a fierce devotion to the homegrown DIY ethics of their Midwestern roots. While not entirely avant-garde or wholly conventional, Stationary Odyssey carries the passion and honesty of folk music in a package composed of the heady aspects of trip-hop and the explosive bombast of indie-rock.

We are really into reverb, tape machines, anaolg synthesizers, tambourines, computers, guitars, guitars, combining hi-fi and lo-fi tracking, our voices, Phil Spector, noise, reverb, delay, and reverb.

"Lucky Pineapple's songs are built up out of dark, suspenseful melodic lines and solid, funk-influenced drum patterns, with guitars, trombone and other instruments layered over them. (The band brought with them a huge array of guitar effects pedals, as well as a plastic bin of unusual percussion instruments.) These multi-part compositions earn comparisons to Captain Beefheart through their use of unexpected rhythmic shifts. The band was remarkably tight..."

A POPPY FEEL THAT ALL OF US OTHER WEIRDOS ARE ABLE TO APPRECIATE AND SWALLOW. THERE'S NO WAY TO TELL WHAT THESE GUYS ARE THINKING OR FEELING, JUST A VERY OBVIOUS DISPLAY OF HOW THEY'RE REACTING TO IT ALL." - SEAN MOELLER @ DAYTROTTER.COM

"THE BAND'S LIVE PERFORMANCE IS VERY PERCUSSION-BASED, WITH RANDOM HITS ON VIRTUALLY ANYTHING THAT WILL MAKE A SOUND. CALL IT MESSY OR CHAOTIC OR DISJOINTED AT TIMES, BUT WHATEVER IT IS, IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING." - TODD MILLER @ NEW CITY MAGAZINE

"WITH AN ATYPICAL ARRAY OF INSTRUMENTATION AND EXTENSIVE FOCUS ON PERCUSSION, I NEED SLEEP'S QUIRKY AND EXCLAMATORY MELODIES AND COLLABORATIVE VOCALS ARE DEFYING CONVENTION AT EVERY TURN." - JER COLE @ THE NEWS SENTINEL

"THE BAND MEMBERS OF I NEED SLEEP HAVE AN ENERGY AND ATTITUDE ABOUT THEMSELVES THAT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS SELF-CONFIDENT AND WHACKY." - JOSH ZANGER @ LOSTATSEA.NET

Bands such as Deerhoof and Danielson ride a jagged edge, as their songs often fall apart and come back together just in time to avoid alienating the listener entirely. Difficult quirks are eventually overwhelmed by cohesion and melody, and the pattern keeps the music alive and listeners active.

On the concise Slight Fountain, Hermit Thrushes aspire to a similar mix of awkward and approachable. Joyful Noise Recordings notes the influence of “pre-American sounds (Greek folk, Byzantine chant, Andean music, Turkish folk)” on the band’s compositions, but those styles are not likely to come to most listeners’ minds.

More apparent are appeals to the senses and a tone that manages to uplift despite a somewhat macabre atmosphere. “Snowflake Heart” skips along in a singsong manner, but there is something deathly about the repeated “scent of almonds”. “Push” offers the vivid image of a “stomach bleeding through the dirt to fill up holes you never see”. Its chorus is uncomfortably similar to an Everclear hook, but otherwise the song is an effective exercise in contrasting compositional and lyrical elements.

Sometimes, as on “Black Cat”, the atonality gets out of hand and fails to reconcile with the more satisfying folk-rock arrangements. But “Song From Boat” and the Clouds Taste Metallic-esque “Gooseneck” successfully square the band’s various musical impulses. As angular, lo-fi modern rock goes, many bands have garnered more hype with work less gripping than Slight Fountain.

Bloomington Indie Super Group!

Part Jonathan Richmond (sic), part Julian Cope, part Super Furry Animals, the music of Everything Now, takes traditional song structures and warps them ever so slightly on their latest album "Spatially Severed" , a fine layer of lysergic dust coating the tunes. Take "The Shelter", a rowdy rock guitar fighting with a swarm of synths and a sing-a-long chorus to great effect. Elsewhere, there is a sixties pop vibe to "Venus Tossed the Dice", whilst the bar room piano of "Alice of Dixie Cup" is augmented by surreal lyrics and strange vocal backing. Finally "In heaven Smoking Trees", is a fine psychedelic rocker, distorted and imaginative ending a collection of songs that grow with every listen.

In the vein of Bradsucks, Chance, and devoted to countless other talented solo basement musicians, it's an honor to (re)present Thunderhawk. From a little town called Muncie, Indiana (also home to a great podcast called The Good Beer Show, and rising stars Margot and the Nuclear So and So's) Josh Hall writes, performs, engineers, and masters dozens of musical gems full of life, honesty, quirkiness, catchy riffs, and raw talent. Gravity Wins! is his fifth album, and is available on CDBaby. The track "Style Points" is from said album, and it was NOT easy to choose a single song. So I'm also throwing in "I've Got a Bullet With Your Name On It." And on a personal note, I really believe Thunderhawk has the writing chops and talent it takes to make it in a crowded indie scene. Grab these two tracks, and judge for yourself.

Soul music for future generations of hopeless kids huffing paint in the basement...

Throughout the last 14 years, the enigmatic trio known as Marmoset have fostered a near-mythical cult status with their claustrophobic, moody, and etherial blend of indie pop. Having crafted such subtle, eccentric, and critically acclaimed pop masterpieces as 2001's "Record In Red" (Secretly Canadian), Marmoset continue their unruly trajectory with the lazy swagger, slimy melody, and profound simplicity that is Tea Tornado.

2009 finds Marmoset at their most energetic, revelatory, and sensational - with a stripped-down, punchier sound that seems to recall their earliest work of 1995's "Hiddenforbidden" or 1999's "Today It's You." But we find no re-hashing on Tea Tornado, just simple and surreal songs with twisted sensibilities and perplexingly sexy vocals. Principal songwriters Jorma Whittiker and Dave Jablanski craft songs that seem to come from a shimmering, hallucinogenic cavern; with an encyclopedic knowledge of 20th century pop.

The band's subtle take on primordial-post-punk spawns songs whose overly-simple structures seem to speak in tongues. While songs like "Strawberry Shortcakes" and "Peach Cobbler" thrive on this simplicity, tracks like "Come With Me" and "Hallway" contain melodies that would make Kim Deal's ears perk. Juxtaposed with these melodious moments are tracks like "You, Blueberry Muffin" and "Oh' Dear Handlebars" which contain all of the essential eccentricities that make Marmoset the introverted misfits they are channeling the spirit of Swell Maps or an early and non-jam-leaning Sonic Youth.

Tea Tornado is too strange to be punk, too free of pretension to be psychedelic or glam, but it's filled with moments that conjure up each of these genres. Marmoset's songs deal in dark love, modern confusion, drug haze, poetic nightmares, and melancholy melodies. Marmoset have undergone a decade-plus of being under-appreciated heroes of lo-fi indie rock, and the heart of their music is still grainy beauty, blood and guts, harmony and dissonance. Marmoset are at the top of their game on Tea Tornado, and it's time for the world to catch up.

The Bloomington, IN, group Early Day Miners is a self-described "musical cooperative." The group's core members are Daniel Burton, Rory Leitch (both formerly of Ativin), and Joseph Brumley, but the trio enlists a revolving cast of friends for recordings and live performances. Early Day Miners spin American rural music into richly cinematic, experimental textures that contain a prominent streak of melancholy (and some slowcore tendencies). The combo's first release was the seven-song, 49-minute Placer Found, which emerged in 2000 on Western Vinyl. The 2002 LP Let Us Garlands Bring, on Secretly Canadian Records, boasted richer and more fleshed-out landscapes to underpin the vocals of key member Burton. Early Day Miners continued on with 2003's Jefferson at Rest and 2005's All Harm Ends Here out on Secretly Canadian. The next year, the six-song Offshoot, which was originally conceived to be a part of Let Us Garlands Bring and featured the production work of Tortoise's John McEntire, was released.

"Well, when listening to Prizzy Prizzy Please for the first time, the primary image in my head was Fozzie the Bear licking the wallpaper in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Why? Hard to say. It just seems like a sport-on soundtrack for such an event. For the most part, the initial sampling just made me hyper and hungry for pixie sticks. However, the first impression of a screamer pop metal band proved superficial when a grab bag of quirks surfaced with each new listen." - Jessie Price

first there were three. no vocals, just crazy house party shows. then there were four, and then five. three part harmonies. the five survived about five years or more. the band made some amazing strides in those five years of their lives. then suddenly, one left, and left four. then another left and left three. and simultaneously one left, and one new one came. this left three. we have been trying out fours and fives, and have finally decided on both. We are now 5 again. We've got some brand new songs, and new versions of old ones, so keep an ear out for the new sound of Dead Beats!
 

"Moose" (leadman for Jookabox) grew up on the east side of Indianapolis in the 90s, an area plagued by constant recession, pandemic homicide, and racial tension. This nervous energy has culminated into Jookabox's second album: Dead Zone Boys. On November 3rd, we will release this love-story meets psychedelic zombie-musical to the masses.

We have listened to this work and have this say: we all need this album. It is nothing less than the definitive soundtrack to humanity's last stand against decay and the dead. With a mic in one hand and shotgun in the other, Jookabox pushes through as troubador and protagonist to free the decayed city and its few outposed survivors from the fear of death. He is our protector, no need to lose hope.

Expect this one to quickly become a cult classic. Until November, enjoy "Phantom Don't Go" for free, the bone-on-bone drumbeat opener to the album.