Hola amigos! It’s a beautiful day in Van City, but I’m not in much of a position to enjoy it, conscripted to misery as I am by a hangover at the time of this writing. It was Intern Tobey’s birthday weekend, and celebrate it we did, with much in the way of libations and deafiningly loud music. That’s kinda every weekend, but hey, I’m quick to latch on to an excuse when one presents itself. I’m just gonna chill here in the apartment and listen to some of this dope new music that came across my virtual desk this week. Have a listen why don’t you? And hey, if you know of any cool new music we should be up on, please e-mail it to us at idieyoudieblog@gmail.com or leave it in the comments. I’m gonna go get some aspirin.
Not Pictured: The dude who used to dance around in wizard's robes
Killing Joke, “In Cythera”
I wasn’t super fussy about “Rapture”, the first taste we got of the mighty Killing Joke’s forthcoming album MMXII, but this track is mindblowingly great. Jaz is so good at doing the growly yelling voice that I sometimes forget how well he actually sings when the song calls for it. This is one of the mid-eighties Night Time style songs they still deploy on occasion, albeit without rehashing any previous glories. This still feels new and vital, a handy trick when you’ve been in the game for 30+ years. When the chorus kicks in I basically have to stop and just listen to it, which accounts for why I’ve spent nearly half an hour working on this one write-up. They still got it!
Marsheaux, “Do You Feel”
Marsheaux’s rejected demos for their forthcoming album are better than most synthpop acts’ best tracks, point blank. Love the fuzzy bassline on this song and the weird little stuttery vocal effect. Apparently a bunch of these, along with some other unreleased remixes and other odds n’ sods will be collected onto a disc called The eBay Queen is Dead which will only be for sale at their shows. Not sure if we have any readers in Greece, but if we do could you hook us up with one of those when they start selling them? We’d sure appreciate it.
VALIS, “Cold Hands”
Got a nice e-mail from Chicago’s Valis last week letting us know about some new material they had on their Soundcloud. There’s been a glut of eighties influenced synth music (personified by the now omnipresent soundtrack to Drive), but these guys are doing it right: cold, dark and spacey. This one just rolls out of the speakers, all tense Carpenter-esque atmosphere and subtle shifts, I could seriously listen to it all day. We loved their remix for //TENSE// a few years back, we’re very curious to hear what else they have in the hopper. And hey, you can snatch this one up from their Soundcloud gratis, word to Horselover Fat.
Volt 9000, “Meltdown”
Toronto’s Volt 9000 just put out a new record Mutronix last Friday, which you can get from CDBaby, iTunes, and Amazon. As Bruce mentioned in his review of last year’s Atomica, these guys have a definite ohGr influence in their sound spiked with some tasteful 8-bit samples and sounds. This is a chill number, and with just the right amount of funk in the bassline it actually reminds me a bit of some of Snog’s stuff from the Third Mall from the Sun era. You can download the track from their Soundcloud page, but make a point of watching the video below, it’s great. We’ll be discussing the new record in more detail soon, but I’d be remiss in not mentioning how insanely dope the artwork for it is. Go have a look at it on their Facebook, it’s seriously fantastic.
