Instant Album Party
Assorted tracks
Seems you can't throw a rock (or an e-mail update) around these parts without bonking into the latest inspired shenanigans from the band of indie-pop miscreants that populate Suburban Sprawl's stable. So it is that the Instant Album Party came across the transom.
An inspired mix of hootenanny and digital-age sonic gratification, the idea is just plain rad: Invite over some friends from bands (in this case, Pop Project, Javelins, Child Bite, The Hard Lessons, Thunderbirds Are Now! and many others), put all their names in a hat, pick names, go away for an hour, write, practice and record the results. The kids did it on April 19 this year in the Dale of Fern. And it sounds like a damn good time — both in concept and (thankfully, mostly) execution, with results ranging from dubby instrumental tracks to full-on jams that wouldn't sound out of place on finished products in the marketplace. To wit, the standouts: Prime Coat's "Prime Crime" cribs equal parts Strokes-era millennial rockery meets Eddie Money (the chorus "Pick me up tonight/ Put me in your truck/ I won't put up a fight" can be sung to Money's "Take Me Home Tonight"). It's sick and rad. New Kids on the Funk's "Hot Ice" is a bit of street corner shuck & jive that provides further evidence that the Lessons' Korin Cox has the goods on the vox (as well as the Vox). Dinosaur Eats Dinosaur's "Don't Worry It's the '90s" distills 1990s Halifax via Ferndale, channeling equal parts Thrush Hermit and Twice Removed-era Sloan. And Milli Minilli's "Jam City" is resplendently summer-y in its dubby goodness.
instantalbum.org (for downloads and past years' results)
Computer Perfection
Various tracks
From the peerless Pas/Cal family comes this new outfit. Featuring Pas/Cal-ers Corduroy, Bem and Burgundy and LTD, Computer Perfection is a welcome tonic with which to welcome latter-day spring senioritis and summer's charms. More linear, freewheeling and synthesizer-embracing than the mothership band's absolute sonic pop perfection, Computer Perfection still brings the heat of intensely whip-smart observations, hooks and atmosphere on jams like "Sans Soleil" and cosmic mood work like "Silence is a Shadows Dream." Look for their debut on Le Grand Magistery Records.
myspace.com/computerperfection
Recloose
I was kinda wondering what Detroit-via-NZ electro-dance-exotica artist Recloose (aka Matt Chicoine) had been up to. What sort of jams would come from a move to the Southern Hemisphere? Turns out Recloose continues to indulge in his sprawling, Catholic and peerless musical appetites, cranking out chill and sweaty funk inspired by the four winds — at least as evidenced by the online jams representing his latest, Perfect Timing. You have the tropicalia soul grooves of "Deeper Waters" segueing into sun-dappled 313 dancefloor sweat-box territory on "Catch A Leaf." When the Detroit diaspora sends out missives this richly groovy, it can only speak well of our fair city's continued rich musical soil.
myspace.com/mattchicoine
Bonus Goodness:
In case you haven't laid eyes and ears on the pure Albino-Afro awesomeness that is White Gold, please do so now: whitegoldiswhitegold.com
A new online viral ad campaign for milk featuring an irony-drenched rawk party is voiced by the Electric Six's Dick Valentine (with rumored help from the Hard Lessons kids). It's a damn good way to get lost down the YouTube hole for part of your lunch hour.
