Free Download: Best Coast - "So Gone" (Mexican Summer, 2011)

Between releasing one of the best albums of 2010, collaborating with Weezer, Wavves, Kid Cudi, Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and the Go! Team and releasing a split-7" single with JEFF the Brotherhood and, most recently, releasing an iTunes session EP, California surf-poppers Best Coast is quickly becoming one of the most prolific bands today. Last week, via Adult Swim's "2011 Singles Program," Best Coast released yet another new song into the world.

Beginning last week with Ford & Lopatin's "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)," Adult Swim is releasing ten free songs a week for ten weeks straight on the network's website. This week's download is a brand new track by Best Coast called "Gone Again"; up until yesterday, the song was only available for streaming.

"Gone Again" is typical Best Coast fare in every imaginable way: simple, chill, catchy-as-all-hell riff; lyrics about feeling low, getting high, her guy being gone, her missing her guy and her being "insane"; the lyric "gone"; and of course, a shout-out to her cat. That is to say, I fucking LOVE and can't get enough of "Gone Again."

Best Coast is one of those bands that can be repetitive as HELL both musically and lyrically, and I'll still love them more than ninety-five percent of everything I've heard or ever will hear. Yes, there are a million fuzzy, poppy, lo-fi-turned-hi-fi bands that sing vapid songs about puppy-love, sunshine and getting high, but only Best Coast puts all of those elements together the way they do, and how Best Coast puts all of those elements together is the x-factor - the intangible - that sets apart Best Coast from every other band in which you can find the same aforementioned elements.

*The pie-face is a screencap from the official video for "Gone Again."

Odd Couple

I found out a few nights ago that New York hardcore rockers Les Savy Fav will be playing with Montreal's Handsome Furs at the Commodore Ballroom on July 22. Talk about an odd couple, and I don't mean Handsome Furs' Dan Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry.

I'll definitely be going to this show. The Furs' newest album Sound Kapital (Sub Pop Records, 2011) isn't stellar (I've had almost zero desire to listen to it), and last year's Root For Ruin (Frenchkiss Records) is my least favourite Les Savy Fav album, but Handsome Furs are great otherwise, and Les Savy Fav is one of my favourite bands, especially when it comes to hardcore music.

Additionally, I've been craving a high-energy show lately - something on the level of Japanther which was the third best show I'd ever been to. I'm no longer counting on the Intelligence on June 21st at the Waldorf Hotel to be that high-energy show, especially knowing the size of crowd a better-known band like Wildbirds & Peacedrums was able to draw to that same venue (more on that show another time). No doubt, Les Savy Fav is going to be insaaane: just check out this video of them at Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2009. If Les Savy Fav is going to be anything like Japanther, I'm in for another sweaty, sore, bloody, beer-soaked night. And I didn't even drink at Japanther.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Heartcore (The Leaf Label, 2007)

Wildbirds & Peacedrums are a rare specimen in my music library: incredible Swedish music. Moreover, they are one of the most instantly refreshing acts I've heard in the last few years. If there was such a genre as "vocal expressionism" (although I'm sure there actually is, especially in today's increasingly ambiguous musical climate), Wildbirds & Peacedrums would certainly be at its forefront, at least as far as contemporary indie artists go.

Heartcore, the band's debut LP, features standard chamber pop instrumentation used to minimal effect, although the album's focus is on the masterfully complementary interplay between Andreas Werliin's array of idiosyncratic, often avalanche-like drum patterns and wife Mariam Wallentin's breathtakingly powerful and spellbinding voice. Wallentin stretches her voice in all imaginable ways, cresting and troughing without much restraint, much in the spirit of Icelandic voice-collage artist Bjork. The majority of Heartcore, including "The Way Things Go," "Bird," "Lost Love," "The Window," "Nakina" and the partially a cappella "The Ones That Should Save Me Get Down" (a song that bleeds buckets of soul) is entirely drum-and-voice.

Heartcore's standout track "Doubt/Hope" is also entirely drum-and-voice and perhaps the best example of how much fire Wildbirds & Peacedrums can fuel with voice and drums alone. The song's emphatic, erratic cacophony most succinctly captures the duo's frenetic, bare-bones energy. Conversely, Wallentin can also be sweet, barely rising above a coo or even a whisper on "A Story from a Chair" or lulling on "I Can't Tell in His Eyes," possibly the most conventional song and tender moment on the album.

Despite songs like "I Can't Tell" and closer "We Hold Each Other Song," however, an overall palling sense of emotional strife similar to that which has incensed so much of PJ Harvey's and My Brightest Diamond's works still pervades Heartcore: hear "Bird," for example, on which Wildbirds & Peacedrums seem to struggle to contain or direct their volatile inner turmoil.

Heartcore is a truly unique album amidst a tepid musical climate wherein conceptions of minimalism, especially with the advent of new musical technologies, increasingly associate the aesthetic with electronic drone music. Heartcore flawlessly demonstrates that raw, at times seemingly improvisational energy and technical skill can be compromised to unique emotional effect and resonate with listeners on the most primeval of levels.

The Whites/Elsons Is Weird Peoples.

After six years of marriage, Jack White and Karen Elson are getting divorced, and they're throwing a party to celebrate. Good to know the split is amicable.

Free Downloads: FAROFF Mash-Up Madness

I love mash-ups, and in my opinion, no one does them better than FAROFF. The greatest thing about his mash-ups is that he doesn't rely on generic, indistinguishable club songs; instead, he builds his songs out of classics by the likes of the Beatles, the Doors and the Ramones, danceable contemporary artists such as LCD Soundsystem, Gwen Stefani and Fatboy Slim and old-school hip-hop artists and one-hit wonders like Elastica and Dee-Lite.

All of FAROFF's mash-ups are available for high-quality download (between 256 and 320 kbps) on his official website djfaroff.com. Linked below is a smattering of my favourite FAROFF mixes:

The Beatles vs. LCD Soundsystem vs. The Kinks - "The Brits Are Playing at My House"

B-52s vs. Lipps, Inc. vs. Patrick Hernandez vs. Yello vs. Soulwax - "Funky Shack!"

Franz Ferdinand vs. Stealers Wheel vs. Nirvana vs. Michael Jackson vs. Def Cut vs. C.S.S. - "Franz Tranz"

Britney Spears vs. Metallica - "Enter Toxman" (for Smashlie, if she reads this)

Nirvana vs. Dead Or Alive - "Spins Like Teen Spirit"

Best Coast - iTunes Session (Apple Inc., 2011)

Finally, Best Coast has released an official version of their cover of country legend Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City.” It may not be a “proper” studio version, but the fact that it’s clean and clear is all I ever asked for.

Best Coast's cover of Lynn's controversial 1968 chart-topping hit is just one of nine tracks on their latest release iTunes Session. With twenty minutes of music and an informative thirty-one minute interview, the EP provides a bite-size live-sampling of the band. The EP contains a pretty balanced spread of Best Coast’s discography (considering how small the band's discography actually is), featuring not only songs from their critically acclaimed breakthrough debut LP Crazy for You (Mexican Summer, 2010) but various singles and EPs as well. The recordings sound great, and the band performs with enough gusto and variation from their original versions to change the minds of those who've only seen the band on YouTube. Indeed, iTunes Session is most satisfying as a testament to how good Best Coast is live; they’re always hit-or-miss (mostly miss) in YouTube videos, but they were pretty well flawless both times I saw them.

Second Chance

I found out a couple of nights ago that the Kills will be coming back to the Commodore Ballroom here in Vancouver on September 5th, almost four months to the day after they last played here. As shitty as my experience at their show was in May, I’ll definitely be putting down money to see them again.

Along with Feist, the Kills were one of the most disappointing shows I’d ever seen: the crowd sucked, and my friend and I were far from the action, stuck behind tall people almost the entire time. Of course, I can’t blame the band for any of that, but I can blame the band for its lackluster song-choices. Considering how many great songs the Kills have, they could hardly have selected a worse playlist. Granted, they played a few of their best songs including “Kissy Kissy,” “Pull a U,” “Fried My Little Brains” and “No Wow,” but considering that almost every song on the Kills' first and second albums are knockouts, their set left a lot for fans of their earlier, bluesier material to desire. I left the Kills’ show thankful I didn’t fly from Nova Scotia to Montreal to see them in 2008.

So, why am I willing to give the Kills live a second chance? Because even though they didn’t play my favourite tunes, they played their tunes well. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart definitely brought the energy; anyone anywhere in the venue could have seen that. Furthermore, I just know that being as close to the Kills as possible next time - being able to see the performers perform - will make a huge difference. Plus, there’s always hope for a better set list; maybe the Kills always change it up, and I just caught them on a bad night.