MONDAY MASH-UP 2/9
HAERTS – Wings (Shlohmo Remix)
Weird things happen when you slow down a female singer’s voice as Shlohmo has in this remix of Haerts’ “Wings”. Nini Fabi’s voice usually trembles delicately in the higher register, but this track highlights the strangely beautiful masculine sound that results when you step on the brake. Overlay this ghostly moan with beats, pipes, and other percussive elements, and you have a surprisingly memorable remix. – DJ Sulltan
The Districts – 4th and Roebling
After so many decades, you would think playing rock n’ roll would sound like beating a dead horse by now. But as The Districts prove, there’s still plenty of heart and soul to be squeezed out of drums and guitars. 4th and Roebling, the first cut off their new album A Flourish and a Spoil, keeps a perfect balance of unrestrained passion and tightly wound tension that bursts open into gorgeous rock energy. Frontman Rob Grote has a powerful raspy voice that recalls a little bit of the raspy rawness of Isaac Brock and Dan Boeckner, yet with a little more conventional singing ability that allows him to cram his many lines of words in effortlessly.
Street Joy – Moon
Street Joy are proof that you don’t need to have super unique instrumentation or ultra-unorthodox song structure to stand out: if you know how to groove this well and write a good melody too, you’re good. Their new EP features the stand-out track Moon, a remarkably addicting bit of bluesy, 60’s-esque guitar pop that isn’t flashy but does everything right, with a hook that you’ll swear you’ve heard somewhere before but can’t place, making it new and familiar at the same time.
Ex-Cult – Cigarette Machine
There’s hardly more than two chords in Ex-Cult’s Cigarette Machine. What starts off as a driving hardcore dirge slowly devolves over the course of its nearly six minutes into a punk rock take on krautrock psychedelia, as the band improvises some noisy guitar over the steady, pounding rhythm before launching back into a chanted chorus, as if the entire brief section had been a brief delusion. Ex-Cult know how to keep you on your toes.
Paperhaus – Cairo
Cairo is the kind of song that, at over six minutes, doesn’t leave you bored once, gently switching things up while maintaining a consistent spacey vibe throughout. What starts off as some loopy indie rock becomes a dreamy mesh of jangly intertwining guitars, then completely ambient shoegaze, before jumping back into the lead melody like a jazz song. For a new band, Paperhaus have an astonishing amount of control over their sound, showing a great deal of promise in store.
