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woods - at echo lake – woodsist – cass – 7$
woods - sun and shade – woodsist – lp – 15$
cassette -8$
"Woods is a two-headed dog asleep on the porch and a butterfly on the windowsill... a Janus, a Gemini and a screen door. The sun wont fade and the earworms will not leave, but the jams go on too long for the girl in the back who wonders if her friends are at another bar. Still, the ballads always make her cry. Woods is up there relaying the Woods-feel: Folk-rock, fuzz, tambourines, tapes and raw lunch pulled straight from the yard. Pop songs and other things: Sun and Shade."
-Glenn Donaldson
the polyps - ants on the golden cone – hello sunshine – lp – 15$
Raf Spielman was born and raised on the West Coast. He is active in the fringe music community through his Eggy Records label, and has released music on the Night-People, Digitalis and Not Not Fun labels, among others. After a handful of cassettes and a 7" under the Polyps moniker, this debut LP is his most realized statement to date, having been assembled from a year and half's worth of sound and field recordings. "It's never right, because it doesn't have everything in it," de Kooning. A book of his drawings was recently published by Container Corps Arts Press.
jovontaes- things are different here – hello sunshine – lp – 15$
"Jovantaes are Lexington, KY. They emerge from (and possibly define) my town's peculiar skate/Kraut/nihil/garage axis, evoking the smell of stale Miller High Life and burning couches: stumbling match-grip surf rolls, howling chorused-out guitar, droning Adderall haze, and a singer who makes Will Shatter sound like Scott Walker. Imagine Moolah playing at a beach party on the edge of the Kentucky River, big gray globs of unidentifiable garbage drifting silently past and the dense wet air becomes gridlocked with mosquitoes"- Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police)
The current line up, and longest running, consists of Mark Murray on guitar and electronics, Reid Small on drums and vocals, and Josh Blaine playing bass and home modified electronics. Recorded mostly at Small's Void Skateshop in Lexington, "Things Are Different Here" is a fresh look at the future of underground improvised music.
blues control - puff – woodsist – lp – 15$
Repressed. "BLUES CONTROL is LEA CHO and RUSS WATERHOUSE, a piano, guitar, and tapes duo from New York. Puff is their first full-length record, after two cassette-only releases. "Puff is the work of two modern gris gris chefs, and the most righteously authentic stoner gumbo this side of Twin Infinitives or Jungle Rot. Glittery framed sunglasses and dopers remorse. The finest racket of 2007 so far."" -James Jackson Toth.
matt "mv" valentine - what i became – woodsist – lp – 15$
If string theory is correct, this is approximately the thirteenth album Matt Valentine has released that definitely shouldnt be filed under a group name (Tower Recordings, Bummer Road, Golden Road, etc.). On the other hand, if string theory is correct, this might also be his 11,000th album. The truth, one suspects, is somewhere in between. Since bedding down in southern Vermont at the dawn of the century, MV has been as cussedly prolific as anyone. The gout of LPs, cassettes, CDRs, singles and 10-inches emerging from Maximum Arousal Farm has dwarfed the output of everyone cept maybe Sunburned or Thurston. Regardless, there can never be enough MV LPs in the world, and What I Became is a beaut. Most of it is as solo as Satan, apart from percussionist Jeremy Earl (of Woods fame), whose presence is sometimes felt more than heard. Erika EE Elder and Mike Muskox Smith also pop up on a track, but the general approach here is as naked-and-loaded as the soul of Icepick Slim. As usual, MVs tunes and procedures beggar easy generification. Elements of deep forest psychedelia brush against Crazy Horse guitar / vocal flourishes that explode to reveal volk-based form mayhem at its hickiest. My particular fave here is PK Dick, a paean to nth dimensional logic in the form of a Swedish psych-folk readymade. My son prefers the haunted-Harvest-vibe (his words) of Ave. B. My wife goes for the Seventh Sons approach offered by Sweet Little Indian Girl (always a fave with the ladies). And my daughter nods in the direction of Continuing the Good Life for reasons she will not explain. I suspect its the hooty vocals, reminding her of teen pop giants like The Shins and Of Montreal, but she aint sayin. All this just goes to show that What I Became is a fun album for the whole family. It will soothe your savage breasts. It will turn your evil mother-in-law into a porpoise. It will wash yr dishes and darn yr socks. Darn them! Motherfucker, who else would do that? Nobody, Jack. Cept MV. This guy has the magic touch. And it has never been displayed better than here. Just get the fucking rec. Or prepare to go sockless. Kind of a no-brainer, eh? -Byron Coley
herbcraft - discovers the bitter water of agartha – hello sunshine – lp – 14$
December 2009: Days after returning to Maine following three heavy months on the road, Blows Against the Empire in one hand, Admiral Richard Byrd's secret diary in the other, Matthew Lajoie (Cursillistas) awoke one morning having dreamt the existence of a lost 1973 concept record about the exploration of inner Earth and the advanced civilization thriving at its center--Agartha, the domain of the Arianni. Using Byrd's account as the thematic framework for the album, he feverishly poured forth a representation of the imagined record, writing and recording the entire LP in a single 24-hour period--guided by sonic Ouija.
The result is a cosmic antenna with dials tuned to the Planet Earth Rock 'n' Roll Orchestra, obscure psych-prog spacecasts, and classic rock radio, all refracted through the dusty, cracked and scratched Cursillistas prism. Performed entirely on a borrowed thrift store electric guitar and broken microphone, Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha was birthed in the Now to scatter the seeds of Agartha's message in our Aquarian Dark Age. Limited to 500 copies.
ryan garbes - sweet hassle – hello sunshine – lp – 14$
Sweet Hassle is the debut LP from Ryan Garbes (Wet Hair, Raccoo-oo-oon), fresh from his 7-inch on Arbor and his cassette on NNA. A man in a small college town hours away from the influences that foul a musicians mind, Garbes has a lot of time to hang, especially in the recording studio. On Sweet Hassle, he incorporates heavy Velvets live bootleg vibes straight from the bedroom soundboard, with a touch of melodic electronic drone and a Byrds dusting.
spectre folk - the blackest medicine, vol. II – woodsist – lp – 14$
Pete Nolan was Spectre Folk before drumming and strumming in Magik Markers was his main gig, and will be Spectre Folk long after he shuffles off this mortal coil. The main benefit of ghost-folk is: you can play it way after you’re dead, and while you’re alive the Spectre can haunt any decent willing body with a gift for the unreal. This time around, fellow Michigander Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) runs drums, Peter Meehan (The Grey Lady) glues guitar and Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs) slithers bass, creating an alchemy the Spectre hasn’t floated since the days of basement wig-wearing in the short-lived Norman Bates era. The band entered Echo Canyon West with the intention of recording a 7-inch of the up-tempo version of “The Blackest Medicine,” the title cut from the 2007 home-fi Woodsist debut. After several sessions, they emerged with a four-song studio collage monster that won’t fit in your locker and smells like smoked banana peels and undies blowing down an alleyway. A vibraphone, piano, and a plate reverb unit the size of a Brooklyn apartment were all employed by the Spectre like Uri Gellar used spoons—inappropriately, desperate and bent. They physically turned the two-inch reel of tape over so Meehan could put subliminal backwards masking under his Erkin-Koray-worthy guitar solo on “Fourth Dimension Refs,” and Nolan put the Temple Screamer to good use on tracks one and two, using samples of Shirley Temple Black’s “Good Ship Lollipop” as vocoder harmonies on choruses. Oh yeah, it’s full of burning psych-pop jammers, too! Earmarking Nolan’s longstanding but unspoken obsession with personal hygiene, “Keep Your Teeth Clean!” is a krauty suite that betrays Shelley’s and Mullan’s recent stint as the rhythm section for Neu! Their teutonic influence has the effect of putting the dreamy psych-fuzz exhibited on last year’s Compass LP through a blender… with a frog... that spills out into a wide open Milky Way head zone. You can’t snuggle with this record, so strap yourself in and feel the Gs! Fearless as a lemming, Nolan has created a private universe here, a Society of the Spectre-cal, if you will, and his gift is his freedom. Let’s have a drift. —Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers)
nodzzz - innings – woodsist – lp – 14$
innings is the second full-length from garage-pop trio Nodzzz and their first for New York imprint Woodsist. Its simple title is a nod to their origin: songwriting core Anthony Atlas and Sean Paul Presley met playing baseball in Olympia, Washington, and started Nodzzz upon relocating to San Francisco.
The album offers fourteen discretely memorable songs in the band’s growing idiom—neurotic power-pop antics and jangly, shambolic post-punk—and follows a string of acclaimed records that began with their debut single in 2007, I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana), which jumpstarted San Francisco cult-DIY label Make a Mess Records (subsequent home of similar debut records by Grass Widow, Brilliant Colors, White Fence and more), and was followed by a beloved, albeit short, seventeen-minute self-titled LP and the True to Life single, both on NYC’s What’s Your Rupture? label.
fergus & geronimo - harder than it's ever been – woodsist – 7" – 7$
Fergus & Geronimo are Jason Kelly and Andrew Savage. You might know them from Wax Museums and Teenage Cool Kids respectively.
What started as a recording project between friends has manifested into another extraordinary addition to the Denton, TX roster of current bands.
Upon first listen, one can instantly recognize these two lads are intimately familiar with their influences. Never mind the psychedelia, this is straight pop, no bullshit.
Debut vinyl release. first edition of 500
-woodsist
idle times – get your feet off the ground – woodsist –7" –7$
Debut release from 27 year old Brian Standeford. After the quick dissolution of his previous band Tall Birds,
Standeford began recording songs onto cassette in his Seattle home using a Tascam 4-track, practice amps
and a toy drum kit. Loner bedroom psych at its best. Edition of 500 on black vinyl.
-woodsist
pink reason – winona – woodsist – 7" – 7$
"During a show with hardcore punks Hatefuck, DeBroux and company
traveled to Winona, Minnesota. After a five-hour drive to the town,
wasted locals, angry punks and gnarled three-legged dogs greeted them
by leading them into a commandeered park. Inside the park, DeBroux
found "the ultimate punk rock experience" with townies huffing rubber
glue and mohawk-brandishing kids starting fights with crusties. The
show ended and the locals gave the band three dollars for their
troubles. A few kids asked DeBroux and company to chip in the three
dollars on a keg. Soon, the crowd dispersed and left the band with no
money or place to stay. The band wound up sleeping on an island
between Minnesota and Wisconsin and breaking up soon thereafter. He
wrote the first Pink Reason song, "Winona," about this experience." -
Steve Kobak from Blastitude #25 -2nd press, 500 on red vinyl
-woodsist
white fence - is growing faith – woodsist – lp – 15$
“Those who expect Tim Presley’s White Fence project to be an extension of Darker My Love are in for a lysergic surprise. Sure, listen to Is Growing Faith, and you’ll hear the same ’60s love that’s in Presley’s day-job band. But replace the boogie bass with The Velvet Underground and Nico guitars, ramp up the weirdness—you’ll start to feel all the brown acid in your brain melting into your pineal gland just in time for the bad trip lyrics to kick in. That and the laughter, and the reverb, and the echo, and the feeling that this is a nightmare Presley’s welcoming you to enjoy. Few albums in the recent past have had such a bleeding, in-the-red mystery (Ween’s The Pod comes to mind, as does Alex Chilton’s Like Flies on Sherbet, or most of the Ariel Pink catalog). Is Growing Faith has a calm-before-the-storm feel, albeit a paisley one filled with hashish-laden clouds of wonder. Aside from a few well-placed punk drums and vintage guitar sustain that stretches as late as 1978, this could be the great lost Teenage Shutdown or Pebbles compilation, with fantastic, fanciful ballads and faded odes to lost friends all wrapped up in a stoned-ground aural husk rough enough to wear down one’s teeth. The individual songs each tell their own story, sometimes in Kinks style, sometimes like a Voxx Records band from the ’80s, and sometimes like a third-generation Dylan-buzzed teen who only recently learned two chords on the Farfisa. Is Growing Faith is so creative, so enjoyable, so deep, one wonders how Presley does it, what with Darker My Love and The Strange Boys being just some of his many other projects. Clearly White Fence takes some go-go-go with its linger-linger-linger. As Presley says in ‘Tumble, Lies & Honesty’: ‘There is a power in me: I never look behind.’” —Dan Collins, L.A. Record
ganglians - s/t – woodsist – lp – 15$
Sacramento's Ganglians want an island somewhere where they can soak in the sun and prowl the canopy by night. It's not often that they do get out, but they can get down for that. Recording sometimes as one, sometimes as four it's a real game to figure out where the entity comes from and where it's going. First and foremost it's about uncertain pleasures. It's a bit like choose your own adventure. There's "codeine balladry"; a slightly upsetting tempo that is quickly flushed into an aural high, the next moment you're in the toy strewn abyss of the bedroom and then out to the tribal caves of the natives. The planets align and the sun beats down, palms tingling, and you are on the island they've built, the scenery constantly shifting for a better view, of you. 8 tracks in 24 min
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vivian girls – tell the world – woodsist –7" – 5$
irresistible mix of shoegaze, punk, and 60's girl-group sounds with beautiful reverb drenched vocals.
features three self recorded tracks of lo-fi goodness.
-woodsist
the fresh and onlys - grey eyed girls – woodsist – lp – 15$
When Tim Cohen told Shayde Sartin he was writing a song called "Be My Hooker," the Fresh & Onlys bassist looked at the singer/guitarist and said... "'There's no way we're gonna have a song with that title, dude,'" explains Sartin. "But sure enough, he laid a riff down and I was like, 'Jesus christ, I can't believe you pulled something meaningful out of such a stupid line.'" Welcome to the push/pull dynamic that's fueled the Fresh & Onlys' steady stream of releases over the past year, including last spring's self-titled LP (Castle Face) and this fall's Grey-Eyed Girls (Woodsist). And to think it all started the old-fashioned way—with Sartin and Cohen simply hanging out after work, playing their favorite punk (Buzzcocks, The Mekons) and classic rock (Country Joe and the Fish, cued up alongside slabs of psych from the group's homebase, San Francisco) records alongside a growing collection of empty beer cans. "I can't really explain what happened or why," says Sartin. "I guess we listened to records until we were on the same page, and from that point on, we never stopped recording." As simple as all of that sounds, the duo first bought a tape machine five years ago. When that failed to produce any concrete cuts, Cohen focused on his previous avant-pop band, Black Fiction, and Sartin split his time between session and live work for such bands as the Skygreen Leopards, Papercuts and Citay. Not to mention his close friend Kelley Stoltz, who ended up releasing the first Fresh & Onlys 7" (the limited Imaginary Friends EP) in early 2008. With so much music hitting shops in such a short time (Sartin says the band already has boxes of backlogged tapes), you might think the Fresh & Onlys camp have a problem with quality control. Quite the contrary; Sartin and Cohen are very careful about what they release. And while the duo writes and records the band's songs, the arrangements are usually fleshed out with guitarist Wymond Miles, drummer Kyle Gibson, and backup singer Heidi Alexander. "If we take a song into the studio or a live setting and it doesn't have wings," says Sartin, "Then we just ditch it and keep the charming demo version." The final mix of Grey-Eyed Girls sounds like a natural bridge between the raucous garage rock of the group's debut and the full-on studio record they plan on wrapping for In the Red later this year. That goes for the galloping grooves of "Happy To Be Living," the shadowy post-punk of "Invisible Forces," and the firework finale freak-outs that drive "The Delusion of Man." Not to mention a stack of hook-slinging tracks that nix any 'shitgaze' assumptions you may have. "We're not trying to hide melodies or do the blown-out thing," says Sartin. "A lot of those bands are great, but I don't want to ever cater to what's popular. It's not that I'm being reactionary; we're just trying to make recordings that are as rich and ear-friendly as possible." It's working.
-woodsist
Christian Family Underground - for the depth of your union… -woodsist - lp - 12$
Summer 06 Family Underground (DK) recorded with Dave Nuss of NNCK at
Black Dirt Studios in the woods of upstate NY. The yield was as
characteristically unhinged as one might expect: sweeping electronic
sounds backed with wood and bone percussion spirit-conjure. However
also harvested was some new and especially tasty crop: sung and spoken
song, electric guitar/conga “rock,” and an odd ghostly sheen coating
the entire proceeding. Nuss comments on the session: “I remember when
we were recording, momentarily leaving the studio and going out into
the night and feeling it thicken like a partition separating us from
this intense state of clear consciousness we had in the recording,
which was like… humankind’s natural state. And then thinking about
Jesper from FU, an adopted Vietnamese living in DK, and how much he
resembles Michael Jackson, and realizing that across continents no man
can be divided from himself. We had to make this music to provide for
us some fantasy of fulfillment that would carry us through the weekend
like rejuvenated suns born again climbing to heaven, after being washed
in the deepest bluest sea….” Jacket by designer Susan Cianciolo and
screened inserts by Stellar, NL.
-woodsist
purling hiss - public service announcement – woodsist – lp – 15$
Resident guitarist / noise-smith Mike Polizze of Philly jam-punks Birds of Maya takes another one-off vacation with Purling Hiss. Public Service Announcement take a more song-oriented approach than Polizze's self-titled debut LP (Permanent Records) and its follow-up, Hissteria (Richie Records). With the treble down and the tape-heads bleeding, the LP is a montage of flange-covered tunes, in-the-red and submerged below sea level. "... reminds me of some of my other favorite mystery rock albums, like High Speed and the Afflicted Man's Get Stoned Ezy, or any Les Rallizes Denudes or Vermonster records--not necessarily in style or attack, but certainly in spirit. This is full-on destroyer guitar rock, with a palpable sense of nothing to lose and everything to prove. To me, it sounds like a serious, sincere statement--and you don't hear that every day." --Ripley Johnson (Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips)
sun araw - off duty + boat trip – woodsist – lp – 15$
"When the On Patrol test presses hit the turntables, an epilogue burst from the side of the Sun Araw cranium immediately, before it was even cold on wax. The camera jumped all by itself, spontaneous framing and new perspectives: "Last Chants" grips you in heavy, end-of-shift panic; who knew "Holodeck Blues" got so rowdy? Surrounded and staring down the barrels of some serious forces, the scum is rising. No worries: you got backup, don't forget who's wearing the badge. Flip the vision and make it all the way down, it's your party. "Midnight Locker" is one chilled exhalation, all cold sweat and steam vents. The cab ride home comes with AM radio ghosts, whispering again of that heavier zone, it's time to get back. The flip side is pure secret sun-day, sacred rest: the stairway to the stars. "Deep Temple," float on up, the Heavy Deeds are waiting." --Aristocrat P. Child
VINYL INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON FOR ALL FIVE TRACKS FROM THE CD VERSION!!!
excepter - late – woodsist – lp – 15$
The 23rd Excepter record: The Late EP. The Black Rust Rush Tour of "High Noon" lore. One track recorded at Oberlin Dionysus Disco, Fall 2009, in I-94 palindrome dub by R/N. One track recorded at 382 Jeff Street by Lala with the TR-808. 2009-2010 edit. Two tracks live on "Presidence Day" at the Glass Lands, February 16th, 2010, by Derek Maxwell, sound engineer. The Late EP returns Excepter to Woodsist. All four tracks are previously unreleased. The Tank Tapes are included as a complimentary bonus digital download with the record. Excepter is New York City's premiere improvisatory, vocal-and-electronics cosmic beat-box band. Whether on stage, on record or on video, Excepter never gives the expected, and this is no exception... "Tank Tapes displays Excepter's more inarticulable qualities ... it's stranger, looser, more beautiful." --Pitchfork
VINYL INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON FOR "LATE", PLUS THE 2007 CASSETTE-ONLY RELEASE "TANK TAPES"!!!
royal baths - litanies – woodsist – lp – 15$
"Royal Baths haven't had it easy. In a city where garage rock reigns supreme and new bands form and fade away with the blink of an eye, it's tough to get noticed unless your songs can satisfy punk rock attention spans. But with four- to six-minute tracks and slow, methodical drum beats, Royal Baths have won their way into the hearts of even the most raucous audiences--a testament to both the ability that San Franciscans have to recognize talent when they see it, and also to the incredible music and spectacle that the Royal Baths have created. "The band has its obvious influences--The Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3--but to define them by these comparisons would be to vastly oversimplify their sound. Songwriters Jeremy Cox and Jigmae Baer draw from psychedelic soundscapes; dark, personal, and esoteric subject matter; and a bit of punk's apathetic humor and exigency. They conjure up haunting, reverb-heavy hymns to the degenerate and the broken." --Emily Rose Epstein (SF Weekly, Thrasher Magazine, drummer for Ty Segall)
LP VERSION INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON!!!
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ganglians - monster head room - woodsist - cd - 9$
"Glee. See that's a word I rarely party with in my codex but it's just the one that I would subscribe to Ganglians. Everytime I see these chaps play I come away with a big old grin on my world-weary face. How do they do it? Well it's the lightheartedness in their playing...the angelic Wilson-esque vocal harmonies...then from out of nowhere come those West African guitar stylings! And yet I can never pin down this band's sound... not that that's a bad thing. In fact it's always been a sure sign for me that the music's doing something right. From the lazy day musings of 'To June' to the monumental yarn 'Valient Brave.' Jam this on your next road trip or on your back porch drinking an Arnold Palmer. This is a record for summertime if ever there was one. It's pop music in the best sense of the word...paramount and perennial. .
The lp version of this album is available from Weird forest .
white fence - s/t – woodsist –cd – 12$
Wander into the sweltering Cali smog to find yourself transported into a lysergic pop netherworld, where White Fence carves broad strokes of color into your mind. Coming on like Love in a Lollipop Shoppe, or Chris Knox abusing a Vox, the record oscillates between a sun-dappled English meadow, a crumbling SoCal suburban bedroom, and a riotous Sunset Strip leather gang knife fight, with the kind of warped precision and purity that marks the wolves from the sheep and the profound from the pretend in this instant online age. You know what I mean.
"White Fence is one man, Tim Presley, singer in garage-soul band Darker My Love, player on The Fall album Reformation Post TLC and now full-time member of The Strange Boys. Amid all this band-hopping, he's managed to record an LP of lysergic psychedelic songs (think: Arthur Lee without the budget and the guns)."
-Joel Wright
moon duo - escape – woodsist – lp – 15$
San Francisco’s Moon Duo was formed in 2009 by Sanae Yamada and Erik Johnson (Wooden Shjips). Inspired initially by the legendary duo of John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, Moon Duo counts such variant groups as Silver Apples, Royal Trux, Moolah, Suicide, and Cluster as touchstones. Utilizing primarily guitar, keyboards, percussion and vocals, the duo plays space against form to create a primordial and disorienting sonic stew. The group released two acclaimed records in 2009: the debut 12″ single, Love on the Sea, on Sick Thirst, and the Killing Time EP on Sacred Bones. Their follow-up long-player, Escape, on Woodsist, marks the fullest realization yet of the young group’s evolving sound.
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art museums - rough frame – woodsist – lp – 15$
The Art Museums tell sordid tales of artists, lovers & poseurs with cult new wave jangle. Bay Area psych burnouts, Josh Alper & Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards) converged in San Francisco in the Summer of ‘09 to record Anglophile jams on a Tascam 388 tape machine (state of the art home-recording circa ‘85). Rough Frame is their debut LP for the Woodsist label. They would make a hi-fi studio record if they had the money, but reviewers would probably still say it was lo-fi. The Art Museums ARE into: art, poetry, WHAAM records & films about Mods…The Art Museums ARE NOT into: flared trousers, drip coffee, dirty sneakers.
-woodsist
sun araw –boat trip – woodsist – 12" – 15$
Boat Trip might be some hidden soundtrack to Donkey Kong warp-whistling straight into Ayahuasca Country. In about twenty minutes Sun Araw manages to navigate a psychedelic jungle cruise through canopy din & spooked drone, then he noses the boat out of the water and lifts into uncharted dub-spheres. The back half of this entranced tour is like being (fortunately) trapped inside an old Upsetters jam played at half-speed with twice the shaman-chant and reverb drenched percussion. Normally we wouldn't trust taking this kind of trip with just anybody, but with wheel and rudder alike in the hands of Magic Lantern co-captain Cameron Stallones, we can sip our yage-of-choice in peace and share the Sun Araw vision as one. Originally issued on Stunned Records as a limited CDR, here it gets the deluxe vinyl treatment. Limited to 500 on black vinyl.
woods - songs of shame – woodsist – lp – 15$
The fourth full length by Woods, Songs of Shame, rips deeper with both 90 second and 10 minute
forays into skeletal psychedelia. This is not to say their idiosyncratic songwriting style & vocalizing
is not present in spades but expanded, colored, and twisted into a tie-dye of soundscapes. Road worn,
windblown, and deeply grooved. First edition of 1,100 on reverse stock jackets with printed inner sleeve.
-woodsist
real estate - s/t – woodsist – lp – 15$
"Real Estate waft in on vibes of hazy summers past. The New Jersey quartet of Martin Courtney IV, Matthew Mondanile III, Etienne Pierre Duguay and Alex Bleeker cut the sleeves short and the pop smooth to shade you from the midday heat. Every song works its way to that part of your consciousness that reveled in the fleeting waves of freedom that eked in once classes broke and the sun lingered a little longer over suburban roofs. And with three quarters of the band holding down Garden State roots its no surprise that a bit of Jersey indie-pop heritage sneaks its way into their sound, lifting the most sun streaked moments from The Feelies and Yo La Tengo and filtering them through the kaleidoscope of memories aimless drives through parched neighborhood streets. Martin Courtney's songwriting has a way of wrapping up the immediacy of youth with the ennui of age for the perfect shade of bittersweet bliss, mind you though, much heavier on the sweet than the bitter. Add to this Mondanile's (Ducktails/ Predator Vision) shimmering guitar strains full of equal parts sea foam and beer foam, pepper in the boardwalk clatter of Duguay's drums Bleeker's staccato low end and the perfect afternoon is just a lawn chair and boom box away."-Andy French / Raven Sings The Blues