NOTHING – CANNIBAL WORLD

BY ALEX GIBSON
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A chamber of screeching shoegaze immures you, the drone of guitars driven by relentless breakbeat snares circles and swirls, catching you in the tow of their whirlpool. You must look up to avoid drowning in it.

In their single ‘Cannibal World’, Philadelphia post-shoegazers Nothing explode against the eardrums with layers of refined noise. Those palpitating drums compel the continually bleeding guitars to flood outwards from singer Domenic Palermo’s oneiric vocal melody, creating a visceral body of sound.

Enveloped within this organism of unnameable noises, spilling through unnameable membranes, we are powerless but to grasp out at that unplaceable feeling — something “deeper than bone marrow”, as Palermo sings.

‘Cannibal World’ peels away its flesh to reveal a tender middle eight. Echoing vocals oscillate. Everything thickens and, for a moment, the drums disappear. It’s a peace that doesn’t hold. The song builds towards yet another geyser of sound with intimations of noise, a flashflood of pouring guitars and high-pitched, rhythmic judders. With an unsteady, staccato heartbeat, they whimper. And with this resolution, Nothing soars again.

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• 🔔 'Cannibal World' is taken from Nothing's new album a short history of decay, which is out now and available on vinyl, cassette tape, compact disc and digitally. You may purchase it on Bandcamp.

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LONG — FUIMOS ELECTRIC

The hope of warmer days and uncertain love lies in the glittering chimes and laid-back guitar of 'fuimos electric' by New York band long. We start appropriately enough with an audio walk in the park, what with the spring reverb drums and allegretto bass, the sun-summoning bossa-esque guitar chords. Lilting vocals weave themselves in: “Fuimos al parque / para conocernos un poco más...”¹

Lyrically (in Spanish, in case you didn't notice) the lines shift between statement-of-fact and figurative, such as “me mirabas como el río”² — the poetic contents of the heart wrapped in city-flavoured indie pop packaging.

The song grows in vignettes parallel to the love story told by the vocals – meeting each other in the park, sharing a bottle of wine, not knowing what to say. Before long, we are in a triumphal block party crescendo, crashing cymbals and brass breezily lifting us up and out of the park, out of the moment, to look back on all that has been, joy and more joy still in the unknowable tomorrows.

✧

¹ We went to the park to get to know each other a little more
² You looked at me like the river

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• 🔔 You may stream the song 'fuimos electric' by long over on Spotify, if you feel like it. In addition, you may see a video for the demo version of the song on YouTube also.

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KIWOKUZA — 茶摘み

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⌾ LISTEN TO 茶摘み BY KIWOKUZA ⌾

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A tumble of beats gallops at the heart of ‘茶摘み’ (Chatsumi; “tea picking”) by Tokyo troupe Kiwokuza. This kinetic foundation is perfectly complemented with a collage of synth: ebbing, electric chords, bouncing mid-level pops, rapid-firing trickling synth, soft melodies. The vocals also play a part in the track’s forward motion, wordless syllables keeping syncopated time.

But the vocals, or rather the lyrics, play a deeper part than their role in the rhythm section; as with many of Kiwokuza’s songs, ‘Chatsumi’ is a reworking of a folk song of the same name, bringing the unknown composition squarely into the modern day.

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• 🔔 Listen to more from Kiwokuza on their Spotify account.

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ALTOPALO — MUD

⌾ LISTEN TO ALTOPALO, MUD ⌾

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Backdropped by a collage of an instrumental, 'Mud' by New York outfit altopalo spins a story of everyday actions woven through with the turmoil of a mind stuck in the midst of cyclical thoughts. The mundanity is real from the first line: "once a day or almost every day I put my clothes away in drawers, check off a chore." It's already rooted in relatable realness.

It's a song of two parts. Pockmarked by soft ping-pong ball synths in the first parts — the soundtrack to going through the motions — the domesticity of the sound is cut with knives of metallic distortion. The chorus refrain "stuck in the mud all night while the brain rain pours" illuminating the downbeat mood of the track. Scattered drums patter like incessant thoughts.

Broken up by a wordless scrawl of vocordered noises denoted by the lyrics "awf efjjjf iiewl" on their SoundCloud page, the second part soars into a realisation of emotion with trailing guitars and a haze of synth softening proceedings as the lyrics take a decidedly nihilistic tone: "you're stuck in the mud don't fight what's the effort for."

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• 🔔 'Mud' by arrives courtesy of Samedi Records. You can stream or download it from their Bandcamp and listen at your leisure.

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🎥 CHAI — CURLY ADVENTURE

In the video for Nagoya-based band CHAI's 'Curly Adventure', curly hair literally becomes synonymous with adventure; the protagonist as animated by LA artist Sean Solomon daydreams the lyrics of the four-piece's thunderous ode to curly hair.

"Long long time ago, my hair is troubling me…" the song begins with singer Mana spinning these hair-based lyrics composed by bassist (and art director) Yuuki.

With the fizzing-crash of the drums alongside a galloping funk of bass, plasma watery synth shoots through this track distorted and fluid all at the same time, a storm of summer-summoning sound; half '90s-remembered sparkly sun-soaked jam, half explosive reaction against the slump of frustration.

Lines in CHAI's song like "curly hair: that is amazing" and "curly hair means being yourself" can resonate with anyone having to alter themselves for the sake of uniformity. And this is reflected in Solomon's video for 'Curly Adventure', with its carefree spirit, popping colours, winding roads and undersea treasure hunts.

Watch it below, obviously.

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• 🔔 'Curly Adventure' is taken from CHAI's 2019 album Punk.

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🐣 THE ENTREPRENEURS — JOAQUIN

⌾ LISTEN TO JOAQUIN BY THE ENTREPRENEURS ⌾

The open road tumbling ahead, the scenery struggling to appear correctly because of just how quickly you're moving along it. This is the sense of wild freedom that explodes out of 'Joaquin' by Danish band The Entrepreneurs; thick bass and guitars with frazzled distortion play rumbling and loose with drums thumping out a frolicking heartbeat. It's a galloping horse, a rushing train, a dog with its head out the window as a car speeds on an open highway.

But you soon realise the song isn't a pure celebration of freedom—it's a yearning for it, tearing a space for yourself in the fabric of the world. The vocals suddenly yell out:

"Feels like / We should / Take a trip outside / See what’s all around / In this part of town / Where the lights are out / And the doors are unlocked at night / And time flies right on by..."

From that moment, 'Joaquin' is more than just a powering engine: it's a heartfelt casting off of a hometown, like shedding skin. It's painful, though it's something that feels necessary. It explodes poetically with the desire for moving onwards, with almost childlike imagery that evokes absurd visions: "Get away / I might just get away / This place is way too small / Standing 8 feet tall in an 18th century hall."

That childlike nature continues into the instrumental itself: the guitar and bass guitar turn playful, pedalling over each other in twists and turns of math rock style arpeggios as the song becomes quiet and introspective as singer Mathias Bertelsen asks, "What comes to the one who stays around?"

And as much as the dreary feeling of trapped in a small town courses through your veins, there's an unending nostalgia attached to it that chills your heart to think you ever wanted to leave in the first place. And this is the romantic soundscape The Entrepreneurs have created: the crushing joy of running free from the only thing you've ever known.

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• 🔔 You can stream and/or purchase the lovely 'Joaquin' by new indie rock trio The Entrepreneurs over on their their Bandcamp. It's taken from their upcoming album Noise & Romance scheduled for release on 1st February 2019. Pre-order also on Bandcamp if you like what you hear.

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🐣 INNING — EXPENSIVE FLIGHTS

The name of the game here is hazy. It's also cloudy, misty, nebulous—it's all of those things. That insubstantial foggy-headed feeling, sun glinting in your eyes, all created by gorgeous washes of sound that swish and sway with lo-fi abrasions like some sort of dust storm just so that they graze your mind ever so slightly, so that all that loveliness can pour in, you know. It's called 'Expensive Flights' and it toes the line somewhere in the heavenly kingdom between chillwave and dream pop, a delicious combo of live drums and bass and guitar and synth in a soothing symphony of sound created by the Charlottesville-based Inning.

Like dream pop, it feels alive yet somewhere else, voices soaring in the sky, and the drums thump and rattle with a doofing pulse and scritch-scratch metallics – yet in a pattern that summons something more electronic-based, a slow house sorta pace; but though a 'real' instrument, the bass guitar coarse and grinding in low-slung indie-band fashion, it is founded on this sub-bass frequency that has that quality of being able to erase everything going on around you. And at a heavenly crescendo the guitar arpeggiates like glitter, like light, soft synth chords ever-present, everything slots into place as the vocals refrain enigmatic: "Are the things that I like me for the reasons I like you, or are things that I like you for the reasons I like me?" Self-doubt broiling beneath a calm exterior; a vocal that with its reverb and light decay feels faraway, like a vague worry.

This is a late afternoon sound, a montage of the day's move into night, with that beatless and wordless outro, cool and blissful, hitting just as the sun fades and dusk sets in, inky and purple, a watercolour in sound of the feeling that comes at the end of a good day with its effusion of doubt and its memories, when the passing of time is most visible and poignant in a dramatic colour-changing sky. And besides, Inning sang it at the start of the track:""Yeah I like you, but right now things aren't right." A breeze picks up, and your summer clothes feel suddenly inadequate.

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• 🔔 'Expensive Flights' is taken from Inning's recently released D.C. Party Machine EP, a 5-track exposition of thick body-wobbling low-end frequencies and hazy-headed washes of sound in patterns that evoke vague emotions amidst of chillment. You can listen to/download it on Bandcamp if that sounds like your thing.

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🐣 MEN I TRUST — I HOPE TO BE AROUND

Much like the wispy incense smoke of the last time we heard from the Montreal trio, Men I Trust have created a delicate soundtrack to daydreaming in 'I hope to be around'. Key to its success as wonderful song are the four elements that comprise it: the bass plays plasma-textured, deep and modulating, this what is essentially a rock bassline, brooding in pentatonics; its string sister the guitar is an occasional ripple on the surface of a glassy pond, wobbly, cold and clear all at the same time.

The drums tick throughout toeing a line between meticulous drum machine and '60s minimal, thin and precise. And the vocals – wide and whispering and wistful; the Three W's of Wonderful – send this wraith of swirling around your head, the lack of variegation and the lack of range, as well as the repetition, make this a haunting mantra, its gaseous nature slipping into your ears and turning your thoughts to tomorrow and yesterday and nowhere ever all at once—"I dream of my future / Remote from time bounds / Becoming myself / Without any end."

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• 🔔 You may download Men I Trust's lovely, thoughtful track from their bandcamp.
• 🔔 The video for 'I hope to be around' was conceived and directed by the band themselves. "We filmed the music video in Montreal’s beautiful neighbourhoods and landmarks," they explain, "of which many seem to be frozen in time around the end of the 60’s."

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🐣 NITEROOMS — HEADWAY

One of our favourite tracks of 2017 so far now and yeah that's 100% sincere and it's this track by South Wales trio Niterooms. What makes it so interesting? Well, there it isn't just the atmosphere of the track—that in itself is intriguing, a swirl of a picture so melancholy so swooning sad, but at the same time so interestingly done, so nuanced, that it cannot be called simply sad but needs to be addressed for its tight and stylistic attention to detail. The drums tap and tick, thump and thud with all the laid-back authority that trap-infused percussion commands, helped into a realm of oozing monochrome and disappointment by fantasy guitar that twangs and resonates all liquid oblivion. The basic effective dynamic achieved by removing the hi-hats and letting the beat click naked in a tide of sub, the structural ease of it calms the spirit, nothing to remember, nothing to challenge, only a story to hear, a painting to be engulfed in.

Niterooms are from Brithdir, "a small forgotten mining town in South Wales," and fittingly their music sounds like that of something forgotten, something discarded, something glittering and vital left at the bottom of an empty well, the tatters of a dream now whipped into some semblance of being by sheer emotive energy. Whilst a "band" they manage to create the same soundscapes that you'd hear in Drakean pop, that sort of post-R&B trap-flavoured sound with confessional lyrics, a candid soul laid bare in the whirls of something dreamy and unreal. The vocals croon low on the brink of despair and in various meters, quick triplets mixed in with slow lines. A clear lament of lost love, sorrow as old as time, like the story of Orpheus that moved even ghosts as he ventured to find his wife in the Underworld.

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• 🔔 'Headway' is taken from the band's debut self-titled EP, which you can stream on Spotify (recommended).
• 🔔 The suitably hazy visuals for the video above were conceived and created by Ed Townend.

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🐣 GENIUS — 2226

The dust that this track kicks up the dust caught in lances of light coming in through a boarded up window the dark humid nature of it and the basement punk feeling of it the slapdash half-asleep DIY dream of the track sloshes against your ears like an old pair of jeans. It is in the harsh comfort of this track, its vintage photo smouldering cigarette atmosphere, where inexplicably a subversion of this sort of music dwells. Garage rock, abrasive punk-flavoured guitar music features lyrics that are blunt, to-the-point, aggressive. But in this, '2226' by Busan-based band GENIUS – that is 지니어스 in Korean – the lyrics are so cryptic that they are practically non-sequiturs. It begins with the biggest of all: "Hey dear brothers and sisters / Today I don't wanna take it / Don't make me a bird / Don't make me an ashtray."

At other times, however, the lyrics are in their simplicity quite blissful: "Today I don't wanna drink beer / It makes me full / I just need hot water in the big cup." To hear such strange poetic words floating along to scratchy sweeps of lo-fi guitar, to attitudinal scoops of bass and racketing drums, it was refreshing. When we asked the creators of this gently raucous track about the concept behind the song, the guitarist replied enigmatically, "I want to be happy with my dear brother and sister. That's it." According to the email we received back, many of his lyrics revolve around "rebirth and transcendence." For such big ideas to live in this short tract of grunge-tinged guitar music feels like a reflection of inebriated philosophising, the persistence of big thoughts no matter who or where you are, the discovery of the meaning of life half-drunk at the bar; the song's final line, "We can… be happy more", echoes hopefully like a mantra.

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• 🔔 This is taken from the band's August 2017 album 별바다 (Byeolbada, i.e. Sea Of Stars), released on Korean label BGBG. This you can purchase via the GENIUS Bandcamp. You can also watch on the video for '2226', which was directed by Soohwan Swan Park. The artwork, a folded 1000 won note, was created by a photographer named 김기조 (Kim Kijo).

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🐣 SHOOS OFF — FROM THE START

That synth sound at the start instantly calls to mind chillwave, not anything in particular—it just seems to summon the letters that make up that word and the word itself and what it means, which is chillment of the highest degree. The way it wobbles and flaps like a butterfly with molten metal wings or with lavalamp puttiness and making its way across a strangely bleeding sky oil in water on an overhead projector, swirling impressionistic with its wonderful wah-wah effect. And amidst the broad strokes of chill in 'From The Start', the chunky all-encompassing flavour of it, there are carvings of inescapable groove.

The bounce of the beat goes some distance to match the groove at work in this track, the very chords that flutter and effuse their chill going through patterns in the chorus that wholly call to mind grooves past, relatively complex chords that at some points in the song also find their counterparts in glistening tremolo keys that add glassy ornamentation to the proceedings. Los Angeles band Shoos Off manage this cocktail of groovesome danceability and viscous chill with liquid effortlessness, crooning vocals jump in, layered and resonating, popping with funky stutter in offbeat patterns, skipping and hopping over the robust bounce at the heart of this melting popsicle track.

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• 🔔 You may, if you wish, for just $1 purchase 'Shoos Off' digitally from Bandcamp.

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🐣 NEBULAMIGO — DISTANCE

The ripples on the surface of a body of water glittering crystalline sheen more like molten metal than water, the guitar arpeggio that bounces with a misty pallor summoning these gleaming scenes gurgling with reverb each string glinting with indie jangle into a traversable rip tide of thudding uptempo kicks, and caught in the momentum tumble somersault into the wash of haze and hallowed heavenly harmonies that fly and fall with far-off warmth, heavily effected later in the track bubblesome and wobbly, all the time with the bass so lean and rounded and rolling forward with semaphore fills and flourishes, stretching to meet the jogging pace of the beat.

The tick-tick-tick of metallic sharp hi-hats alternates between the kicks and the lo-fi dull thud snare hits and the rimshot accoutrement that adds textured tangle to the beat, a simple complication that adds an air of technicality to the proceedings. How the veil of dreampop falls away from 'Distance' nearer to the two-minute mark, rapid garage post-punk palm-muted chords judder silkily and takataka hi-hat rattle and a nocturnal slice of guitar noodling lends itself again to this pace, the speed of the track, Nebulamigo making it breezy but intense and only in a somnolent summery sort of way, all the kinetic energy of pogosticking but with such swathes of sunny lethargy imbued in it, the pallid bleach of sunlight its washed out halo.

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• 🔔 'Distance' is taken from the Long Beach, California band's recently released Talk in Roses EP. The six-track digital offering can be downloaded for a paltry $4 if you would like to do such a thing.

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🐣 MEN I TRUST — YOU DESERVE THIS

It's the atmosphere here, the atmosphere whipped up with the warm synth chords, their heavenly modulation, the uncomplicated simplicity of it, the watery refrain of the guitar thin and tactile above the thick haze of the track, and then there's the swaying motion of it, the slow oscillation as the sharp clipped snares and hi-hats tick-tocking finely against the amorphous bed of velvet sounds and the aching slow-slow jwang of the bass. There is a feeling of the comfort, detached but comfortable. Alone and a part. The vocals linger with their layers languid and lost in dislocated dreamlike longing.

Created by Montreal-based three-person musical unit ("Jessy, Dragos and Emma") Men I Trust, 'You Deserve This' contains within it something very akin to the insta-nostalgia conjured by the homely wilderness of the Twin Peaks theme by Angelo Badalamenti, rich but not extravagant, universal but not cold, not meant for you but nor for anyone in particular. It is a wandering feeling, formless, a freefall into this cyclical formula, the feeling of going around and around without realising it, the seamless repetition of sound, the sparse groove, the ascending-descending melody, slowly softly slowly softly up and down the stairs, head full of chill, heart full of warmth.

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• 🔔 'You Deserve This' can be downloaded for free from Men I Trust's Bandcamp.

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🐣 COSGROVE — EASTERN CARAVAN

Beginning with magic and majesty, the soft clattering of different elements poised to join together and jam – the reverbing muted rumble of the drums, faroff breeze of cymbal, the bass plucked slowly and poignant in the tense silent air – Cosgrove's track 'Eastern Caravan' is a dream of music, skiffle skittering audio elements blend for an intricate tapestry of different noises, but overall the atmosphere is one of horizontal reclining chill, and of unknown locations only limited by where your imagination can take you—the title suggests something that the band had in mind, but its lonely expansive feel, the focused yet wandering jazz of it all, is a clarion call for conjuring mystical cutscenes.

As the song kicks in proper, the plaintive saxophonic hook twists and meanders over the smart snapping drums that bounce throughout, the rimshots and tom hits and the metallic skiffing of the cymbal, the veil of rhythm that works as the misty mainstay of the track. Guitars that sweep distant distorted chords wait their turn through a bass solo where the beat loses momentum and seems to melt before you, evocative as sliding into warm water, the blues-tinged virtuoso of the guitar crinkling and winding into peals of piano. Emotion abounds, the drums now at their most glimmering glitter sprinkling gold as now the warm tones of the saxophone fall back in and eventually grooving into that first melancholic hook with which the song began. A haze of restrained prodigy, the mastery of creating a sense of otherworldliness truly abounds here.

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• 🔔 'Eastern Caravan' is the opening song to Cosgrove's recently released album Volume 1., which you can now purchase from iTunes should you wish to do so.

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🐣 DOWNHAUL — HOW THINGS WORKED OUT

A story told in an intricate web of lyricism, weaving guitars, gymnastic bass and skilfully skittering drums, 'How Things Worked Out' arrives from Downhaul, a band from Greensboro, North Carolina. "So now we've got even less to show for all these years of whatever we haven't been"—the track speaks of something that was, now slightly faded in the light of present day, confessional, observational, rambling and revelling in minor but memorable details. From the very start, after a string of distorted chords and drumbeating, this is apparent: "I took your phonecall in my parents' unfinished basement."

When it's not effusing melodies math-rock-style fretboard-somersaulting, the guitar is warm, with just a little bit of grit from fuzzy distortion; in this latter way, in singular chord sweeps, it works with the slow jangle of the bass and calm smartly tuned drums to cushion sad lines like, "Well no one in my life now would even recognise your name," whilst at the same time the space afforded by these calm sections allows for the lyrics to hit bullseyes. At other times the lyrics are not necessarily sad but recognisably awkward and funny, as in "I drive an extra two-and-a-half miles east just to avoid the bank where your mom works, and I know it's total vanity to assume she had even the slightest clue as to who I am but that's all I got."

A tale of love gained, misplaced, and kindled as a set of memories and awkward constraints of movement and meeting, with all the embarrassment and half-obsession that the modern age affords, this is a post-post-breakup anthem in the form of a message never sent, strewn over the surface of this dynamic, rhythmic, melodic sea of sound.

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• 🔔 Did you like that as much as we did? If so, you'll be probably happy to learn that it comes from Downhaul's very recent four-track EP, About Leaving. Featuring three more songs, it's an extension of the sound of 'How Things Worked Out': calculated guitars, crackling distortion, jostling drums and all the everyday colloquial poetics you could ask for. You can listen and/or purchase for $1 or more at their Bandcamp.

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🐣 CLAESONS — ACOUSTIC PUNK

With a title like 'Acoustic Punk' you might imagine something like a cross between gentle acoustic music and the noise of punk. If that is what you imagined whilst reading that sentence then, well, it's correct. This track by Swedish music unit Claesons is a combo of these two ideals, a bright blend of acoustic—no, almost chamber music, classical-style, new and experimental; of this, and of something closer to the quirky DIY of garage indie than punk. It's a mix of rough and smooth, beauty and energy.

The plucked guitar that begins the track teeters on mournful and in the same cyclical style as that guitar piece Romance, you know the one, cello solemn beneath, but soon leads into a thumping beat punctuated by the occasional crash of a cymbal, the main vocal floats in slurring and soaring, other voices haunt chorally above, all in all a sound like a cold gale, something internal externalised. The outro appears, long and languorous, a pinging guitar melody, soft piano, yet struck like distant lightning with peals of distorted guitar, disappearing into the vapour.

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• 🔔 This is from Claesons album V.V.V.V.V., due for release on 28th April via Swedish label Lamour.

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DEAREST – BEACON

On the surface, from the start at least, this track by California ("the deserts east of Los Angeles") band DEAREST could seem just like a "regular", but still v v good, indie track – the guitars speak with a delicate honesty, the vocals stream out with soft aching (I mean, just check out (0:45) the sweetly poignant way in which singer, Tessa Bolsover, poses the question, "Do you still have dreams / of endless highways?"), a drum machine patters its pattern in the background. Everything seems normal.

But just under halfway, a portal opens up. You step through. 'Beacon' receives a simple bassline and some gentle noise plays a cosmic solo, sounds like a theremin. Vocals arrive in pitch-shifted layers, "ahh ahh ahhhh…", thin cymbals like white noise rain pour down, the beat feels bigger, kicks more pronounced…

So yes, you get the picture: this is anything but regular. Electronic precision with its clinical cosmos-conjuring vibe is paired with the raw, stark reality of live instruments, and as you heard even the vocals do not go unaltered, themselves pulled like a yielding star into the enveloping black hole of the electronics' manipulation. It is simultaneously cold and comforting, sharp and soft – long dead and perpetually haunting, but desperately alive at the same time.

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HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE – DIRTY DREAMER (XXX)

There's a reason why this kind of music never really took off, or in fact wasn't even born out of a cold country. Well, actually, who knows the actual direct correlation, but basically it's very sunny music and it is & will be eternally associated with California. Which is where this four piece, Hot Flash Heat Wave, come from – specifically, San Francisco.

But location-schmocation, right? 'Dirty Dreamer (XXX)' is a lo-fi nu-doo-wop coastal groove, claps and stabs of golden guitar following a timeless pattern that is soaked in nostalgic americana. Vocals cut through in distorted serrations of sound, a who-the-fuck-cares lassitude simmering within, even though it's filled with hum-along hooks. Speaking of which, dig that bright guitar lick that pops up as a pre-verse treat, utterly dripping with cool.

More slapdashery arrives towards the end of the track, where a guitar solo breezes in a virtuosic tangle, something so totally satisfying about that sound: the perfect excitedly euphoric crescendo to a track seemingly inspired by swift, raucous romances.

• If you liked this, you should most definitely check out the very recently released self-titled Hot Flash Heat Wave EP, where you'll find this and four more tracks of the same quality calibre.

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DIAMOND MIND – DRAGON EGG [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I haven't written about anything by a band like this for a while and I'm not sure why. I think it's because, not that it isn't good, but it just seems to fit much better with sunny days and this long approach to summer we call spring. So it's with happiness and hope for the warm weather days to come that I introduce Canadian band Diamond Mind. I was originally going to write about this Edmonton-based band's song 'Better Alone', which is a pretty slice of indie doo-wop flavours with hints of baroque orchestration in its strings and jaunty melodies… but then I heard 'Dragon Egg' and everything changed.

This track isn't very sunny, isn't very spring-themed, but it is instead a galloper of a track – a true sprint through zingy, energetic feelin and expansive guitar sounds that, sure, ok, may summon a little bit of sunshine, but if it were a film it would be more adventure-romance than rom-com – does that make sense? The sunshine is less a static thing and much more a thing that's almost followed, a hanging beacon in a sky above endless roads and exciting potential.

Well, a dragon egg is quite an exciting thing I suppose. And if this song is supposed to be an illustration of that fact, well, then it's done its job pretty much perfectly. It was the undeniably experimental intro that first grabbed me: frenetic drums and dramatic twists between full-noise and no-noise and chipmunked vocals thrown into the equation – it's full of wonder as to what's gonna come next. A dynamic shift, and we count into the lo-fi flutter of gleaming guitars – an ethereal riff. Smooth silky vocals, with a distinctive lilt, seem calm yet urgent as guitar chords stab and the drums judder excitedly, bass providing slices of groove beneath it all. A really super cool song that I can't get enough of right now. Wahoo!

And, getting outside of this song's clarion brilliance, it shows the brilliance of the band, able to doo-wop in coastal-pop fashion like anybody's business one minute – singing this indie rollicker about a dragon egg the next. I'm genuinely curious to see where they go next – is there an album or something or an EP? I don't know.

• And it's a free download, do you want anything else with that? Biscuits? Complimentary hot towel? Fries?

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Listen to Diamond Mind on SoundCloud

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CAR10 – I DON'T MEET YOU

Yes yes it is rather fun and incredible what you find at 2AM in terms of music. There you are just clambering through the thicket of sounds and suddenly— BOOM! Along comes this particular track that catches your attention, imagination, or both. So this is something I found. It's called 'I Don't Meet You' and it's by a band called car10.

The song itself is a heady uppercut of pop punk energy, a flash of lightning to the mind. Power chords cut through, flanging wildly – uniquely, too, especially for a punk sound – and drilling alongside the thrum of the bass and clashing crash of berserker drums. Flying around this oddball-slacker mélange of pop-punk-with-a-hint-of-shoegaze – a new form of punk, you could say – are the vocals, chaotic and lo-fi, yelling and singing, scratchy and distorted yet still melodic. At just one minute and five seconds long, it's fast and short and full of explosive life. Sounds good to me, how does it sound for you?

As for the band itself… car10 is a trio from Ashikaga, Japan, comprising of Shinya Kawata (bass/vocals), Hidekuni Kushida (guitar/backing vocals), and Takamasa Nagai (drums/backing vocals), all of whom you can see in that little picture up there. 'I Don't Meet You' is just of many inevitably tasty little numbers from the band's debut album, Everything Starts From This Town, out 16th April. Recorded analogue-style with, as shown by this particular song, a wholly tangible live sound, the album will be the second release on fledgling yet promising Japanese label Sauna Cool.

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Like car10 on Facebook
Listen to car10 on SoundCloud
Visit car10 official site
Follow car10 on Twitter

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