Your Brief Linked guide to tonight's Recession Thursday (28 August 2024)

B L A C K I E: Skyline Network raves that their new album, Wilderness of North America, is "like nothing we’ve ever really heard"and Space City Rock says

"[Wilderness of North America is] the absolute weirdest, rawest, most uncompromising, and most intriguing hip-hop I've heard...Top that, Kanye.""Take equal parts fucked-up electronics, distorted pop-cult samples, guitar feedback, video game noise, and angry-as-hell street flow, set it on fire..."

The Mathletes: Sarah Cress at the Houston Chronicle wrote a great little piece on these guys (link). Here is an except:

"the Mathletes, which isn't like any other band you know. It's a lo-fi, indie-pop spectacle with a revolving cast of characters that last year included 30 people. Some regulars include former Infernal Bridegroom Productions staffers and members of the indie-rock band the Dimes....

Mathlete is a little like the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne; a ringmaster juggling layers of props, costumes and instruments to create a jagged masterpiece of art, comedy and performance. At its heart, though, the spectacle is about the music. The songwriter has been dreaming up fragile, sincere, weird songs since he received a four-track recorder on his 16th birthday. Mathlete, now 24, writes about anything, from his earliest songs about a ladybug and his high school friends at St. John's School to a collection of Christmas songs (check out Rudolph Dance Party on MySpace) to songs about animals that contain what he calls "clunky metaphors."

"I like the animal songs. Harry the Hornless Unicorn is about a unicorn born without a horn and feeling incomplete. It Is A Difficult Thing, Being A Mule is about being a mule; you're not a donkey, you're not a horse, you're something in the middle that no one really wants. I write kind of depressed children's songs, I guess."

The Goods: Space City Rock writes:

"This is a gritty, dirty, don't-give-a-fuck kind of rock that's probably most at home on a stage in some hazy, beer-soaked dive where there's as much Fugazi and Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the juke as there is the Stones or Elvis. The songs stagger and lurch from time to time, like a drunk trying to make it down the stairs without spilling his drink, but there's also a hint of OK Go's smart-assed songwriting sense and bumping rhythms. Call it grunge, or "post-grunge," whatever you want; any way you look at it, the Goods ride the line between rock swagger and indie storm-of-noise, and they do it with style."

Giant Princess: Space City Rock (again!!!) wrote this review of some of their demos:

"Giant Princess's self-titled debut recording is an exercise in all the wonderful things you can do with a bad recording of good songs, and I do mean a bad recording. The mix is a "mix" only in the loosest sense of the word, with the vocals all but unintelligible and the organ so far up front you might as well be sitting next to it. That's the total genius of the album. Just like the Pixies forced you to see through the haze of noise into the weird minds of Frank Black and Kim Deal, so are we pulled into the awesomely loose song style that makes up Giant Princess. When you pull the blues up to the red line and speed it up, this is what you get. It's an unstoppable journey of energy and insanity that makes me proud that we're both from Houston.

More and more, I am becoming convinced that the world is actively hiding awesome music from the populace. ...The music industry is struggling at hundreds of thousands of kilowatts to convince us that 3 Doors Down and their ilk has anything at all relevant to say. Meanwhile, artists like Giant Princess have to scream themselves hoarse just to whisper the true evolution of rock and roll.

Rough, amateur, and loud, I guarantee that Giant Princess is just what you need."

Generation Landslide: This is what they have to say about themselves on their myspace:

"Generation:landslide! is a power pop outfit from the wild streets of Houston, TX. Combining intelligent, edgy lyrics with catchy pop melodies...Generation:landslide! is somewhat an anomaly among Houston bands. They prefer to play catchy originals that draw from rock's best traditions, still sounding amazingly fresh and in step with contemporary trends without sounding dated. This approach has allowed them to carve out a special niche in the Houston music spectrum. Perhaps that's why they stand out. "

AND Just Added (from Austin)

The Reverse X-Rays: The Daily Texan writes that“Dense musical backgrounds are evident in the Reverse X-Rays' uniquely artistic sound and the extensive musical skill of each member…” while Austin Sound writes:

"The Reverse X Rays lay down some of the funkiest experimental grooves in town, instrumental bursts that are tight and catchy while still pushing every envelope they can lick.”