New Song From Interpol

It already been three long years since former Pitchfork prodigal sons Interpol have released anything together - which is crazy, because it seems like just yesterday that I started ignoring Our Love To Admire. But after a few solo jaunts by certain members, they are in fact back and apparently ready to release a new album in a short while, and have thusly released first single "Lights" to drum up a little hype.

So how is it? Well... it sounds one hell of a lot less processed than anything off their last album did, and it builds anticipation and tension nicely, as a good Interpol song should probably do. However, after the overall weakness of their last album, it will take more than a nostalgic single to win me back over. Not that I don't want them too! Best of luck to you, Interpol.

Interpol - MS|OS

Lights - Interpol

*Update - Just looked at Interpol's new logo. What the fuck, Interpol? When has a needless and tasteless 3D logo ever done anything good for any band ever? Do you not remember how sparse and terrify your old logo was? Do you not see that those aesthic elements helped your music effectively communicate emotion and feeling early on? Dont you remember how pointlessly glossing on high budget yet poorly implemented musical affectations in your last album dragged it down so far?

Neo-Tokyo

Yo! Whats the haps, my peeps? Dude, Starcraft 2... shizzzz.

Anywho, Neo-Tokyo. Welsh. Toured with Phoenix. Banger as fuck. They deserve more words than this but, no can do. Maybe later!

Neo Tokyo - MS

Sleepyhead - Passion Pit (Neo-Tokyo Remix)

Fences - Pheonix (Neo-Tokyo Remix)

Porcelain Raft

2k10, lovers. As the summer quickly approaches, it can be important for one to have a fresh supply of some lush, sunbleached, dreamyassed fuckin shoegaze at his or her disposal. Porcelain Raft, the solo project of London artist Mauro Remiddi, lets it just beam out of his eyeballs directly into your soon-to-be-much-happier chest region. He just released two EPs – Gone Blind and Curve – and you can snatch them from his site for a mere quid. Here's why you might seriously consider doing so:

Porcelain Raft - MS

The Globes

OK, I owe it to my hometown to throw my support behind this band. The Globes are a four-piece group from Spokane who have been living together in a house in Seattle for a few years, and have been getting noticed enough around the city that they have finally reverted back to calling themselves a Spokane band – which is fucking awesome, because I was worried that if (and, I think, when) this band finally makes it, they were going to say they were from Seattle. Boise might have Built to Spill, but as far as Spokane is concerned, the best they've been able to muster music-wise in the past 50 years has been........Bing Crosby. Yeahhh....

But fuck that, now Spokane can rock your face off. The last time I saw this group was at a winery in Spokane, when they still called themselves Four Years Blue. Since that time, their sound has gotten far more polished, they've had real studio time (complete with John Goodmanson, the producer behind several Death Cab albums, amongst other things), and have put out a couple solid EP's, the most recent of which is called Sinter Songs and features four borderline-hypnotic Radiohead-esque (and yes I find that term overused, but whatever) songs, each with a bitchsmack of post rock epicness mixed into their very distinctive eastern Washington-inspired soundscapes. It's a sound that them big city folks can bob their heads to, but also something that truly clicks if it serves as the background music to a trip through the alternately barren and beautiful landscape that is the eastern side of the Cascades. You can tell these guys have been living in Seattle for a while; but you can also tell where these guys are really from, which is a really tricky balancing act to pull off, and which makes me appreciate them as an awesomely genuine group of musicians that I truly hope goes places. The Cheetah salutes you, guys.

The Globes - A Stitch Couldn't Save the World

The Globes - Pretty Birds above our Heads

The Globes - MS

Tim's Track Of The Day

I don't remember how I discovered this, but I'm glad I did. It's "Tunnelvision," by Here We Go Magic, which is the solo project of folk singer-songwriter Luke Temple. It's a great song for doing things; I love songs that feel like they never stop moving forward, as I always imagine driving through one of Seattle's many freeway tunnels but never reaching the end. The video captures that feeling pretty well:

Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision

Broken Social Scene Bonus EP

Just found out that Broken Social Scene decided to release a bonus digital EP! Its called Lo-Fi For The Dividing Nights, it accompanies all pre-orders of Forgiveness Rock Record, and it has ten tracks! So preorder Forgiveness Rock Record, fool!

Broken Social Scene - MS|OS

New LCD Soundsystem Video - Drunk Girls.

Wow... just... wow.

LCD Soundsystem - MS|OS

Tim's Track Of The Day

Walkabout, by Atlas Sound. Featuring Noah Lennox (Panda Bear of Animal Collective). Get it.

An added bonus is that anyone who knows me personally will understand why this is my theme song for the time being. Enjoy!

Atlas Sound - Walkabout (w/Noah Lennox)

Record Store Day Crystal Castles Release

Today is record store day, and bands are dropping special albums all over the country. Crystal Castles got into the spirit of things by releasing Doe Deer, and we here at the cheetah managed to stumble over a few decent quality radio rips of the single itself and B-Side Celestica.

Celestia is an airy, almost dreamy cut from Crystal Castles, and in sharp contrast to Doe Deer, which is a pounding and aggressive track, maybe one of the most aggressive things I've heard from the band.

The thing which is immediately noticeable about both tracks it seems that they rely significantly less on the tinny, 8-bit aesthetic that was so defining about their first album - although that may be a result of the rips.

Anyways, these tracks do have me pumped to see what the band can do with a second album, and makes me absolutely positive that I will need to see them as soon as possible.

Crystal Castles - MS|OS

Crystal Castles - Doe Deer

Crystal Castles - Celestica

Little Dragon

Surprise, surprise, Tim has yet another band to add to his amazingly long list of bands that he has discovered within a week of being able to see them. Little Dragon played Seattle earlier this week, but that didn't stop me from finding out about them through a completely different avenue just days later (this happens to me...allthefuckingtime). Oh well, the Cheetah still deserves to be fed, even if I let it get a little hungry first.

Little Dragon is a synthpop group from Sweden, headed up by a Japanese-Swedish chick singer (I know, it's baller) named Yukimi Nagano. I personally found out about them because they are featured on my favorite track "Empire Ants" from the recent Gorillaz album Plastic Beach. They've released two albums, most recently last year's Machine Dreams. It's hard to put a finger on the sound, because it's super Swedish and completely un-Swedish at the same time, in large part because of Yukimi's distinctive voice. She sounds like a much raspier (and less annoying, at least for me) Karin Dreijer Andersson, and as a result you get some swinging Swede-y pop ballads, but with a lot of soul thrown in. There's a lot to be had from their sound, as the electronic thuds that populate the background of most of the songs serve more as a simple common denominator than anything else that could be more driving. It feels like good music for being driven through the downtown of an empty city at 3 in the morning...and it's always good to have that kind of music to turn to. Check it out!

Little Dragon - OS|MS