Good Weather For Airstrikes

Look, I’m sorry. This is my first post here in an eternity (I mean, college is awesome, my bad) and I’ve done an awful job of earning my keep as the co-author of Good Weather For Airstrikes. Well, good news (hopefully): I’m back and not quite as good as before, but let’s call it rust. Anyway, the reason I’m here is because there’s this great band that I want you all to listen to, and they’re called Stars of Track and Field. If that name rings a bell it’s because it’s also the name of one of Belle & Sebastian’s most popular songs, or it could also be because they’re starting to pick up some serious steam in the indie-pop world as we anxiously await the physical release of their currently iTunes-only album, Centuries Before Love And War.

The album was initially supposed to drop on June 6th of this year, but the Portland, Oregon three-piece has switched record labels since that expected release date, jumping from Side Cho to Wind-Up Records. The follow-up to their acclaimed You Came Here For Sunset Last Year EP is now expected to come out in Spring of 2007, though you can buy the album from the iTunes Store right now. The album builds lush backdrops of instrumentation using a meld of Jason Bell’s dreamlike guitar work and soft electronic noises, but the true centerpiece of all Stars of Track and Field songs is vocalist Kevin Calaba’s voice. I felt it excessive to use the word “dreamlike” twice in one sentence, so I’m waiting until this sentence to describe Calaba’s voice as such (plus, if I were Derek I’d have described their music as “ethereal” five times by now, so I think you guys can deal); in fact, the word is a pretty apt description of Centuries Before Love And War as a whole. Though my first thoughts after hearing their EP and Centuries‘ lead single, “Movies of Antarctica”, built up unfair expectations for an album that is slightly more hit and miss than I’d have liked, the songs that hit are truly phenomenal.

“Movies of Antarctica” is a great single and one of the better slices of indie pop to grace my ears in recent memory. I believe the first half of the album to be better than the second, and the opening three songs set a standard that unfortunately isn’t achieved by the remaining seven. Opener “Centuries” starts the album off establishing the signature Stars of Track and Field sound, letting the listener know from the get-go what they’ll be getting from the album. The aforementioned high water mark of “Movies of Antarctica” follows, which crescendos with crashing guitars before quieting for a final refrain, leading in to a reprised version of the EP track “With You”. The new version is re-fit with more electronic flourishings, and showcases drummer Daniel Orvik’s skills. The real claim to fame of “With You” is it’s beautiful chorus, which grows in intensity throughout the song, climaxing in an epic closing refrain layering Cabal . Fourth song “Lullabies for a G.I./Don’t Close Your Eyes” shows off the band’s ballad abilities, and though it doesn’t approach “With You” or “Movies of Antarctica”, it shows the band isn’t just a one-trick pony. Unfortunately, the album begins a steady downhill descent from there. Not steeply, mind you, as there are no throwaway songs on the album, but the second half, which includes two largely unchanged tracks from the EP (Arithmatik” and “Say Hello”, the latter being my least favorite song on both the EP and the full-length), doesn’t approach the brilliance of the promising opening. Let’s just say, if this album ever sees a vinyl release Side B will be collecting serious dust compared to it’s superior counterpart. Regardless, Centuries Before Love and War is a good album well worth acquiring, and Stars of Track and Field is a band with a bright future that I’m very excited to hear more from.

MP3s:
“Movies of Antarctica” - Stars of Track and Field ((highly recommended))
“With You” - Stars of Track and Field
“Lullabies for a G.I./Don’t Close Your Eyes” - Stars of Track and Field

My mere status as a straight, immature male has me inclined to declare Simian Mobile Disco’s new video for “Hustler”, THE MOST BRILLIANT MUSIC VIDEO EVER CREATED without even the slightest bit of hesitation, but I’ll see if I can do a little bit better than that. Director Saam Farahmand is one of indie rock’s hottest up-and-coming directors, here with his most bad-ass video yet, hot on the heels of his excellent vids for UK buzz bands Good Shoes (“All In My Head”) and New Young Pony Club (“Ice Cream”). Simian Mobile Disco’s “Hustler” is one of the smoothest, sexiest songs of 2006, smacking of bravado from start to finish (in a good way) and keeping the shit hot on dancefloors across Europe until the early hours of the morning on a regular basis (or so I’m told). Thus, it’s only appropriate that Farahmand hook it up with the hottest music video of 2006, and he does so, bringing the sexy in spades along the way. I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s just say, the world might be a better place if all games of telephone ended like this.

The ((highly recommended)) seal of approval is normally exclusively reserved for songs rather than music videos, but I just had to make an exception here.

Video: “Hustler” - Simian Mobile Disco ((highly recommended))
Director: Saam Farahmand
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime] [iPod]

NOTE: Ezarchive was being awesome yesterday, making it impossible for me to post by refusing to allow any of my uploads to complete, so I only made it halfway through Gonzalez’s videography. The rest of the videos (there are five) will come scattered over the course of the rest of the week, presuming ezarchive gets its shit together.

I don’t know how an album as awesome and so right-up-my-alley as Simian’s 2002 electro-rock masterpiece We Are Your Friends existed for four years without my knowledge of it, but it happened and it’s a small-scale tragedy considering how relentlessly excellent it is. It wasn’t until I arrived at VICE this summer and everyone there was freaking out over Justice’s remix of Simian’s 2002 single “Never Be Alone” that I was introduced to the band, as the unparalleled glory of the remix made finding the original an immediate must for me. I’ve already discussed the merits of the Justice remix – which was released as a single this summer as “We Are Your Friends” and credited to Justice vs Simian – here at length before, so I’ll just focus on the original for now, which is quite a departure from the new re-worked version we’ve all come to know and love. The original opens innocently enough with a sunny, almost tropical synth and a fairly nondescript first verse, but then those big drums and that chorus (THAT chorus), perhaps the catchiest and most undeniable in the history of sound (hyperbole?), hits and it’s game over; Simian have just owned everyone in a fifteen mile radius of the song. Even those outside the blast zone will be reminded of the chorus for years to come in the birth defects (inability to stop dancing, irrepressible tendencies to drop it likes it hot) of their offspring – it’s just that good.

Surprisingly though, “Never Be Alone” wasn’t even Simian’s biggest hit, thanks to Peugot’s choice to soundtrack one of their best-ever advertisements with “La Breeze”, which propelled the band into the public awareness, if only for a few fleeting moments before they vanished back into relative obscurity. “La Breeze” sounds like a remixed John Lennon track - a shimmering, sunny slice of heavenly indie-pop with an electronic twist, and it thoroughly owned my summer, getting more plays than the rest of Simian’s library combined.

MP3s:
“Never Be Alone” – Simian ((highly recommended))
“La Breeze” – Simian ((highly recommended))
“We Are Your Friends” – Justice vs Simian ((HIGHLY recommended))

Tragically, Simian broke up in 2005, but as proof that every cloud has a silver lining, from the ashes of the band rose splinter group Simian Mobile Disco, comprised of former Simian ringleaders James Ford and Jas Shaw. That silver lining proved to be worth it’s weight in gold, as SMD’s most recent single, “Hustler”, has shown itself to be one of the year’s elite electronic singles, a crash course in dancefloor hotness for the uninitiated. Released on vaunted French label Kitsune Records, “Hustler” is one of the most badass tracks to have ever graced my ears, featuring a shit-talking verse from NYC singer Char Johnson and a monstrous fuzzed-out bassline that’ll obliterate any speakers not worthy of its presence. Just under four minutes in the instrumentation begins to die down for a moment or two and Johnson asks with a sneer, “What the fuck is you gonna do?”. SMD let it linger for a few beats before dropping the pressure and unleashing an unrestrained barrage of glitchy crescendos, reducing the final two minutes of the track to a veritable electronic free-for-all in which everyone’s a winner. With a more dancefloor-oriented, less poppy sound, Simian Mobile Disco have generated serious buzz with “Hustler” and their excellent remix work, and I’m hotly anticipating their as-yet-unannounced debut LP. What is announced, however, is their next single, classily-named “Tits & Acid”, which will be backed by another new track, “Animal House” and will see a limited white label only release sometime in November. You can get your first taste of that hotness below, along with “Hustler” and a slew of SMD’s bangin’ remixes.

MP3s:
“Hustler” – Simian Mobile Disco ((highly recommended))
“Tits & Acid” – Simian Mobile Disco

Bonus Remixes:
“Ladyflash” (SMD Remix) – The Go! Team
“Mona Lisa’s Child” (SMD Remix) – Keith
“International Dateline” (SMD Remix) - Ladytron

First of all, I don’t see why Zero 7 deserve their name on this track at all, as this could easily be a Veneer b-side, but that lone gripe aside, stop-motion wizard Adam Bizanski has done it again here. Bizanski has already scored previously with his excellent video for The Shins’ “Pink Bullets” and Wolf Parade’s “Modern World”, and despite the risk that he’s getting into one-trick pony territory with the whole stop-motion fixation, he’s succeeded again in crafting another excellent video for next-to-no expense. An interesting little human-as-butterfly tale of metamorphosis and rebirth, Bizanski’s clip proves to be one of 2006’s best stop-motion clips in a year where every director ever has taken the stop-motion technique for a spin. The animation is just beautiful and the subtleties of the clip (the textures, the diffused lighting, the framed butterflies) make it one of the most aesthetically pleasing clips of the year. The sole issue is that it’s way too short, clocking in at just under a minute and a half, so just as you’re beginning to love it it’s over.

Video: “Left Behind” – Zero 7 (ft. Jose Gonzalez)
Director: Adam Bizanski
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime] [iPod]

Gonzalez’s first video, for debut single “Stay In The Shade”, is his lowest-budget and least-entertaining clip, though it does feature extremely impressive animation. Directed by artist Elias Araya, “Shade” takes the animated artwork found on Gonzalez’s album and single releases and turns it into a short film of curious and trippy animations, so if this sounds like you’re thing, be sure to check it out below.

Video: “Stay In The Shade” – Jose Gonzalez
Director: Elias Araya
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime] [iPod]

So I’ve shafted you all on Music Video Mondays the last two weeks, and while I’ve got a ridiculous amount of work on my plate again this week I’m doing my best to keep things around here business-as-usual, so here’s a special themed MVMonday to keep you video enthusiasts satiated. I’ve been going through a pretty intense Jose Gonzalez phase ever since he blew my mind in concert last Wednesday (full review coming tomorrow or Wednesday), thus it’s only right that today be all about The Gonz and his music video history.

“Crosses” was the single that initially got everything started in both Sweden and the US, but it wasn’t until quite recently that the song saw a single release in the UK and, consequently, received the music video treatment. The video is beautifully-shot from a cinematography standpoint, but is pretty straightforward in concept and execution. The video follows Jose as he’s chauffered around town over the course of one night, and he’s joined by other characters who drift in and out of the clip and join him in the backseat of the car. Jose’s fellow passengers seem to exist ambivalent to his presence (and he to theirs), as they mouth the song’s words with detached aloofness. Jose maintains a stoicism about him as well (but let’s be honest, when does he not?) throughout the clip, waiting to break his stone-faced gaze until the clip’s waning moments when he leans forward and takes over vocal duties from his fellow passengers. Not the most riveting video in the world, but it’s beautifully-shot and fits the song appropriately.

Video: “Crosses” - Jose Gonzalez
Director: ???
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime] [iPod] [Windows Media]

Belgian filmmakers BoeMtjak took it upon themselves to create they’re own unofficial clip for “Crosses” after finding an interesting harmony between Mr. Gonzalez’s soothing voice and guitar and David Attenborough’s legendary Life On Earth films, which do indeed work quite well together. You can see that here via YouTube or download it here for an interesting viewing experience. On a side note, BoeMtjak also created a similar video pairing Sebastien Tellier’s “Fantino” and elapsed-time plant life footage, which you can view here in streaming Windows Media or download here .mov-style.

Cold War Kids, the best new American band of 2006, are set to break into the public awareness with their debut album, Robbers & Cowards, out on October 10th on Downtown Records. In equally exciting news, they’ve also shot and released their first music video. The video is for “Hang Me Up To Dry”, one of the many elite tracks on this year’s Up In Rags EP, and was shot at a California middle school Battle of the Bands, which the group was invited to by a friend who worked for the school to show the kids how a professional band put on on a performance. Shots of the middle schoolers jumping around to the music intercut with the band’s jubilant performance footage makes for a perfect, cost-efficient music video debut, in keeping with the Kids’ incredibly endearing DIY aesthetic. Here’s what the band had to say about the video in an excerpt from their website:

“Last thursday we played a mid-day show that you probably did not attend. It was at Rancho Starbuck Middle School in Whittier at a Battle of the Bands contest. Do 12 year old kids really have rock bands? This was the question we asked until we saw Metallic Tigers do their covers of Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and Rage “Killing in the name Of” (instrumental with shredding guitar solos). And The Lawsuits, with their rendition of the Ramones “I Don’t Care,” (they really did not). These kids could have fit right in at CBGB’s 30 years ago with their wild hair and fingerless black glove mic styles. We played a 5 song set engulfed by 200 pre-teens screaming and jumping the whole time, and because we knew you wouldn’t believe it, we got the whole thing on film and are going to use it to make a video for our song “Hang Me Up To Dry.”

Video: “Hang Me Up To Dry” - Cold War Kids
Director: Cold War Kids
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime] [iPod]

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the group have also announced the details of their upcoming debut LP, Robbers & Cowards. It’ll be released through Downtown on October 10th and culls tracks from the bands three EP releases plus two new ones, “Passing The Hat” and “God, Make Up Your Mind”. The band re-recorded “most of the songs on the EP’s in the way that [they[ would’ve liked to originally record them had [they] the time” Peep the album cover and tracklist below; linked files lead to the re-recorded album versions of the tracks, which I received on the four-track promo from Downtown. All songs are unmixed and unmastered.

Robbers & Cowards:
01. We Used To Vacation
02. Hang Me Up To Dry ((highly recommended))
03. Tell Me In The Morning
04. Hair Down
05. Passing The Hat
06. Saint John
07. Robbers
08. Hospital Beds ((highly recommended))
09. Pregnant
10. Red Wine, Success!
11. God, Make Up Your Mind
12. Rubidoux

ELSEWHERE:
Noise For Toaster has got a pretty sweet exclusive up, Ben Folds covering “Such Great Heights”, the original of which is, y’know, a pretty good song I guess.

Ooh.

Sometimes I really suck. Seriously, I’ve been meaning to post on these guys ever since I named “Retreat! Retreat!” the fifth-best song of 2004, yet here we are - it’s almost October 2006 - and this is pretty much the first you’ve heard of them in this space. People really liked the song from them I posted yesterday (”Radio Protector”), so here’s a full fledged artist (mega) profile of them to respond to the deman for more of their material. 65 Days of Static (often credited as 65daysofstatic) first stormed into my awareness when Lizzy played “Retreat” for me in the Spring of 2005 (incidentally it was the same day I got into UVA if I remember correctly), and the band, who I originally took for a bit of a one-hit wonder, has been steadily earning my utmost respect ever since. I spent the better part of the next year trying to track down a copy of their debut album, The Fall of Math, and after another half-year of looking high and low I finally have their full discography to enjoy, which includes 2005’s stellar follow-up to the aforementioned debut, One Time For All Time. But let’s get back to where it all started.

With some twinkling glockenspiel plinks and the words, “We will not retreat, this band is unstoppable!” (a Matt Dillon sample from 1992’s grunge film Singles), the post-rock juggernauts are off and shredding on “Retreat! Retreat!”, taking you on a 4 minute adventure you won’t soon forget. Seemlessly melding ferocious guitar riffs, drum n’ bass beats, live drums, and computer glitches, 65 Days Of Static created a masterpiece of controlled noise that is equal parts viciously euphoric, mind-blowingly frenetic, and really, really loud. “Retreat” is an excercise in hugeness, peerless in scope and scale and as massive and agressive as anything Mogwai’s ever done, all while retaining a decidedly electronic feel with the presence of computerized glitches and the odd boom and bip. Despite my initial fear that 65 Days might have peaked immediately out of the gate with their debut single, I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I finally tracked it down, the rest of Math proved to yield a handful of other excellent tracks, the best of which were “I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood”, which sees the band finding the perfect middle ground between glitches and guitars, and “Hole”, which went on to have a seven-song EP bult around it as the band’s follow-up release to the “Retreat” CD-single. The EP featured the title track accompanied by three new songs as well as remixes of two of the debut’s best songs, a self-remix of title track “The Fall of Math” and an interesting Mothboy remix of “Retreat! Retreat!”, the latter of which is available for download below. The highlight of the EP, however, is new track “The Wrong Side of the Tracks”, which alternates frenetic, rapidfire percussion and monstrous, suffocating feedback-drenched bass with what-the-fuck samples and serene atmospherics, the combination of which we’ll have even the most stable person prone to fits of epilepsy by its conclusion.

MP3s:
“Retreat! Retreat!” - 65daysofstatic ((highly recommended))
“I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood” - 65daysofstatic
“Wrong Side of the Tracks” - 65daysofstatic
“Retreat! Retreat!” (Mothboy Remix) - 65daysofstatic

However, despite the excellence of The Fall of Math and the impressiveness of the Hole EP, it’s the group’s sophomore effort, One Time For All Time, that completely defied and blew away all of my expectations with the significant evolution of the band’s sound. Bookended by career highlights “Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here” and incredibly-epic closer “Radio Protector”, One Time finds the band exploring a far more atmospheric sound, even-darker than the earlier material, that sees the band introducing a dramatic piano to their arsenal as a perfect compliment to the guitars and agressive percussion of the debut. Leaning at times further towards the haunting arrangements of a more electronic Explosions In The Sky or a more aggressive Sigur Ros than Mogwai, the hard-rocking debut album’s closest peer, One Time is a quantum leap from its predecessor. The haunting arrangements on tracks like “23kid” recalls those found on the Icelandic quartet’s 2002 opus (), though Sigur Ros rarely rock as hard as 65 Days do once the slow build on these songs reach their climax. Opener “Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here” opens with a haunting piano progression and percussion punctuated by human grunts and moans (an effect employed to equal success on Justice’s “Waters of Nazareth”, which gradually builds in both pace and intensity to an apocalyptic climax. And while I’d hate to slight everything in between by jumping to the closer, it’s the album’s final track that sets the high-water mark for 65 Days of Static’s career to date. A true epoch in every sense of the word, the song opens with a wistful piano progression that (again) gradually builds before the introduction of a dramatic percussion section takes the song to new heights. Just over two minutes in the instrumentation dies out and yields to a beautiful glockenspiel solo, before the band turns the amps back on and rocks the song to its completion in appropriately epic fashion. Incredible, incredible stuff folks.

MP3s:
“Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here” - 65daysofstatic ((highly recommended))
“Radio Protector” - 65daysofstatic ((HIGHLY recommended))

So the mystery of the origin of “The Importance of Being” stillllll hasn’t been solved, and even MTV’s getting in on the action now, writing an entire article about the controversy and giving it a prime slot in their Headline News for today. In the article they summarize the entire ordeal and provide the first insight from Jimmy Tamborello on the matter, who confirms once and for all his lack of involvement in the track. They also mention the possibility of the track being from The Northern Two, and go on to mention Good Weather For Airstrikes in the following paragraph. Here’s the excerpt:

“Someone showed me that song yesterday … it actually has nothing to do with me or Ben,” [Tamborello] wrote. “I guess it’s just someone playing a joke. I have no idea who it actually is.”

And neither did anyone else. The prime suspects — at least according to comments left on several music blogs [note: by “several music blogs” they pretty much only mean this one] — was the Northern Two, an unsigned Los Angeles electro-pop duo that recently completed a new album and were looking to drum up some publicity by leaking “Being” under the Postal Service banner.

But here’s where the matter gets even more confusing: While the song certainly sounds like the Northern Two, the group denied any involvement with the song through an e-mail sent to GoodWeatherForAirstrikes.com, one of the first blogs to post the track. (Attempts by MTV News to contact the group were unsuccessful.)”

This is all very exciting and whatnot, but CAN WE PLEASE GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS?! I’m dying trying to figure out who is responsible for this track, as it’s really really good and I’d love to hear more from these guys. I’m considering starting a record label to release the track as a single (not really), solely so that I can get sued for copyright infringement and finally find out who’s behind this. As always, if you have even the slightest clue who this might be (and no, it’s not The Northern Two), please shed some light on the mystery in the comments. The track is available below for anyone who’s yet to hear it.

MP3: “The Importance of Being” - ??????????

NOTE: I’ve got an unbelievable amount of work to do before tomorrow on this digital art project, so unfortunately I’m gonna have to skimp on Music Video Monday yet again, but to make it up to you here’s a profile of one of my favorite new bands that has been chilling in the “to post” queue for a few days now.

Mancunian six-piece Snowfight In The City Centre have released what is easily the most impressive debut single of 2006 with “No Light Left”, an absolutely untouchable piece of pristine, shimmering indie pop. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, first a little history on the band. The principle core of Snowfight formed last year under the name Lisa Brown (sometimes referred to as The Lisa Brown), and they were quickly snatched up by up-and-coming Manchester imprint High Voltage Sounds, who put out the double A-side “What’s That Sound”/”Anna” shortly thereafter, though the impressive release went largely unnoticed in the crowded UK indie-rock scene. “What’s That Sound” was a little slice of dance-rock heaven, seemingly plucked straight out of the 1980’s with that ridiculously-80’s “What’s that sound?” refrain, slick production, catchy hooks, and discotheque-ready vibe. As immediate and accessible as anything that Franz Ferdinand or The Killers have ever put out, the song had me sold a mere twenty seconds in with those four angular guitar jabs that alternate between the right and left channels and the track only got hotter from there, but remained tragically overlooked. The b-side was an acoustic version of this song “Snowfight In The City Centre”, which isn’t really worth mentioning if not for the fact that, after confusing the shit out of new listeners who consistently expected Lisa Brown to be a solo female artist, the band chose to take this song title and take it for their band name. Now they introduce said song as “Lisa Brown” when they play it live, which I think is clever and endearing.

Now playing under the new Snowfight In The City Centre moniker, they unveiled a whole new sound when they released “No Light Left” last July. Gone is the overwhelming 80’s vibe and in its place are skyscraping melodies and soaring choruses, a new sound that’s self-described as “the Arcade Fire only more anthemic”, which - audacious as it may seem - is seems fairly accurate in my opinion. “No Light Left” serves up a hefty dose of unadulterated indie-pop perfection, seemingly coming out of nowhere oto become one of the elite indie-rock singles of 2006. Seriously, I’m not lying when I say this song has the catchiest chorus of the year, hands down. They warm you up with that first “angels and ghosts” chorus before dropping the proverbial bomb on the second chorus, when the song really takes flight and shoots towards the heavens. Sure, they have the potential to turn into another Coldplay or Keane sound-a-like, but only time will tell. Their follow-up single, “Listen”, hits shelves in the UK on October 16^th, but you can stream it on their MySpace page now, along with a few other unreleased tracks that show a good amount of promise as well. Long story short, this is a band to get very, very excited about.

MP3s:
“What’s That Sound” - Lisa Brown
“No Light Left” - Snowfight In The City Centre ((HIGHLY recommended))

Bonus MP3: “Snowfight In The City Centre” (BBC Acoustic Session) - Lisa Brown