White Hills - I Write a Thousand Letters | Video Feature

There are some psychedelic rock bands that are able to so thoroughly overcome the stagnant and repetitive niche that can so easily overcome lesser groups working within the genre. It is something akin to an act of nature or divine inspiration that allows some musicians to move beyond the potential and easily unavoidable pitfalls. After a few years of activity White Hills come equipped with just enough carnal energy and stoic demeanor to catapult them into not only mainstays of the scene but also puts them in league with other current innovators such as Wooden Shjips or Psychic Ills. 
Their video for "I Write a Thousand Letters", taken from the groups most recent full-length Frying On This Rock, does quite a bit to prove how far White Hills have come. The group are shown at the height of stylization bobbing, weaving, & playing guitar solos in slow-motion to the sounds of screaming guitar lines, pounding drum rolls, and the occasional burst of keyboards.  The video directed by Delo Creative is a sublimely epic affair that is able to match the group's menace and sense of mystery. 
White Hills album Frying On This Rock is available now via Thrill Jockey Records. 

Golden Retriever - Canopy | Video Feature

As a new rover lands on Mars and mankind continues our inexhaustible search a new video also drops for Golden Retriever. It's not that the duo of Jonathan Sielaff & Matt Carlson are constant space explorers (in a literal or figurative sense) but similarities remain. Sielaff and Carlson's compositional techniques revolve heavily around their use of technology with traditional instrumentation, as evidence in their primary instruments being the modular synth and bass clarinet. It is as if one is needed to expand the knowledge of the other and allow for a more fruitful and relationship of coexistence.
For all of the spaced out nature of Golden Retriever's work it can perhaps be said that even down to their name the duo are truly interested in and capable of exploring the depths of the human condition. The video for "Canopy" itself can be read as a directed effort towards living in this world we can Earth.  Filmmaker Jeff Guay presents a beautifully rendered environment full of organic life in the Columbia Gorge located in the northwestern United States.  It's subtle narrative follows a lone individual making his way down and through this forest environment down to the river's clear and dark water. 
This is not to say it's a straight shot as the camera rests for long moments to gaze into the rhythms of the natural world.  Guay matches the evolving complexities of Golden Retriever's music and provides instants of meditative relaxation, or depending on the viewers state of being I could saying realization, clarity even. It is as if Sielaff and Carlson have come full circle and with the help of Guay are offering up a means of coexistence, one both stunning in it's subtlety and moving in it's simplicity. 
Golden Retriever's album Occupied with the Unspoken is available now via Thrill Jockey. 

Sidi Touré - Ni See Ay Ga Done | Video Feature

Again the sounds of North Western Africa, and more specifically the Sahel region in Mali in particular here, bleed out into the world's musical vocabulary. This time it is Sidi Touré who is stepping out and shedding light on the beautiful heritage and roots of real blues music. "Ni See Ay Ga Done" offers an energetic look into the acoustic folk of the region. Guitars strum and creating a weave of complex picking patterns, the pitter patter of percussive elements float in the background while Touré's voice comes out front and center leading the listener through it all.

The video in all it's highly saturated color creates a blurry montage of Touré's homeland. Through all the beauty and exotic (at least to these American eyes) landscapes and architecture the region seems to stand at a dichotomy of vast introspection and deeply communal living. A way of life made out of necessity rather than some idyllic vision of escapism and romance. This fact is driven home when we are able to address to the true horrors that northern Mali and Touré's home country are facing. Severe drought, revolution, and extremist political and religious thought have dominated Mali's northern country forcing even the longtime Tuareg inhabitants who have been engaged in a decades long conflict with the government over creating a sovereign state to enter into an even fiercer battle with Islamist extremists vying for control of the area. A sad state of affairs and one that does not aide the plight of the local people in such a time of hardship.

Sidi Touré's second full-length album Koïma is available now via Thrill Jockey.

Wooden Shjips - Remix 12"

As far as contemporary dance music goes I don't think that many of Wooden Shjips biggest fans have a clue what's going on. Most likely too lost in a haze of kraut grooves & smokey blues boogies to ever really make it into 2012. Yet here we are & in the 2010's 12" remixes of well... just about anything is totally in, invariably forcing everyone one in the music world to dust off their dancing shoes. Maybe it's the internet & how the contemporary cultural landscape is an endless sea of remixing. It always comes back to the internet...
Regardless Thrill Jockey has stepped in to make us realize "Oh Yes, Wooden Shjips are prime fodder for remix material. Situating their own unique blend of hypnotic & ethereal organ riffs, rhythmic emphasis, and penchant for head nodding stoned bliss within the realm of contemporary electronic dance music is a perfect match. Listening to Andrew Weatherall's remix of "Crossing" matches the vibe of the group's original while still allowing for the version to venture into ideas solely Weatherall's own." So there you are, or it is, & even if I'm not dancing along (I'm not necessarily the type) I'm at least bobbing my digging the deep grooves being cut.
Wooden Shjips Remix 12" will be available Feb. 21st via Thrill Jockey.

Dustin Wong - Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads | Album Review

Dustin Wong, ex-guitarist of beloved noise-pop spazzers Ponytail, has been goin' it alone for some time now. After leaving behind his old band, another successful project (Ecstatic Sunshine,) and his native Baltimore, MD; Wong made the decision to take the reins and do things on his own terms and, all things considered, things seem to be panning out pretty nicely. Quickly embraced by the scene in his adopted home of Brooklyn, frequently featuring on choice bills throughout the borough's DIY circuit, Wong's latest material brims with the inevitable confidence brought upon by an ever-growing audience.

On his second effort for Thrill Jockey, the beautifully titled Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, Wong's signature brand of dizzying technicolor guitar pop truly shines and sounds like a man at the peak of his creativity. Deciding to stray from the long form, meditative compositions found on 2010's Infinite Love, Wong instead focuses on consolidating ideas into concise, 3-5 minute psychedelic bursts. That's not to say the tracks feel entirely separate, in fact each fades into the next so seamlessly you might easily miss where one track ends and another begins, retaining a laconic fluidity without ever becoming too boring or repetitive.

Opening cut “Ice Sheets on Feet Prints” sets the tone of the record beautifully; A kraut-ish guitar figure thuds away, quickly making room for a barrage of shimmering, layered guitar textures, until the whole thing bursts wide open with a pulsating drum track and Wong's now-infamous foot-on-the-monitor guitar heroics.

If by now you haven't noticed, the guitar takes center stage on this record; particularly Wong's explorations in texture and color through use of his extensive collection of effects. The above photo is strikingly evocative of Wong's guitar stylings; swirling beams of color coming at you from all angles. At the heart of Wong's technique lies the loop station. Each track is delicately constructed from a series of intricately layered guitar figures being pumped through various pedals, resulting in highly rhythmic hypnotic jams. The later album track “Pencil Drove Hill Moon” displays Wong's mastery of the loop station as he impressively harmonizes and manipulates single note patterns into a mosaic of ambient guitar grooves. Wong's effect wizardry is certainly not limited to his beloved loop station, however. Take “On/In the Way,” a short cut that has Dustin pulling out all the stops, using spring reverb and slap-back delay to create a percussive, West African styled lead and a bouncy mimicked bass line that you can't help but bop along to.

Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is ultimately a rather enjoyable record; just one that goes on for a bit too long. Had Wong made the decision to snip a few tracks here and there and tighten things up a bit, he would have been making a wise choice. That's not to say the album drags, because it doesn't. The sequencing is one of the album's strong points. I just feel Wong's tunes are best enjoyed in slightly smaller doses. That being said, this new record is sure to please fans of Dustin's previous work and lovers of experimental guitar pop music; and it's a damn fine record. Just one that could've used a trim here or there.

Dustin Wong - Pink Diamond from Thrill Jockey Records

Dustin Wong's Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads drops this upcoming Tuesday, Feb. 21, via Thrill Jockey Records. Above is the appropriately neon hued video for album cut “Pink Diamond.” Also, if you happen to be in the New York area, Dustin's having a record release party on the 24^th of Feb. at La Sala in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Should be a rad one, kids.

-Dylan Smith

High Places - The Pull

High Places have certainly come a long way since they first made their way into general music consciousness back in 2007. The duo of Rob Barber & Mary Pearson in recent years have shed some of the murk & tightened up their compositional structures allowing their creations to take on new highs of pop prowess. What's more is that along with these sonic innovations have also come a newfound sense of confidence most readily heard in Pearson vocals, which now take center stage to help propel the bits of electronics percussion & shimmer further into the limelight.
"The Pull", taken from Original Colors, demonstrates the group's new streamlined electronic aesthetic. The video matches the electro clarity the majority of the track with some pristine shots of the band & organic matter. The video tackles chiaroscuro uses of light & dark as the screen cloaked in a pitch black with glimpses of light into the world the duo inhabit.
High Places Original Colors is available now via Thrill Jockey.

Dustin Wong - "Diagonally Talking Echo"

Dustin Wong - Diagonally Talking Echo from Thrill Jockey Records

Minimalism has really spread into contemporary indie culture rather seamlessly hasn't it? If I were in academia I might discuss societies penchant for assimilation and the marks of fringe-cum-pop culture and use Dustin Wong's newest single as a prime example. Alas I am not so this will not be, anymore than it already is, a rambling yet detached look into social & cultural habits. Regardless Dustin Wong really takes on key elements that personify the more high-culture musical movement/genre.

Yet at the same time Wong is also working towards extending the groundwork he laid with his previous group Ponytail. In fact many moments on "Diagonally Talking Echo" wouldn't be wholly out of place on any Ponytail track, yet he's never attempting to recreate that sound rather aspects of it's experience. In place of a mere facsimile of that band's (former) power, Wong's own voice can be seen in retrospect to be a guiding force now set to go about it's own particular paths.

Dustin Wong's "Diagonally Talking Echo" is taken from his forth coming full-length Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is available February 21st via Thrill Jockey.

Wooden Shjips "Lazy Bones" video

On a general level Wooden Shjips rock. Period. Their take on a well trodden brand of blues-inflected psych-rock retains the hallmarks of luminaries such as Spacemen 3 and more generally Nuggets-era garage rock. The band's newest album West continues on this path, though with some added fidelity and sheen, partially due to the involvement of former spaceman Sonic Boom.

The video for album cut "Lazy Bones" Wooden Shjips have turned to Black Dice whose distinct visual aesthetic is practically dripping out of the screen. The collaboration at first glance seems strange at best but when examining the recent trajectory of BD (and the solo work of Eric Copeland) it may not be all that surprising. After all Copeland's latest single "Whorehouse Blues" makes explicit reference to some of the blues & boogie tinged work Shjips are known for. So enjoy the video while you're mind's eye begins to take out it's dancing shoes & begins to melt.

West is out now and available from Thrill Jockey records.