2/28 new arrivals

Garage rock, dub-step, house music and hardcore in today’s haul.

Faine Jade: I’ll just steal the AMG review, which, based on samples, seems apt: “It’s hard to imagine that a 20-year-old New York guitarist fresh out of garageland would have been infatuated with Syd Barrett in 1968. However, Faine Jade’s 1968 album sounds as if he was besotted with Pink Floyd’s first LP, which was barely known in the States at the time. Jade’s vocals and songwriting uncannily evoke an American Syd Barrett with their evocative, cryptic lyrics, thick organs, and psychedelic guitar lines.” And allow me to add that it’s pretty damn good.

Audion: Hell yes. Have only downloaded so far, but Matthew Dear is pretty much unstoppable in my book.

Ain’t It Hard: More good ’60s garage stuff, this L.A.-based, including appearances by a young Kenny Loggins! The title track is particularly shambly and great.

Coldcut: Misfiled under various artists (will be fixed tomorrow), Coldcut’s eagerly awaited Sound Mirrors from last fall arrives.

The Blood Brothers: Those of you who got into the Blood Brothers with Crimes, Young Machetes and Burn Piano Island, Burn will probably have a hard time with these very early, very raw recordings before the boys added that “post-” to their hardcore. Me though? I love this stuff. I first got into them with the cacophonous “Doctor! Doctor!” and this is definitely in that vein.

High Priest: Filed as dub but closer to dub-step, High Priest is a Brooklyn rapper with a proclivity for dirty, Burial-style beats & rhymes.

modal: Not really sure how to describe this except as some sort of glittery, electro-ambient record that’s epic and loud.

The Northern Strugglers: I swear every song has a different singer, putting this all over the map, but to bottom-line it, think early ’90s alt-country, when the Jayhawks seemed like the best thing going.

Nilson: Dunno anything about this dude, but this is the kind of record our own J. Edward Keyes loves: precious, British, vaguely Scott Walker-ish. Hopefully he’ll pop in and prove me right or wrong.

Amy Blaschke: I’ve been trying to place where I know that album cover from all morning — maybe it’s one of those albums I got five promos of that sat on an end table for five months — but regardless, the music behind it is quite nice: female-fronted singer/songwriter stuff backed by dudes from Minus the Bear and Built to Spill.