NA, UK-edition: The Knife, Midlake, Soft Pack

Hey everyone! Hope you’re enjoying the Selects Bands…..just thought I’d drop by to do a skimming of the other new/interesting/cool things that we got at the site this week. Let’s start with the Marquee Titles, shall we? (A lot of these are UK-only, so apologies when and where not available):

THE BIG STUFF

The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, Tomorrow In A Year – The return of the Knife, yes — but there doesn’t appear to be anything at all even remotely resembling a “We Share Your Mother’s Health” here. This might end up being the most audacious and willfully “out” record a well-known act releases all year. It’s an experimental, avant-garde opera, period; if you’re desperate for a Silent Shout followup, you’ve probably already figured out that, well, this definitely isn’t that.

I haven’t listened to this in its entirety yet; it is the very definition of an “active listening” album, and if you try to let it seep in while you are traveling to work or cooking dinner or updating a spreadsheet it will drive you mad in about ten minutes. But what I have heard, beyond the epic and wonderful “The Colouring of Pigeons” has the modern-classical geek in me intrigued: shrouds of inexplicable static-y noise corroding the air; cancerous clouds of buzzing synths; electronically manipulated soprano voices looping and howling unnaturally. This might be your idea of a nightmare, but it seems like one worth experiencing.

Midlake, The Courage of Others – The guys behind the often-great The Trials of Van Occupanther return with one of the most unforgivably pallid and bloodless albums I have heard in a long time. Sorry, everyone — have I ever said anything that mean before about an album before on 17dots? Something about this one left me so cold that it made me oddly angry. Perk up, guys, at least enough to mumble something memorable. Makes British madrigals sound positively filthy by comparison.

The Soft Pack, s/t — The men who used to be the Muslims finally release their appealingly sloppy, lackadaisical first full-length. eMusic’s Alex Deller writes:

For a band primed for great things, the Soft Pack isn’t making things easy on themselves. The band changed their name, from The Muslims, just as tastemakers began to catch on and only reveal their finest attributes to those who’ll pay them more mind than just a cursory MySpace click. But beneath the lackadaisical exterior lies a band with bucketloads of heart and pure — if somewhat grudging — joy, one that transcends comparisons to stand-offish forebears Interpol or the Strokes. By tempering insistent bass lines and choppy post-punk shimmies with a wry dose of Warren Zevon-style gallows humor and a generous swirl of the sunshine surf, they’ve made something all their own.

THE RANDOM/COOL

Bob Blank, The Blank Generation – Blank Tapes NYC 1971 — 1985 – A compilation of some of the best work of a quintessentially New York producer, a guy who worked with Lydia Lunch and Arthur Russell but also Sun Ra and Gladys Knight and James Blood Ulmer. This is fantastic, swaggering stuff, strutting NYC summer disco and roller-rink funk jams (spiced with Portuguese lyrics!) and robotic electro-pop — in other words, pretty much all the most joyfully fertile art/punk crevices of New York City in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Highly recommended listening.

Ash Koley, The Red EP – Brassy, dark female vocals, kinda reminiscent of the woman in The Long Blondes, paired with sourly sweet bubblegum/punk melodies. Bouncy, sassy, catchy — I dig this.

Wakey! Wakey!, Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You… – Big-hearted, anthemic chamber-pop, reminiscent of Ra Ra Riot.

Dakota Suite, The Night Just Keeps Coming In – Bleak, frozen-tundra electronic ambient, fringed with strings. As one 17dots wag once termed it, “doombient.” For fans of Kreng’s L’Autopsie Phenomenal Del Dieu, in particular, and Miasmah Records, in general.

Reache, Kyle Gann’s “The Planets” – Kyle Gann is maybe known by most people as a critic — he worked at the Village Voice for years as their chronicler of all things Downtown and arty in NYC from the mid 1980s all the way to 2000. But he is also a noted post-minimalist composer, and this represents some of his latest work.

Fringe Magnetic, Empty Spaces – An odd, cinematic little jazz/chamber record, full of softly glowing clarinets and weeping violin. Occasionally, there are angular, Kurt Weill-meets-Berg vocal lines. A curious modern-jazz gem.

Various Artists, The Best of Fried Egg Records (Bristol 1979-1980) — Wow, you wanna talk narrowly focused compilations? Check out that date range in the title. ONE YEAR! That’s some next-frontier shit. The only place left to go from here is to break into month denominations. Behold, if you will, Various Artists: The Best of Moustache Beard, March 21-April 9, 2010. I can’t even call this an “overview” — I’d say it’s more like a keyhole-peep at a specific moment in time, and guess what? There are some jams here.

THE HEAD KNOCK

DJ Green Lantern and Styles P, The Green Ghost Project – Knuckleheaded rap shit from one-third of The LOX and part of D-Block. This is pure bodega-rap, which I suppose doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t from a major city, but it means you hear it issuing fiercely from corner stores from which questionably authentic wares are peddled, and it means that the ideal way to listen to it would be to drink brown liquor to it and smoke laced weed and then possibly shiv someone before spending the night in jail. Or, you know, you could just put it on your iPod for the treadmill. Styles P is a frighteningly intense presence as a rapper, a guy who embodies the term “mean mug,” and this, along with the fact that he is not the prettiest man and that the sex symbol and star in his crew is, uh, Jadakiss, has kept him from ever bubbling up into the mainstream. This is potent stuff, though; “Invasion” sounds straight evil.

Statik Selektah, 100 Proof (The Hangover) – Bun B, Wale, Freeway, Havoc, Lil Fame, Consequence, and many others acquit themselves nicely on this, a collection of soulful boom-bap beats.

Hobo Junction, The Cleaners – This also knocks! Very rugged indie-rap; not so much “you’re-a-shitty-commercial rapper-and-I-peer-down-from-the-moral-high-ground-on-you” as “you’re-a-shitty-commercial-rapper-so-I-will-bust-this-40-bottle-on-your head. More Sean Price than Elzhi, in other words.

THE EVIL

Iconocaust, Judas Complex – Terrifyingly awesome-sounding black Satanic metal. That band name alone is a win.

What did you find?