Kevin Bronson on February 22nd, 2009

0

I thought the album “Rearrange Beds” by Australian duo An Horse was out in February, but it turns out March 17 is the physical release date. Whichever, the music of Damon Cox and Kate Cooper is crackling-good indie pop. Their North American tour starts this week at Noise Pop in Francisco, but skips L.A., for now. Here’s a sampling:

||| Download: “Postcards”

Electro/psych-rock duo Gangi has done little wrong since moving from Brooklyn to L.A. They continue to impress in local gigs, are already working on a follow-up to their well-received album, “A,” and have the Spaceland residency in May. Here’s another generous offering from “A”:

||| Download: “Commonplace Feathers”

Veteran power-pop dude Tommy Keene is always good when you need a dose of Big Star-like crunch. His eighth album “In the Late Bright” is just out on Second Motion Records. No local dates in sight for the guitarist (who’s now based in L.A.), but here’s a great track from the album:

||| Download: “A Secret Life of Stories”

Cincinnati-via-Austin’s Heartless Bastards just released their third album (and first since 2006), “The Mountain,” on Fat Possum, and it finds singer Erica Wennerstrom going full throttle. The trio will bypass L.A. on its big spring tour with the Gaslight Anthem (who are playing Coachella), but here’s the title track from the album:

||| Download: “The Mountain”

Atlanta-via-Brooklyn six-piece Midnight Masses with be the second band (besides locals Funeral Party) touring with And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead (the L.A. date is March 17 at the Echoplex). The band is releasing a tour single on March 10, here’s the title track:

||| Download: “Heaven”

Chicago’s Andy Wagner is the latest artist to release music via the free digital distributor Rock Proper. Wagner’s EP “Those Who Forgive” features a dusty take on Americana that reminds you of a less woozy Calexico, or maybe even L.A.’s own Everest. Visit the site for the whole EP (as well as Where the Moon Came From, a project involving David Vandervelde), or just grab my favorite track off the EP:

||| Download: “Sending My Love”

I include this remix of Fol Chen’s nifty single “Cable TV” not because it’s any good, because it isn’t. (Please tell me if I’m wrong.) It’s here merely to illuminate how indie bands strategize to keep their names recurring on blogs – spacing out over several weeks, as they do, release of mp3 singles, videos, the album and remixes. A great many remixes these days (especially the ubiquitous remix EPs, which offer a band’s single along with as many as four or five different takes on the song) are just digital slice-and-dice, adding little more than sonic clutter to the original. Here are both versions of ‘Cable TV” – the remix comes courtesy of Liars, with whom Fol Chen frontman Adam Goldman toured as guitarist:

||| Download: “Cable TV”
||| Download: “Cable TV (Liars remix)”

By the way, via Pitchfork, here’s the video for that song:

Gangi photo by Aaron Biller