Clearly one of the most popular indie bands of the past six months, LA’s surf pop band Best Coast drop their new album this week, Crazy For You. The LP is filled to the brim with edgy, quasi-garage style indie pop rock that creates the framework for the the female equivalent of Brian Wilson’s golden [...] Related posts:Five Anticipated Summer Releases, Vol. III: Washed Out, Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse, Chief, Jaill, and Menomena In Dee Mail 2010, Vol. IV: Neon Indian Produces New Miniature Tigers’ Track; Plus, Here We Go Magic, The Morning Code & More Downbeat Electronica and Remixes of Au Revoir Simone, Pallers, Social Studies, Aeons, Higher Than Five, Zoot...

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T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir: Like a Ship
From Like a Ship (Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 1971/Light in the Attic, 2010)

First off…just wanted to share that this has been a pretty intense summer. As some of you know, I have a day job and this summer, I dedicated myself to taking care of as much academic commitments as I could take on. That’s been a good thing – an important thing – but it’s also left me completely drained by day’s end. I’m just creatively and emotionally tapped and since [...]

Continue reading T.L. BARRETT: SAIL AWAY (WITH GOD!)

I first discovered Harvey Fuqua through his 1970s acts on RCA: the Nite-Liters and New Birth. It took me years later to realize how foundational he had been in the decades prior, first with the huge doo wop group, The Moonglows, then as a formative presence during Motown’s golden years. Fuqua touched some incredibly huge records so it was always surprising to me that he wasn’t necessarily mentioned in the same breath as the Holland-Dozier-Holland team or Smokey or even Norman Whitfield as these key Motown Sound architects.

There’s no denying his prolificness though – [...]

Continue reading HARVEY FUQUA: THE UNDERSUNG LEGEND

It's rare that we here at Robots get to write about a band from the beginning to the end. Of course, we'd rather bands we like don't break up, but I love the fact that I've been enjoying Spaghetti Western String Co. since they released their debut Do Right By People in 2004. They were called just Spaghetti Western then; they added "String Co." for their next one, the Quiet Mob EP in 2005. There have been a couple more since then - 2008's Lull and Clatter, and this year's Final Verse, which is indeed the last work by...

Mirah “Gone Are All The Days (Disco Mix)”

Mirah’s first few versions of “Gone Are All The Days” were stark and simple, with her voice and rhythm suggesting something bigger and deeper without filling in much space. There’s a charm to that sort of minimalism, but I feel like in the case of this song, the full-on punk-disco approach is far more effective. Even still, as much as the song has been filled-out, it’s still tight and spare, with a clear aesthetic debt to the Gossip in their tense-yet-danceable mode. They could go further — I could definitely hear this with disco strings and a bit of piano for color — but that would lighten it up, and I think the sweetness and smoothness of Mirah’s voice is flattered by the contrast of this rigid yet pulsing arrangement.

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