weekend listening post

shins - Wincing the Night Away: This one doesn't grab you as instantly as Chutes too Narrow did. It is instead a bit of a sleeer as was the case with their debut, oh, inverted world. Nothing out of the ordinary here, it's the shins being their shinny ol' selves which fans will undoubtedly appreciate.

Lady Sovereign - Public Warning: A full length at long last from pint size british brat, recently signed to Def Jam by Jay-Z. About half of this album is culled from her various singles and E.P.'s which you may have heard before. The rest fills in the blanks in the same quirky, female version of the streets kinda way as her earlier work. As evidenced with her live show, the whole schtick kind of falls flat due to her lack of any real serious conviction. It is however catchy enough that I've been caning it a bit this week.

the octopus project and black moth super rainbow - House of Apples and Eyeballs: Instrumental glitch pop. Decent enough for the stand out track, "Psychic Swelling".

apples in stereo - New Magnetic Wonder: More sunshine psychedelia from the grandfathers of the elephant 6. For those keeping track, Hilary Sidney has been replaced, and former OTC member, Bill Doss has now joined along with John Ferguson and whoever they got to replace Hilary.

menonena - Friend & Foe: These guys had a fairly unique sound going on with their first (stupidly titled) release, I am the Fun Blame Monster, rife with just right placement of horns & keys. Their last effort, Under an Hour was more of an experiment in noodling, rather than a proper follow up, and I think it actually accompanied some art instalation, so that's forgiveable at least. Friend and Foe is more like the proper follow up to Fun Blame. However, instead of expanding on their uniqueness, they've washed it out and come out sounding a lot like TV on the Radio, which of course isn't terrible. Their name still reminds me of the old muppets bit, "phenomena", and that's cool enough for me.