This is fine.
Start your Wednesday night off right by heading to Mohawk for a set by Tortoise with local Austin band Balmorhea providing opening support. Tickets for this one are $18 in advance or $20 at the door. Things get started at 8pm. Do it!
Download: Tortoise – Prepare Your Coffin [MP3]
You may not know about The Clean, but odds are, you’ve been jamming to something that’s been influenced by this seminal New Zealand band. Long ago, they made Flying Nun a indie household name, but now they are working with Merge Records. They have a new album, Mister Pop, slated for a release in September, and this new track definitely has the ATH offices salivating. Here’s to you!
Download: The Clean – In the Dreamlife you Need a Rubber Soul [MP3]
There’s no mistake that we here at ATH really love The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and we have yet another band, The Isolation, coating their summertime pop gems in loads of reverb and atmospherics. We’ll happily take tunes as good as this one any day, so we’d like to introduce you to The Isolation. This song, “Dancing Away,” comes from the band’s Isolation EP.
Download: The Isolation – Dancing Away [MP3]
Matt Sharp and his band The Rentals finally got back together a couple years ago and are hard at work on a whole slew of new material. The new project from the band is called Songs About Time and is a year long project with films coming out every day, short films every Tuesday and 3 EPs dropping every 3 months. It’s quite the project and no one would expect any less from Mr. Sharp. Two of these EPs Chapter One: The Story of a Thousand Seasons Past and Chapter Two: It’s Time to Come Home are both streaming and available for digital download on The Rentals website. Stay tuned because even more new material will be coming your way soon. Here’s the title track from Chapter 1.
Download: The Rentals – Story of a Thousand Seasons Past [MP3]
If you’ve yet to see Austin’s own The Strange Boys live, now is your chance to see them for free at a Waterloo Records in-store today. Things will get started at 5pm and of course don’t forget the free keg beer. Here’s that song we love so much that we promise not to post again after today… maybe.
Download: The Strange Boys – Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up [MP3]
Admit it: you have the attention span of a coked out squirrel. You don’t want to hear jam bands, experimental noise bands, or ambitious concept albums. You’re a 21st Century, internet-streaming, iPod-shuffling, next-button-pressing, son of a bitch.
I forgive you. Yet I must insist that you occasionally look to songs stretching beyond that holy 3 minute mark to satisfy your fickle rock and roll urges. Here are 5 Long Songs Worth Your Time. Follow the jump for the full list.
We really enjoyed the Matt & Kim set when they opened for Cut Copy so we were of course excited to hear that the band was returning to Austin for a free show. The show is going down at Speakeasy and gets started around 8pm. The list of Supporting acts is quite lengthy with Major Lazer, DJ A-Trak, DJ AM, Autoerotique, and Rye Rye all included on the bill. Make sure you RSVP here and get there early as space is based on a first come first serve basis.
Download: Matt & Kim – Good Ol Fashion Nightmare [MP3]
The Clientele have been around for a long time, crafting serene pop songs for those inclined to have their moods altered, and by that, I mean that they are moving. Sadly, their latest effort, Bonfires of the Heath, is said to be their last one. But, luckily, months in advance of the October 6th street date on Merge Records, we have a track to sample from the album. Should be a dandy.
Download: The Clientele – I Wonder Who We Are [MP3]
It’s one thing for the Japanese to build a better car than us, but a better Big Mac!? Whats next McDonald’s? Maybe you could just burn an American Flag. And then, perhaps, you could spit on said American flag, while it’s burning.
Masters of the low-fi movement, Times New Viking, have a new single that has been tearing up the online world recently. This new single “No Time, No Hope” will appear on the band’s upcoming album Born Again Revisited due out Sep. 22nd on Matador Records. What’s your take on the new material?
Download: Times New Viking – No Time, No Hope [MP3]
