RIP Cynthia Dall

Impossibly sad news arose on Monday that Cynthia Dall had died last week. The reclusive, reluctant solo artist —best known as Bill 'Smog' Callahan's collaborateur and muse in the mid-'90s— passed away in her Sacramento home. She was only 41 years old.

Dall first appeared on the Smog song "Wine-Stained Lips," and she played a huge role on his classic 1995 LP, Wild Love. With the encouragement of Callahan, Jim O'Rourke, and her label, Drag City, Dall —though barely trained as a musician— made two solo records, 1996's Untitled (initially released under the name Untitled before being repressed under her own name) and 2002's Sound Restores Young Men.

When putting together a list of sadly-forgotten '90s bands recently, Dall was one of the first people I thought of; Untitled is a strange, spartan, bagpipe-blasted record of peculiar magic that few seem to have heard.

After being coaxed back into making Sound Restores Young Men, Dall effectively retired. But, in a tribute to Dall by Drag City, she was very much portrayed as an active artist.

"When Cynthia rang us the week before last with an update on the progress of new demos, we were glad to know it; glad to think of her getting her music together and to think of another chapter in the Dall Saga," the label wrote. "It is stunning not merely because of the loss of that vision and that unheard record; more stunning and hurtful is to know that we won't be talking to her anymore."

Top 10 Tuesdays SXSW Shows

If you're going to SXSW, chances are you'll bump into Bleached (pictured!). They're playing 13 times. Sentimental bro-wonder Youth Lagoon is playing a lazy ten, so it'd be easy to stumble upon him playing a set of hushed piano ballads in an inopportune setting.

But where, o where will it happen? If you're in Austin, working out where to spend your precious hours —and who to watch— can be the logistical nightmare.

It's easy to sit at home and type up lists of awesome people playing at SXSW —see this one, this one, and this one— but working out how to actually see people is another story entirely.

Here, then, is a schedule-making friend. Another list, but not of anything so vague as bands. We're talking actual gigs. Here's a guide to the best of 'em: 10 Awesome Shows at SXSW 2012...

RIP Chris Reimer of Women

Incredibly sad news that Chris Reimer, guitarist of noisy Canadian outfit Women, passed away in his sleep on Tuesday. He was only 26 years old.

"We're shocked and saddened to hear about the passing of Women guitarist, Chris Reimer," wrote Women's US label, Jagjaguwar. "Chris' virtuosic playing is one of the many reasons we fell in love with this band in the first place."

"He definitely pushed me as an artist," Chad Van Gaalen —who produced Women's two albums, 2008's Women and 2010's Public Strain— told The National Post. "He inspired me. . . . We definitely fed off of each other as far finding sounds -- he was definitely hungry for the same things. But he managed to translate them a lot better than I ever could. And that was always something that I admired about him."

Women went on hiatus in 2010 after brothers Pat and Matt Flegel had an on-stage fist-fight in Victoria, BC. In the interim, Reimer had been touring as a live member of the Dodos.

Reimer's sister, Nikki, has set up a blog in tribute to her brother. And here's an interview I did with Reimer from 2008. I can confirm all reports that he was a swell guy, and that his all-too-soon death is tragic.

Beach House Expand Bloom Tour

Beach House are having a pretty great 2012: their fourth LP, Bloom, undoubtedly one of the year's best albums (and Alex Scally giving me one of the year's most thoughtful interviews).

In fact, Beach House are seizing 2012 and squeezing every last drop out of it, to the point where the moody Baltimore duo are planning on spending the rest of the year on the road.

Having already plotted a hefty world tour in support of Bloom, they've now added even more dates, loading up the next five months with quite the itinerary. So, if you're going to be in Amsterdam on November 19, now you know what you'll be doing...

They Come and They Go:
July 1: San Diego, CA - House of Blues
July 3: Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
July 5: Salt Lake City City, UT - Twilight Concert Series
July 6: Aspen, CO - Belly Up
July 7: Albuquerque, NM - Sunshine Theater
July 9: Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom
July 10: Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall
July 11: St. Louis, MO - The Pageant
July 12: Memphis, TN - Minglewood Hall
July 13: Louisville, KY - Forecastle Festival
July 15: Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Music Festival
July 17: Indianapolis, IN - The Vogue
July 18: Pontiac, MI - The Crofoot Ballroom
July 19: Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
July 20: Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall
July 21: Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Small's Theatre
July 23: New York, NY - Central Park SummerStage
August 24: Katowice, Poland - Tauron Nowan Muzyka Fest
August 26: Paris, France - Rock en Seine
August 27: Groningen, Netherlands - Vera
August 28: Duisburg, Germany - Grammatikoff
August 29: Frankfurt, Germany - Das Bett
August 31: Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
September 13: Richmond, VA - The National
September 14: Knoxville, TN - Bijou Theater
September 15: Nashville, TN - Marathon Music Works
September 16: Atlanta, GA - Variety
September 18: New Orleans, LA - Tipitina's
September 19: Houston, TX - House of Blues
September 20: Austin, TX - Emo's East
September 21: Dallas, TX - Palladium
September 24: Tucson, AZ - Rialto
September 25: Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
September 28: Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
September 29: Eugene, OR - McDonald Theater
September 30: Portland, OR - Roseland
October 1: Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom
October 4: Seattle, WA - Showbox
October 5: Boise, ID - Egyptian Theater
October 7: Boulder, CO - Boulder Theater
October 9: Minneapolis, MN - First Ave.
October 10: Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater
October 11: Chicago, IL - Riviera
October 13: Toronto, ON - Kool Haus
October 15: Boston, MA - Wilbur Theater
October 16: Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
October 17: Washington, DC - 930 Club
October 26: Belfast, Northern Ireland - Mandela Hall
October 27: Cork, Ireland - Cork Opera House
October 28: Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
October 29: Glasgow, Scotland - Arches
October 30: Leeds, England - Stylus
October 31: Manchester, England - Ritz
November 2: London, England - Roundhouse
November 3: Bristol, England - Anson Rooms
November 5: Hamburg, Germany - Kampnagel K2
November 6: Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
November 7: Stockholm, Sweden - Berns
November 8: Oslo, Norway - Sentrum Scene
November 10: Berlin, Germany - Astra
November 12: Prague, Czech Republic - Meetfactory
November 13: Vienna, Austria - Flex
November 14: Munich, Germany - Feierwerk
November 16: Cologne, Germany - Gloria
November 17: Lausanne, Switzerland - Les Docks
November 18: Brussels, Belgium - AB
November 19: Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso

Bonnaroo Announces 2012 Lineup

Following the line-up announcements for Coachella and Sasquatch!, Bonnaroo is the latest humungous summer festival to unveil its 2012 lineup.

The festival —which takes place June 7-10 in the farmlands of Manchester, Tennessee— features headlining slots from Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Phish; the latter sure to please Bonnaroo's jam-band faithful.

Elsewhere, there's also: The Shins, Bon Iver, Battles, Feist, Tune-Yards, Little Dragon, St. Vincent, The Black Lips, SBTRKT, Phantogram, The Joy Formidable, The Antlers, Kathleen Edwards, KurtVile, Laura Marling, Mogwai, The War on Drugs, Grouplove, EMA, Here We Go Magic, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Fruit Bats, and many more.

Anyone else starting to feel like all these line-ups are looking eerily similar?

Christopher Owens Quits Girls

Christopher Owens has shocked the indie world by taking to his Twitter to announce that he's leaving Girls, the band he founded with producer Chet 'JR' White in San Francisco in 2007.

Given Girls' were coming off a hugely-successful second LP —Father, Son, Holy Ghost, which debuted in the US Top 40— the timing is most unexpected. But the real shock comes from the fact that, for many listeners, Owens essentially was Girls; he being their singer, songwriter, and driving artistic force; and that leaving a band when you are that band isn't usually done.

"Dear all," Owens wrote. "This may come as a surprise to many & has been an issue of much thought for me. My decision was not easy to make. I am leaving Girls. My reasons at this time are personal. I need to do this in order to progress. I will continue to write & record music. More will be announced soon. I thank you all for everything. Sincerely-Christopher."

Neither White nor the band's label, Matador, has made an official statement regarding the news, but you'd have to imagine that Girls is done and done. At least until the 2019 reunion tour.

Introducing Chelsea Light Moving

Name: Chelsea Light Moving
From: New York, New York
Story: Thurston's got a brand new band
Sound: Suitably Sonic Youthy

Recognize that gangly gent on the right there? Of course you do. It's our old pal Thurston Moore, as legendary an indie-music figure as there gets. And following the demise —well, the hiatus, at least— of Sonic Youth in the wake of Moore's divorce to Kim Gordon, he has himself a brand new band.

Chelsea Light Moving is the band. It finds Moore roping in the band that joined him on his last solo tour —violinist/bassist Samara Lubelski, and guitarist Keith Wood and drummer John Moloney (who've both done time in Sunburned Hand of the Man)— and making them a permanent unit.

Where Thurston solo found acoustic instrumentation, Chelsea Light Moving is a rock unit of familiar sound to any Sonic Youth fans: angular, oddly-tuned guitar klang; insistent, cymbal-smashing percussion; a sense of walloping momentum; lyrical obsession with the All-American mythologies of beat poetry and New York City.

Two Chelsea Light Moving tunes have appeared so far —first "Burroughs," then "Groovy and Linda," both homages to old counter-cultural figures— and, given they've been dispatched by Matador, you get the sense that Moore and crew are working towards dispatching a debut album soon-ish; maybe even before 2012 is out.

• Listen: Chelsea Light Moving, "Groovy and Linda"
• Listen: Chelsea Light Moving, "Burroughs"
• Visit: Chelsea Light Moving blog

Coachella Announces 2012 Lineup

Coachella has announced the lineup for their 2012 festival, which will be staged, for the first time, across two weekends, with the exact same lineups each time.

We already tipped you to the fact that legendary post-rock firebrands Godspeed You! Black Emperor were likely on the bill, and, following that lead, there's a definite '90s vibe to lots of the bill. Like: Godspeed!, Cat Power, Jeff Mangum, Radiohead, Pulp, Mazzy Star... this was pretty much exactly what I was listening to in 1997.

Sunday will be headlined by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, the reunion circuit sends forth the newly-back-in-action At the Drive-In, Refused, and Firehose, and, wait, is that Atari Teenage Riot on the bill?

Coachella will be held from Friday 13 April to Sunday 15 April, and again a week later from Friday 20 April to Sunday 22 April. Godspeed, people set to battle the inhumane heat...

Friday: The Black Keys, Girls, The Horrors, Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Mazzy Star, Cat Power, EMA, Yuck, Wu Lyf, Explosions in the Sky, M83, The Rapture, Neon Indian, Givers, and oh so many more.

Saturday: Radiohead, SBTRKT, Destroyer, Bon Iver, Feist, Jeff Mangum, Firehose (okay, fIREHOSE), Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Shins, Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, Tune-Yards, Grouplove, Keep Shelly in Athens, We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Black Lips, The Big Pink, The Vaccines and countless more humans.

Sunday: At the Drive-In, DJ Shadow, Girl Talk, Metronomy, Wild Beasts, Beirut, First Aid Kit, Fanfarlo, Gardens and Villa, Real Estate, Wild Flag, Le Butcherettes, and piles of nostalgia-act rappers.

Sasquatch Announces 2012 Lineup

Following the announcement of Coachella's 2012 lineup, Sasquatch! is the latest big-name festival to unveil their unending list of performing rockbands. At the top of the bill loom Grammy-approved beard-folk super-duperstars Bon Iver, newly-solo Third Man mogul Jack White, and everyone's favorite song-and-dance Scientologist, Beck.

For some extra PNW flavor, the liveshow version of the indie-celebrity-festooned sketch-comedy series Portlandia will hit the Sasquatch! stage. And series heroine Carrie Brownstein will also perform a high-profile set with her pretty-awesome-really rockband Wild Flag.

Elsewhere on the bill? Try: The Shins, Blitzen Trapper, Beirut, The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile, Cass McCombs, M. Ward, Feist, Metric, The Joy Formidable, St. Vincent, Tune-Yards, Purity Ring, Zola Jesus, Active Child, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Little Dragon, SBTRKT, STRFKR, Grouplove, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Spiritualized, Mark Lanegan Band, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, the Cave Singers, Shearwater, Gardens and Villa, Here We Go Magic, Dum Dum Girls, Craft Spells, I Break Horses, Lord Huron, Yellow Ostrich, and more and more and more.

Sasquatch! arrives, as always, for Memorial Day Weekend; taking over the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington from May 25-28. All manner of details at the Sasquatch! website.

Firehose Reformation Tour

After their reformation was announced by their presence on the Coachella bill, suddenly-reformed alt-rock originals Firehose (or, if you must, fIREHOSE) have unveiled a full reunion tour.

The trio —founded by Mike Watt and George Hurley in 1986 in the wake of The Minutemen's tragic demise— will be touring around the Old West come April, with their first show in 18 years apparently taking place in Sacramento...

Pertaining Interpretations:
April 5: Sacramento, CA - Harlow's
April 6: Portland, OR - Doug Fir
April 7: Seattle, WA - Neumos
April 9: Bellingham, WA - Wild Buffalo House of Music
April 10: Eugene, OR - WOW Hall
April 11: San Francisco, CA - Slim's
April 12: Santa Cruz, CA - Historic Coconut Grove Ballroom
April 13: Fresno, CA - Fulton 55
April 14: Indio, CA - Coachella Music Festival
April 17: Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom
April 18: Flagstaff, AZ - Orpheum Theatre
April 19: Tucson, AZ - Plush
April 21: Indio, CA - Coachella Music Festival

Introducing Echo Lake

Name: Echo Lake
From: London, England
Story: Shoegaze revivalists, tinged by tragedy
Sound: Drifting dream-pop with ethereal warbles

If you're a fan of classic shoegaze albums, you'll immediately find something to love about Echo Lake. The South London outfit could just as easily be called Echo Laden. They play swoony, drifting dream-pop in which layers of dangling, delay-draped guitar wash over the cute coos of singer Linda Jarvis.

Whether they're desperately trying to or not, they sound, in short, a lot like Slowdive. And their jams boast enough guitar work —there's lead licks all over the seven-minute "Just Kids"— that they really feel like '90s revivalists.

With their debut LP, Wild Peace, released just this week —on No Pain in Pop in the UK, and Slumberland in the US— Echo Lake should be making headlines on the back of their music. But, sadly, there's tragedy to report, as well. On June 21, their drummer, Pete Hayes, died. He was just 25.

• Stream: Echo Lake, Wild Peace
• Visit: Echo Lake website

Introducing Daughn Gibson

Name: Daughn Gibson
From: Carlisle, PA
Story: Truck-drivin' punk discovers country music, crooning
Sound: Outlaw country, chopped and screwed

Meet Daughn Gibson: teenaged punk turned 20-something stoner rocker turned 30-something country crooner. Of sorts. The former drummer of sludgy stoner outfit Pearls and Brass served a stint as a truck-driver, which found him becoming intimately acquainted with country music. This became the inspiration for Gibson's newfound solo project, which comes at country in a most unexpected fashion.

Rather than sitting down with a slide guitar, Gibson started cutting up a library of samples, drawing from American folk recordings, Gospel albums, and orchestral suites. Lyrically, Gibson tried to replicate the down-and-out storytelling of drinkin'-n'-cryin' country; being particularly drawn to the hard-won, heartaching masculinity of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and their outlaw country contemporaries.

There's echoes of Cash in Gibson's deep baritone croon, though the influence of Scott Walker and Lee Hazlewood seems more apparent. On "Ray," he recalls —quite strongly— a more ironic deep-voiced figure, sounding exactly like Magnetic Fields/Gothic Archies leader Stephin Merritt. Though there's none of Merritt's silliness nor Tin Pan Alley songwriting fixations, Gibson's weird intersections between electronic sound and country licks have a precedent in the Magnetic Fields.

Gibson's cut-up country sound has been ably captured on All Hell, a full-length that serves as his first-ever release. It arrived out-of-nowhere early in 2012, as fully-formed and unexpected a debut as the year has offered.

• Download: Daughn Gibson, "In the Beginning"
• Listen: Daughn Gibson, "Tiffany Lou"
• Listen: Daughn Gibson, "Lookin' Back on '99"

Introducing Ryan Power

Name: Ryan Power
From: Burlington, Vermont
Story: Fearing death, one man quietly battles obscurity
Sound: Complex synth-pop with croony vocals

I Don't Want to Die is the fifth album from Ryan Power, but the first to be properly released. After a career of self-releasing, the set —initially released in 2010, and now expanded and improved upon— was recently pressed up by NNA Tapes, shining a light on a ridiculously talented musician who'd been toiling in something approaching obscurity.

Power is a studio rat based in Burlington, Vermont, and recorded I Don't Want To Die in a barn in Shelburne. There's nothing snowy nor rustic about his music, though. Instead, he plays complex, odd synth-pop that harkens back to old smooth-rock acts like Steely Dan, Aztec Camera, and Prefab Sprout, '90s pop-perfectionist revivalists High Llamas and the Aluminum Group, and conceptualist/stylist/iconoclast figures like Momus and that exponentially-influential Godfather of all '10s home producers, Ariel Pink.

The record's centerpiece is, somewhat naturally, its title-track, a five-and-a-half minute ballad —all chiming synths and sotto voce vocals— in which Power ably articulates the paralyzing powers of a fear of death. "This is one short trip/why don't we enjoy it?" he asks, amidst the study-of-monogamy that is "The Way It's Always Been," and the question lingers.

"We can't deny/we're all going to die," Power croons, in the rhythmically-odd "You Wanna Seltzer," before revisiting the line, again, almost exactly, mid-"The Knowhow." "Hey, everybody/we're all gonna totally die," he wails, in the middle of a manic jam in which a desire to seize-the-day results in existence as a kind of frantic, chaotic grab-bag of terrified experiences. Life is short; far too short to spend with bad music. Power makes sound that, in its goodness, makes listening feel a worthwhile investment of the few precious moments you have before you expire.

• Listen: Ryan Power, "I Don't Want to Die"
• Listen: Ryan Power, "I Don't Care"

Introducing Django Django

Name: Django Django
From: Edinburgh, Scotland
Story: The Beta Band's spiritual/actual younger brothers
Sound: Poly-genre dance jams of synths, handclaps, four-part harmonies

Django Django's effective leader —drummer/producer/founder Dave Maclean— is the younger brother of John Maclean, former keyboardist/DJ/visual artist for The Beta Band.

The erstwhile Scottish art-pop oddities may be, for many, forever associated only with this scene, but in Britain, the Beta Band hold the same kind of status, influence, and cultural/historical position as Grandaddy; a band who took Pavement-ish indie klang and Beach Boysy harmony and assembled it with cut-and-paste techniques influenced by hip-hop.

This is notable because, for all the comparisons to Hot Chip they encounter Django Django's most obvious spiritual debt is to the Beta Band. With a library-full of influences trickling into synthy, busy compositions equal parts shape-shifting and repetitious, they owe an obvious spiritual debt to the Beta Band, and —with their four-part harmonies lost in a crazy carnival of competing influences— they can often sound like them, too.

The Edinburgh-born, London-based quartet have been one of the year's breakout acts. In the UK press, there's much more in the way of crazy hype, but the buzz isn't some fabrication inspired by fashion. Instead, it's been born by their impressive debut, self-titled LP; in which 13 songs feel tight, and each of its 48 minutes well-earned.

• Listen: Django Django, "Default"
• Listen: Django Django, "Storm"
• Listen: Django Django, "Waveforms"

Introducing Kishi Bashi

Name: Kishi Bashi
From: Brooklyn, New York
Story: Of Montreal associate fiddles up dayglo fantasias
Sound: Violin, vox, handclaps, loop-pedal, pop!

For all those going to watch our old pals Of Montreal touring behind their latest LP, Paralytic Stalks, there'll be a welcome treat for those who get their super-early to see the first opener. That comes in the form of Kishi Bashi, the impressive one-man-band project for touring OM multi-instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi.

Ishibashi has become a fully-fledged member of Of Montreal, as well as spending recent stints playing violin in the live band for Regina Spektor and Sondre Lerche. But the Seattle-born, New York-based fiddler has a long history in classic performance and film soundtracks, and has only recently minted Kishi Bashi as his chief project.

Though 36, the first Kishi Bashi LP, 151a, effectively marks Ishibashi's debut. Building songs from loop-pedal layers of violin, keyboard, and voice, there's audible influence from some big indie figures: Andrew Bird, obviously; Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes, just as obviously; and The Shins' James Mercer, vocally. But Ishibashi feels like a peer to those heavy-hitters, with his album's peaks hitting some glorious oddball-pop-song heights.

"Bright Whites" is the clear standout: a strummy, giddy, sunshining anthem blessed with bountiful energy, casual beauty, and a mix between silliness and profundity. It sounds not like the minor work of some irrelevant side-project, but a jam presaging at least some kinda 2012 breakout.

• Listen: Kishi Bashi, "I'll See You There"
• Listen: Kishi Bashi, "It All Began with a Burst"
• Listen: Kishi Bashi, "Bright Whites"
• Visit: Kishi Bashi website

One Day:
March 20: Los Angeles, CA - The WIltern
March 21: San Francisco, CA - Slim's
March 22: San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
March 23: Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
March 24: Seattle, WA - The Showbox
March 27: Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
March 28: Chicago, IL - The Metro
March 29: Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom
March 31: New York, NY - Webster Hall
April 1: Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
April 2: Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
April 3: Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
April 4: Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
April 5: Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
April 6: Chatanooga, TN - Track 29
April 7: Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
April 17: Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
April 18: Aarhus, Denmark - Train
April 22: Manchester, England - The Ritz
April 26: Brighton, England - Concorde 2
April 28: Nantes, France - Stereolux
April 30: Madrid, Spain - Joy Eslava
May 9: Istanbul, Turkey - Babylon

Grandaddy Reform

Six years after their 2006 breakup, ramshackle indie-pop oddballs Grandaddy have announced their obligatory reformation. Via their website, the band let loose details of a handful of shows come August and September, including dates at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco and End of the Road in England. More gigs will be coming, one assumes.

Formed by songsmith Jason Lytle in Modesto, California in 1992, the band settled into a sound country-tinged indie-pop laced with home-recording monkeyshines and a withering spiritual debt to The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. They released four albums —highlighted by 2000's The Sophtware Slump— before breaking up after 2006's Just Like the Fambly Cat.

Lost My Way Again:
August 10-12: San Francisco, CA - Outside Lands
August 25: Pully, Switzerland - For Noise Festival
August 26: Paris, France - Rock En Seine
August 29: Manchester, England - Ritz
August 30: Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
September 2: Salisbury, England - End of the Road Festival
September 4: London, England - Shepherd's Bush Empire

Introducing Fay

Name: Fay
From: Los Angeles, California
Story: Ex-Pit Er Pat dame runs solo
Sound: Fragmented electronics, vocal cut-ups, rippling rhythms

Fay Davis-Jeffers was formerly the vocalist/keyboardist for Pit Er Pat, an eternally-underrated outfit whose run of impressive records for Thrill Jockey deserve, still, a thoughtful and attentive audience. Now, Davis-Jeffers is rolling solo, turning out a debut Fay LP —Din, due July 2 on Time No Place— that feels just as deserving.

Where Pit Er Pat's records were filled with lovingly-played analog organ chords and Davis-Jeffers' endlessly-pleasing singing, Din finds her working with an electronic palette; with source sounds —her voice, percussion instruments, keyboards— treated as she cuts, crumbles, and shreds things into tiny sound-fragments built for reassembled beat-making.

It's far closer to instrumental hip-hop and leftfield programming than it is to Pit Er Pat's sweaty jazziness, with a cool, quizzical, experimental spirit persisting through Din. The LP has few moments that feel like pop-songs, instead it's a sound suite of constant restlessness; the rippling electronics and hiccuping rhythms never settling into anything approximating a groove. Davis-Jeffers never lets anything settle, and that produces a pleasing alienating quality; listening to Din like a voyage towards an audio unknown, with scant few familiar landmarks along the way.

• Stream: Fay, Din

Introducing SolarSolar

Name: SolarSolar
From: Waterloo, Ontario
Story: Dream-pop with a nightmarish undercurrent
Sound: Hazy synths, electronic interference, tiny vocals, echo

"Home is where the monsters lie," sings Angela Drysdale in a tiny, worried, eerie voice; making domesticity sound utterly haunted, the familiar walls of a bedroom cast in shadows of true terror. Whilst surely summoning the persistent fear of childhood, the repeated refrain also effectively suggests SolarSolar's metier: making intimate, insular music of quiet unease.

The husband/wife duo hail from Waterloo, Ontario —though they may've recently relocated to Toronto— and make drifting dream-pop that sets Drysdale's pleasingly-thin voice to minimalist synth moods. Whilst there's an obvious influence of minimalist composers, there's a slipperiness to the pair's compositions; with babbling bursts of interference quietly flickering away beneath their calm surface.

Even though it's built almost entirely on synths, it's not really synth-pop. SolarSolar's washed-out, dreamy synth music will play sweetly for any fans of fellow Canadian duo Memoryhouse or shoegaze romantics Slowdive. Their debut EP, 2010's Secrets and Orchids, is still available for free download on Bandcamp, and their first LP, Pilot, is coming out February 21 on Binary Records.

• Listen: SolarSolar, "Walking Like Children"
• Listen: SolarSolar, "Pilot"
• Listen: SolarSolar, "Albatross" (Wild Beasts Cover)
• Watch: SolarSolar, "I Can't Find You"
• Visit: SolarSolar on Bandcamp

Introducing Foxygen

Name: Foxygen
From: Olympia, Washington/New York, New York
Story: Manic pastiches of British Invasion licks
Sound: Weathered and vintage, with gnarly guitars and hollered vox

In a piece of artful biography-makin', the press-release touting Jagjaguwar's July 24 release of Foxygen's Take the Kids Off Broadway touts their music as the "de-Wes Andersonization of The Rolling Stones, Kinks, Velvets, Bowie, etc."

Meaning, that these pastiching kids —Olympia-based Sam France, New York-based Jonathan Rado, both 22— come steeped in British Invasion sounds, but don't treat their heroes with a precious, breathless reverence. Form isn't holy in Foxygen's purview, it's something to be toyed with, messed with, embraced and/or discarded as the situation arises.

Take the Kids Off Broadway is a barrel of monkeys, a manic record that crams its seven songs and 36-minutes full of a whole discography's worth of ideas. The 10-minute epic "Teenage Alien Blues" is less 10-minute, more about seven different songs stitched together into one rag-tag tapestry. The fact that France and Rado have the yen to join jostling snippets of ideas into long, wandering songs both suggests the current era of constant, conflicting musical stimulus whilst displaying undoubted discipline in their studio needlework.

Similarly, the record hangs together with an unbroken tone: pleasingly vintage-sounding, all warm microphone sounds, weathered edges, and through-a-toilet-roll vocals. That its closing cut, "Middle School Dance (Song for Richard Swift)," casts homage to one of indie music most tonally-authentic re-creators is no coincidence. Like Dicky S., Foxygen summon the distant past, but never genuflect to it; making music filled with, like, 'de-reverentialisation,' or something.

• Listen: Foxygen, "Make It Known"
• Visit: Foxygen on Bandcamp

Introducing 254

Name: 2:54
From: London, England
Story: Sister act work the Curve
Sound: Shoegaze guitars, rock crunch, Polly Jean vocals

English sister duo just signed, in North America, to Fat Possum Records. It's not a huge surprise, given the Mississippi label has made a habit of chasing down buzzed-up bands and inking them, but it seems amusing to me in that, following on from Yuck and Fanzine, the label seems to be going out of their way to collect English '90s-nostalgia acts.

2:54 are shoegaze revivalists who hew towards the more rocking, aggressive side of the noise-guitar realm; they may be dames, but they have plenty in common with touring pals The Big Pink. They sound a lot like Curve, a little bit like Garbage, and feature a frontwoman, Colette Thurlow, whose voice —especially on "Got a Hold"— sounds like a dead-ringer Polly Jean Harvey impersonation.

For both their Scarlet EP and their forthcoming self-titled LP —due out May 28— the band worked with Rob Ellis, PJ Harvey's longtime collaborateur. Their album was even mixed by shoegaze don Alan Moulder, whose work with Curve pretty much minted the blueprint for what 2:54 are doing. Doing it, they've been breathlessly hyped in the English press, and feted as sure breakout band; with shows at SXSW this week perhaps confirming this much-tipped ascent.

• Listen: 2:54, "You're Early"
• Listen: 2:54, "Got a Hold"
• Listen: 2:54, "Scarlet"
• Visit: 2:54 website

Studies in Scarlet:
March 11: Brooklyn, NY - Glasslands
March 12: Manhattan, NY - Mercury Lounge
March 14: Austin, TX - Bar96
March 16: Austin, TX - Latitude 30
March 16: Austin, TX - Fader Fort
March 20: Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
March 22: San Francisco, CA - The Rickshaw Stop

Introducing Trust

Name: Trust
From: Toronto, Ontario
Story: Stadium-sized electro-goth moods
Sound: Like a goth-ier, doom-ier, dude-ier Austra

Trust are a duo from Toronto. They're halved by Maya Postepski, known to many these days as member of Austra; and Robert Alfons, who serves as veritable 'frontman,' singing in a gnarled, constricted croon. They make big, booming, gothed-out electro music, with eyeliner-caked types like Depeche Mode and D.A.F. serving as legit spiritual influences (and, well, obviously they really love The Knife, too).

Trust share management and vibes with screechy electro duo Crystal Castles, and found an audience opening for electro-ish acts like Zola Jesus, Glass Candy, Hercules and Love Affair, and Washed Out. After releasing a debut seven-inch, "Candy Walls," on Sacred Bones last year, Trust signed to Canada's biggest indie label, Arts and Crafts (home of Broken Social Scene, Feist, Timber Timbre, etc) for their debut LP.

Due out February 28, their self-titled album is filled with monstrous synths, booming grandeur, and gothic pallor; erecting stadium-sized electronic anthems that balance bright keyboard sounds with thematic darkness. Where so many of the many electro-goth-ish acts arising in recent years have been doused in degraded-tape sounds and distancing effects, Trust synth out big and clean and near-slick.

It's an accessible sound that feels like it's hit exactly the right revivalist note; with Trust looming as one of 2012's likely breakout bands.

• Listen: Trust, "Bulbform"
• Visit: Trust on Myspace (if you dare)

Introducing Dunes

Name: Dunes
From: Los Angeles, California
Story: More Ex-Mika Miko summery-pop
Sound: Guitars dangling languid and lazy

Like particularly-buzzy buzz band Bleached, Los Angeleno trio Dunes formed out of the ashes of noisy punks Mika Miko. The band is a songwriting collaboration between ex-Mika Miko dame Kate Hall and former Finally Punk frontwoman Stephanie Chan.

And, as with peers Bleached and Best Coast, Dunes have left behind their noisy, experimental pasts to author a take on pop music; even if their evocation of summertimes is a little less bright and brash than their pals. The trio —rounded out by ex-Talbot Tagora bro Mark Greshowak— play sleepy, hazy garage jams infused with '90s indie, psychedelia, and smogged out by a lo-fi haze; stretching out long and languid in sweaty, swaying guitar jams.

After a handful of self-released singles and Bandcamp files, Dunes have finished off a debut LP. Noctiluca is due out March 6 on Post Present Medium, the label helmed by No Age drummer Dean Spunt.

• Listen: Dunes, "Vertical Walk"
• Visit: Dunes on Bandcamp

Try to See:
February 24: Palm Springs, CA - Ace Hotel
February 28: Los Angeles, CA - The Smell
February 29: Pomona, CA - Aladdin Jr
March 10: Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
March 17: Los Angeles, CA - Human Resources
March 24: San Francisco, CA - Engine Works
March 31: Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater