Here we go:

11/7/11:

in heavy rotation… Acid Kicks… 3 bass players + a drummer, so you know it’s got to be interesting… motorik, gooey, echoing, rhythm machine… not very far away from late 80’s IPR like Deception Bay, or Holy F*** minus the synths…

Life Dreams 7″, by Acid Kicks

11/28/11:

Heavy rotation: “Through the Confusion” from Chicago’s Daylight Robbery. Their record label compares them to Wire and X, which is pretty fair: taught, angular, jangly clean guitar + throbbing post-punk bass + metronomic drums + male/female vocals doing a fair Exene/John Doe imitation. Not terribly groundbreaking sonically, but the songs are all intense, catchy, late-night-driving-through-downtown music. Their debut LP and 2 singles are all on bandcamp for free download, too!

Through the Confusion, by Daylight Robbery

12/5/11:

Heavy rotation: punk rock from Olympia’s RVIVR. Pretty much perfection here… Pounding rhythms; wild, bouncing basslines; anthemic guitar hooks; complementary male/female gruff vocals… lots of dynamic range (hard/soft/fast/slow), passionate vox w/ clever lyrics, plenty of “woah-ohs”, immediately catchy sing-along, and they sound like they are playing so hard that one more iota of effort would cause the whole thing to fall apart… Their eponymous debut LP is available for stream/download via the link [singles collection “Joester Sessions” also available from that site.] Can’t do much better than this…

s/t LP  http://www.rumbletowne.com/rtr/rtr-releases/RTR-009 Joester Sessions http://www.rumbletowne.com/rtr/rtr-releases/RTR-011

12/13/11:

this week’s Heavy Rotation: “Truncheons in the Manor”, the debut LP from Philadelphia’s Amateur Party; jangly, bass-driven, and infectious old-school-y postpunk that wouldn’t sound terribly out of place in a mixtape w/ ’80-81 stuff like Gang of Four, Josef K, Mission of Burma and Talking Heads. (streaming from this bandcamp link…)

Truncheons in the Manor, by Amateur Party