CORN times TWO
Reviews, downloads and playlists of MP3 rock, folk and electronic music from brand new back through the 90s. Subscribe to the near daily feed and keep your MP3 player fat with love. There's an M3U stream, or click play on one of the links below.
⊛ Currently featuring 36 tracks.
8 Feb 2010 Noah And The Whale
http://www.michaelbeijer.comPlayGive A Little Love
The organ synth sound at the opening has an anthemic feel and the rest of the song is fairly understated. I like that the singer's voice sounds like is mouth is in a perpetual frown, it really stands out from other singers. There are perky pop songs that cover the same sentiment, but this one takes a more thoughtful approach.
6 Feb 2010 Whales And Cops
http://bigfiles.wolstat.comPlayFuturo Futuro
The first few seconds sound like you're in for a cheerleading-style chant disguised as a pop song like something by Fanny Pack or The Ting Tings but that expectation gets derailed once the spastic percussion and staccato bursts of strings take over. The kitchen sink approach to sampling and lyrics comes off as especially charming here.
4 Feb 2010 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
http://www.polaroidallaradio.itPlayThe Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth
A bassline of a New Order song and a guitar hook from a Modest Mouse song all in one. This track gets busier and busier as it picks up momentum until it all drops away at the end to leave you back where you started. "You look a bit like coffee | And you taste a bit like tea"
2 Feb 2010 Black Lips
http://azizisbored.comPlayNot A Problem
A sweet 60s garage vibe propels this track throughout. The Angry and confrontational lyrics are pretty over-the-top. "So I grabbed a gun | And walked down into the street | I tried to find some enemies to meet"
31 Jan 2010 Add N To (X)
http://rock.wnur.orgPlayKingdom Of Shades
Sinister, driving track from the 90s. The 'verse' (it's instrumental) is made up of a flute and a rubbery synth all locking up with the bassline. Eventually everything loosens up and the different instruments get to start branching off to explore their own nasty hooks.
29 Jan 2010 Crystal Castles
http://stopokaygo.typepad.comPlayUntrust Us
This track in particular remind me of Add N To (X). The machine-generated voice sounded like Cocteau Twins or Sigur Ros invented-language lyrics but it turns out it's a haunting Spanglish warning. "La cocaina no es buena para su salud | La cocaina is not good for you"
27 Jan 2010 Delta 5
http://nastypanda.comPlayMind Your Own Business
This track cannot fail. Its new wave emotoinlessness and poetry-slam creativity bridge disparate sensibilities recalling Kraftwerk and Gil Scott-Heron for me. How can you not chant along with the chorus? "Can you hear those people behind me | Looking at your feelings inside me | Listen to the distance between us | NO, mind your own business"
25 Jan 2010 Julie Doiron
http://www.scjag.comPlayNo More
The sad verses of this track list all the lost moments of a relationship gone by the wayside, and the chorus is simply the title of the song which might seem too bleak to handle. Somehow the chorus sounds cautiously defiant to me and maybe even somewhat hopeful, but maybe I am reading way too much into a simple harmony. "No more singing in the yard | No more singing in to the sky | No more"
23 Jan 2010 Bosque Brown
http://www.mydatanest.comPlayWent Walking
The cottonmouth tone of Mara Lee Miller's voice lies somewhere between Blossom Dearie and PJ Harvey. I never placed her Texas accent, but once I looked it up, It all made sense. "Went walking down the aisle with my sister | Mother, father til death do us part | Now been gone, been gone from home | To the city"
21 Jan 2010 Earlimart
http://jakehand.comPlayFakey Fake
This track slowly builds with tension a la 'Coming In The Air Tonight' but without the visual reference of Tom Cruise making out with Rebecca De Mornay on a subway car. Towards the end it's flaming out where it started off at a mere whisper. "Something that's warm, something that's good | Can never be free, not that it should"
19 Jan 2010 Three Mile Pilot
http://nokipowlonski.free.frPlayThe Year Of No Light
The kickoff Hammond B3 sounds like you're in for a Supertramp song but that is not the case at all. This track is not quite as dark sounding as I've come to expect from them. It's really quite nice. "I'll play the devil | You can be the light"
17 Jan 2010 M Ward
http://www3.hi.isPlayHelicopter
Johnny Cash much? There's more intimacy here in the voice with his hoarse near-falsetto delivery and a few more ornamental minor chords that a man in black standard, but the chugging train-tempo snare drum lick is spot on. "I arrive through a window | I leave through a whole in the wall"
15 Jan 2010 The WoWz
http://www.thewowz.comPlayHappy Today
I love all the falling bottle sounds in the background mixed in at the same level as the backup singers or the banjo. Perhaps in this sound is the key to their professed happiness. "I'm feeling happy today to be living | And I know that this feeling will soon go away | But I'm feeling happy today"
13 Jan 2010 Wooden Wand and the Sky High Band
http://www.killrockstars.comPlayPortrait In Clouds
In a word: folktacular. The lyrical gymnastics tracing the genealogy of the whole daughter-mother-of-pearl family on this track is as brilliant as it is incestuous. I catch myself singing this one over and over in my head and I really should commit more of the lyrics to memory but for now it's just the hook. "God's portrait in the clouds | I am bloodthirsty no more"
11 Jan 2010 Mente
http://www.viva-mente.comPlayHoverin'
My friend Guy tipped me off to the website of the old Boston band Mente which contains pretty much their whole catalog in MP3 form for anyone patient enough to download it track by track. The lead singer was John Murphy and this song was co-written by his then-wife Kim Deal. "We're Mente and we don't use drugs | 'Cause we plan to stick around"
9 Jan 2010 Best Coast
http://weeklytapedeck.comPlaySo Gone
Sounds like Dressy Bessy or even The Breeders with that condenser-microphone-distortion thing going on. It's like the romantic equivalent of walking down the street and getting into the i-go-left-you-go-left i-go-right-you-go-right sidestepping confusion with someone. "You say you wanna be more than friends so I stick around | But now you're gone, so gone"
7 Jan 2010 Shapes and Sizes
http://www.toolshed-media.comPlayHead Movin'
Dueling powertool guitar sounds over a dub sounding drum kit set. The singer wails like one of the Number One Cup guys. I dig the way all the different parts fit together without any one necessarily being identifiable as 'verse' or 'chorus'. "You've got a feeling | I've got a feeling too"
5 Jan 2010 Blitzen Trapper
http://chickensdontclap.netPlayThe Green King Sings
I was going to try to get this review written before Christmas to take advantage of the word Blitzen in the name, but alas, I was too lazy this year. This is a great song full of lo-fi pop genius that make The Minders such darlings. I love the tinny keyboard sound that has a little lead part around the 1:22 mark.
31 Dec 2009 The Filthy Youth
http://blairandchuck.comPlayOrange
I really like the guitar sound on this one, and it's really given the main focus in the mix. It's a fun ska-ish track about one of my favorite colors. At least it might be. The lyrics might not be about anything at all. "You won't go where I go | You don't know like I know | And then it all turned orange"
29 Dec 2009 Cymbals Eat Guitars
http://onethirtybpm.comPlayThe Living North
The guitars here end up eating the cymbals in the mix, there's two or three to contend with. For the epic sound they build up to they bail out of it pretty quickly. Two verses in and done. "There is a metal divide | Between myself and this lake in New Jersey"
27 Dec 2009 Sky White Tiger
http://www.skywhitetiger.comPlayTwisted Trail
I bought this CD off of the lead singer of Sky White Tiger at some peripheral CMJ event this year. He had just come from a show at a different venue and he still had an E.T./Iron Man heart light rigged up inside his white blazer that he activated a few times during our conversation.
25 Dec 2009 Sleigh Bells
http://toomuchhappiness.comPlayRing Ring
It's a pretty simple and effective loop in the background with sweetened beats thrown on top. Alexis Krauss treads a fine line between rapping and singing the verses, which are hard to pin down as either naughty or innocent. "Wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces | What about them | I'm all about them"
23 Dec 2009 Elf Power
http://www.farfromnoise.comPlayQuiver And Quake
This song starts out with such a poppy verse part that got me all set up for a big ultra-pop chorus payoff. What ends up getting delivered though, is a series of more minor-sounding bridges and mini-choruses that make me appreciate the verse all the more once it comes back around. Huzzah.
21 Dec 2009 Wye Oak
http://prettygoeswithpretty.typepad.comPlayTattoo
I saw this band not long ago and I was amazed to discover they are only a 2 piece. The drummer also plays a keyboard with one hand generally, and for a couple songs even had a mouth tube leading out to a melodica also. The singer just played her guitar and soloed furiously and hand a bank of pedals she was kicking into submission. Amazing show.
19 Dec 2009 XX Teens
http://groundcontrolmag.comPlayDarlin'
Synth horns sound pretty ridiculous, but this song puts them right out in front with a bunch of other goofy sound effects. There are 3 or 4 takes of the same drunk guy singing, shouting and making shit up on the spot all at once. This all over manic backing track. It works, though. Verbatim from a quick search for lyrics: "Your new barg is dead | There is a town there | And now, come toghether"
17 Dec 2009 The Cardboards
http://blogfiles.wfmu.orgPlayGravity's Still Working
Sounding like equal parts Kraftwerk and Quintron here's a song about snow in Hawaii. Maybe. It could all be a pervy metaphor like the first couple of B-52s' records, but maybe not. A quick web search tells me that this song comes out of Pittsburgh in the early 80s so now I'm definitely leaning more towards the pervy explanation.
15 Dec 2009 Hector In Paris
http://www.silentist.comPlayFrank Sutton
Totally ridiculous and brilliant, this song is no more than an homage to the actor Frank Sutton who played Gunnery Sergeant Vincent Carter opposite Jim Nabors' charcter Gomer Pyle in the TV series of the same name. Culturally maginalized now, maybe it was a little more relevant when this song was recorded in 1987. Repeated over and over is Sgt. Carter's tag line. "Frank Sutton | I can't hear you"
13 Dec 2009 The Dø
http://cdn1-12.projectplaylist.comPlayOn My Shoulders
This song sounds great. The pouty euro-chick vocals and the weird wookiee distortion sounds drifting in and out all add to a solid melody-chorus cycle. The lyrics fall apart at times with the weight of too many awkward internal rhymes and oblique metaphors but I'm willing to chalk it up to non-native English speakers giving it their best shot.
11 Dec 2009 caUSE co-MOTION!
http://www.farfromnoise.comPlayWhich Way Is Up
A simple medium-fi pop song with the charm of Crayon or Beat Happening, but with better musicianship than both those bands. Not that better musicianship equals better music, but I'm just pointing it out. Sounds like vintage surf-era instruments, and it all clocks in at 94 seconds. Heads up.
9 Dec 2009 The Happy Hollows
http://www.pampelmoose.comPlayFaces
A singer who sounds a little like Zooey Deschanel over a relentless groove with a big production chorus. It's really compressed, it sounds like the song that escapes from the on-air booth when the DJ opens the soundproof door to hit the snacks machine in the middle of the night.
7 Dec 2009 Crystal Stilts
http://www.slumberlandrecords.comPlayLove Is A Wave
Rushing in at just a second under the two minute mark, this is a solid pop song with tons of atmosphere. The frantic guitar lead is inspired, even during the verse part where it turns into rhythm and chords, they're cranking out 32nd notes or some shit. Amazing. There should be a list of songs that feature the sound of a the reverb spring in an amp getting knocked around and this one would be on there.
5 Dec 2009 Titus Andronicus
http://www.recidivism.orgPlayMy Time Outside The Womb
The main singer guy sounds like Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes with that emphatic sincerity. I'ts a reasonably affecting autobiographical song about alienation in school and the resulting growth. Lyrically and musically somewhere between The Replacements and Social Distortion.
3 Dec 2009 Tender Engines
http://www.slumberlandrecords.comPlayA Legend Never Fails
A fun pop song that's not quite as calculated as a Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians track but it's more chaotic and driving. It's more of a band cutting loose as a unit than an arrangement of players. "I head your captivating tales | Of high adventure in the golden age | I even heard that you died!"
1 Dec 2009 The Curtains
http://www.asthmatickitty.comPlayGo Lucky
There's a definite 60s vibe to the composition, but they've wisely left the 17-piece orchestral string arrangements behind for a tight minimal sound. It's almost uncomfortably intimate, a little spooky. Cross processed filmstrip visuals appear in my mind.
29 Nov 2009 Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
http://www.morawk.comPlayOregon Girl
There's an air of innocence on the edge of becoming jaded in this track that reminds me a lot of the Great Lake Swimmers and there's even a little Weezer in there too. The way they sing the title in the chorus sounds like 'Organ Girl' and it makes me wonder if she isn't already playing in the band.
27 Nov 2009 Now It's Overhead
http://www.southernshelter.comPlayReverse
There's a little ominous air-raid siren quality to the yawning ebowed guitar in the background that fits well with the dead-set earnestness that reminds me of The Call and Number One Cup at the same time. There's a false ending at around four minutes that makes way for an extended synth jam that is pretty satisfying.

