As much as we’d like to believe that indie rock is a free marketplace of equal opportunity for underdog bands, tiny bedroom labels and vegetable-oil-fueled tour vans, MAGNET does not advocate laboring under illusions. (We don’t advocate laboring, period.) Let’s check in on the latest happenings with indie rock’s Big 3 labels: Matador, Merge and Sub Pop:
Matador Records
Just released The Eternal by Sonic Youth (pictured). Biggest major-to-indie signing since whatever the last thing Anti- did was. (Wait, why isn’t Anti-/Epitaph part of the Big 3? Because Big 4 doesn’t sound as good.) Matador unloaded Interpol’s falling stock to Capitol but has poached back Paul Banks’ solo project, Julian Plenti. Belle And Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch is giving us his God Help The Girl musical novella. Its only problem? It’s not Belle And Sebastian. Good news on the horizon: A new Yo La Tengo album (double album, actually) and the signing of Philly psych/rock dude Kurt Vile. Where are new albums of original material by Jay Reatard (UPDATE: Jay Reatard full-length Watch Me Fall is due Aug. 18) and Cat Power? It’s nice to see A.C. Newman’s January release, Get Guilty, continue to slowly, wondrously build. We liked David Lowery’s take on Newman, but we’re biased.
Yo La Tengo’s “Periodically Double Or Triple” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/PeriodicallyDoubleOrTriple.mp3
Merge Records
The big news at Merge is … Erectus Monotone’s out-of-print seven-inches are now available in the online store! Kidding. (It’s true, though.) Polvo is back, back, back! The Clean are always coming back. Merge has big releases this year from Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band and M. Ward, but anyone else feel more excited about the up-and-comers instead? Telekinesis and Wye Oak may have made the better ’09 albums. Actually, the big Merge news is Our Noise (Algonquin Books, September 15), a 20-year history of the label written by John Cook with label owners Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance. Foreword by … Ryan Adams? Why? With all due respect to the plot of Our Noise, aren’t the best music-biz books tawdry tell-alls about sleazy record-company men, shady deals and fucked-over artists? Sammy Sosa Wally Cleaver has more skeletons in his closet.
The Clean’s “In The Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/InTheDreamlifeYouNeedARubberSoul.mp3
Sub Pop Records
Great job on the Vaselines reissue package, Sub Pop. You see how thick that CD booklet was? Somebody get Ryan Adams on the phone to write a foreword. Exciting new release by Pissed Jeans (wonderfully titled King Of Jeans, a familiar phrase to anyone who’s strolled down Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia) in August. Is there a new Beachwood Sparks album? There is a new Eugene Mirman album. Where’s David Cross? Patton Oswalt is kicking his ass every which way but in Arrested Development re-runs. All you really need to know about Sub Pop’s forecast for the next few months is right here in this magiclink funparade. It is not a link to porn. It’s a link to a page where you can download a 14-song digital sampler with tracks by Flight Of The Conchords, Iron And Wine, Fleet Foxes (bo-ring), Obits (Rick Froberg from Hot Snakes), the Vaselines, Pissed Jeans, Zak Sally (ex-Low bassist) and more.
Pissed Jeans’ “False Jesii Part 2” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/FalseJesiiPart2.mp3
