Fujiya & Miyagi Transparent Things [Deaf Dumb & Blind]

| Shrie Bradford

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Rating: 8.2

So now, for the question of the day: (All of you indie rock stalwarts will already have heard this story. Bear with me.) What do old record players and the infamous Karate Kid have in common? You guessed it, (or didn’t): the fab new kraut-electro-straight-outta-1971 (hello Can and Neu!) threesome of David Best, Steve Lewis and Matt Hainsby – Fujiya & Miyagi. Best and company melded Fujiya, the name of a record player, and Miyagi, the all-knowing sage of Karate Kid fame, into a name for themselves and separated the two with an ampersand. Matt Hainsby got the luck of the draw and is cleverly known as “&”. Their new album, Transparent Things, is anything but transparent. And they aren’t Japanese. They’re British.

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mp3 of the Day – Lavender Diamond

| USOUNDS

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Matador recently signed Lavender Diamond for North America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Chad.  Here’s the word on the street straight from Matador: “Primarily a vehicle for the astonishing vocals and buoyant worldview of Becky Stark, the Los Angeles-based Lavender Diamond’s take on the dying art of the perfect pop song is as elemental as it is ambitious – though their forthcoming Matador full-length, Imagine Our Love (due May 8th) is more of the latter.”

Well, imagine the EP, The Calvary of Light, coming out tomorrow.  Here’s a track now!

You Broke My Heart mp3

Albert Hammond Jr. Yours To Keep [Rough Trade]

| Mary Mulholland

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Rating: 7.5

In listening to Yours To Keep, the solo debut of Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., one can’t escape comparing the album to the Strokes. I’ve always been a fan of Hammond Jr.’s razor-edged guitar playing and the Strokes’ impeccably tight presentation; Hammond is, in his way, a very good guitarist, and it follows that any project he embarks on is worth an honest listen. Yours To Keep is worth more than just one—Hammond has amassed a diverse collection of catchy, clean pop songs marked by maturity and romanticism.

Stream 4 album tracks on MySpace

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mp3 of the Day – Of Montreal

| USOUNDS

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Of Montreal’s 8th full legnth album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? was released on Tuesday.

Here’s what Polyvinyl has to say about the album, “It’s an irresistible and remarkable album, sounding like a logical extension of the erratic indie-disco sounds of The Sunlandic Twins. However, Hissing Fauna is also the most personal of Montreal album to date, with Kevin Barnes, lead of Montreal songwriter, pouring tremendous amounts of emotion, heartbreak, frustration and elation into its twelve tracks.”

Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse mp3
Stream Album:  Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

 

Lou Reed, Sweet Jane, Live in 1974

| Jan Fossbeck

As USOUNDS’ archivist it is my job to find things from our back issues and relay them to you. Well, our entire 1974 archive was destroyed in a fire of suspicious origin at our storage facility outside Paris, but I did come up with a sentence from a review of the very show this video is from. So while I can’t share the review, with the magic of youtube, I can show you a video, plus the sentence. Enjoy:

…at the exact moment it kicked in, Lou launched into “Sweet Jane” and it was as if I was transported beyond time and space, to a place where the underground sounds battle with hammers like the Norse Gods of old.