Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #098:

COOLRUNNINGS: “Badlands”

A new track from Knoxville, Tennessee’s COOLRUNNINGS is always cause for a celebration. The crew behind Dracula Horse has put together some of the most titillating and ever-evolving music that’s been passed around the internet over the past few years. “Badlands” is a truly fantastic trip down a whole new delectable rabbit hole for the band, but unfortunately, it also arrived with the frustrated ultimatum that COOLRUNNINGS would not be releasing any new music for at least another year. As happy as I am to have “Badlands” to leave a very much appreciated ringing in my ears, I’m equally as sad to learn that the group’s understandable growing distaste for the state of music critique along with the independent music industry has reached a point of no reckoning. Here’s hoping that they can feel a tiny bit at ease knowing that one silly little guy up in Portland will be eagerly anticipating their eventual triumphant return.

[“Badlands” can be found at the Dracula Horse Soundcloud]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #097:

You Won’t: “Three Car Garage”

A timeline of my experience with “Three Car Garage” would reveal a rather wide range of emotions. I first heard the song a few days ago, enjoyed it and made a note to come back to it in the very near future. This morning, I watched the duo’s video for the song and though I was admittedly skeptical of it’s beginning movement, I was laughing and praising it’s cleverness just a few short moments later. Finally, this evening, after listening to the song as loud as possible at least a dozen times, I realized that this isn’t just a great new song, but it should be one of the most important songs released in 2012.

On the way back to my place after walking my dog earlier this evening, I smelled something that momentarily led me to believe that something in the vicinity of the building had caught fire. For the briefest moment, my mind flashed over what I would need to save from the apartment. Since the human and the animal element were already outside, I instantly saw visions of instruments, laptops and clothes that needed my immediate help. However, just as soon as the visions appeared, they just as quickly disappeared when it became clear that someone nearby was cooking some sort of awful food substance that was responsible for the smell of potentially toasted personal artifacts.

“Three Car Garage” is a send up of all of the ridiculous things that we each so desperately cling to believing are important to us. Ultimately, these “items” are just not that necessary to any of us. We are all guilty of taking the wrong things for granted too much of the time. At just under two minutes into the song, singer Josh Arnoudse slips into a Dylanesque cadence and relates a string of words that I believe to be some of the finer lyrics I’ve heard in quite a while. My apologies if any of these are slightly off:

I’ve been brought up clean and organized.
I’ve been each December satisfied.
I’ve had wishes granted, none denied.
I’ve been flown down south and Disney-fied.
I’ve sailed twenty seas in deep denial on a million frequent flyer miles, 
ran a gauntlet built of grocery aisles in a walking wall of guilt and bile.
Tell me, are you not the same as me?
Did you pay your dues in little league?
Did you wash your hands of blood and greed and stumble back in time of need?
You are clever imitation minds of photographs and DVDs.
You are subtle repetition tied to thirty-two inch plasma screens.
It’s a delusion, babe.

[Skeptic Goodbye drops February 14, 2012 on Old Flame]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #095:

Tom Day: “Couldn’t Be Alone” (featuring Laura Lethlean)

With ”Couldn’t Be Alone”, Tom Day and his cousin, Laura Lethlean, have created a remarkable cover of a already very beautiful song (Burial’s “Archangel”). I would definitely love to hear more collaborations between these two.

[The Things We Leave Behind is available now on Tom Day’s Bandcamp]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #094:

Caves: “1993”

Kids these days, right?

Jesus, this is good.

[When You Were Partying, I Was Dying drops February 21, 2012 on Absent Fever]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #093:

MPSO: “Let Go/Falling”

Sure, Daniel Grey is a member of recent Sub Pop signees Memoryhouse, but more importantly (in my opinion), he creates hazy and loopy folk masterpieces under the guise of MPSO (aka Mount Pleasant Symphony Orchestra). “Let Go” and “Falling” make up the luscious, chewy center of MPSO’s upcoming full-length Wisdom Teeth (which can be streamed in it’s entirety here). It’s going to be a absolute pleasure to see all of the ink that will eventually be spilled gushing about this record.

[Wisdom Teeth drops February 14, 2012 on MPSO’s Bandcamp]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #092:

Petite Noir: “‘Till We Ghosts/The Dance”

Every once in a while I’ll go through a period of a few days where I feel absolutely no connection to any music whatsoever. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that I’ve known for years or something that’s been freshly uploaded to an artist’s Soundcloud, nothing seems to find it’s way into that weird part of me that needs music to exist peacefully. Thankfully, these mental blocks are more than often easily shattered when something truly profound comes along. And this is where the mysterious Petite Noir from Cape Town, South Africa comes into play. This mashup of two songs from his forthcoming EP was the first thing I heard when I sat down to work this morning and it broke whatever wicked spell that was gumming up the system.

[The upcoming So Many Animal Calls EP does not currently have a release date.]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #091:

Day Joy: “Bone And Bloody”

The Floridian duo of Michael Serrin and Peter Michael Perceval (aka Day Joy) are probably going to break pretty big sometime this year and when you allow your ears the absolute pleasure of listening to a track like “Bone And Bloody”, you will very quickly understand why. While the song relays a well-crafted and chilling story, the music underneath remains warm and inviting in an almost hypnotic fashion.

“I can barely find a place where you won’t leave me in the gutter, where you won’t leave me bone and bloody.” 

Oof, this one is a killer.

[“Bone And Bloody” will be featured on Day Joy’s hopefully soon to be announced debut release.]

Song To Get You Through The Goddamn Day #090:

Tanlines: “Brothers”

There’s really not much more that I can say about my unabashed adoration of Tanlines. I’ve written about them here on CP at least half a dozen times in the past year and a half and at this point, my love for them is pretty damn obvious. So it probably isn’t much of a surprise that much glee and apartment dancing occurred this evening when the band sent out the first inkling of information surrounding their upcoming debut full-length album along with the first single from Mixed Emotions. “Brothers” takes everything that’s been exciting and emotional about Tanlines’ previous music and intensifies it. These two are totally locked in.

[Mixed Emotions drops March 20, 2012 on True Panther]