Straight outta Indiana

I'm working on something really good--and longish--to be posted next week. (And now I've totally set myself up.) In the meantime, there's this.

Bombs (mp3) - The Impossible Shapes

Putrefaction (mp3) - The Impossible Shapes

The Impossible Shapes have been knocking around for awhile--their latest, Horus (US, UK), is their fifth full-length. The Bloomington, Indiana band raid the psychedelic and blues-rock bins of the record store and can sound like they'd really rather be jamming with the Black Crowes. But then they hand in some thorny, anxious indie rock. And that's when I'm into them.

A couple members of Impossible Shapes also belong to deranged bar band John Wilkes Booze. And lead Shape Chris Barth has a solo project NormanOak. I'm sure lo-fi NormanOak gets accused of being a freak folk (an awful, awful term) act. Decidedly--even defiantly--simplistic, Barth's songs aren't very freaky, but they may seem too facile to deserve actual studio time. As far as two-chord sketches go though, they're quite nice. I'd rather hear this than a coffeehouse bursting with Devendras and Joannas, anyway.

War Drums (mp3) - John Wilkes Booze

It Is Impossible (mp3) - NormanOak

Slow Explosion (mp3) - NormanOak

From Telescopic Eyes Glance The Future Sick (US, UK) and Born A Black Diamond (US, UK).

And unrelated. Like everyone, I bitch about the Fork. (Although some people complain way more than I do.) These days, I read it as a matter of professional (hah! like I get paid for this) obligation. And I'm always thrilled when those boys--and they're almost all boys--do something to justify my growing malaise. This lovely bit of smug, self-referentiality does the trick. Why, you could spend hours peeling the layers of meta-smarm--an entire afternoon of family fun!

But then you read something like this and the whole enterprise doesn't seem so pointless after all.