Kids in cloth coats

Cloth Coat Revolution - The Two Koreas

U-Boat Commander - The Two Koreas

Some of the most exciting music released this year comes courtesy of music bloggers turned label owners. I've previously talked up Victor Scott and The Harvey Girls of SVC Records (sadly, Spoilt Victorian Child gave up the ghost several weeks ago after a long and beautiful run), and Tap Tap, signee of Catbirdseat Records. The Two Koreas, the band responsible for my current heaviest-rotation track "Cloth Coat Revolution," is a recent addition to the Unfamiliar Records roster, offshoot of excellent blog, Are You Familiar. See how that works? Bloggers with discerning taste make record label managers with discerning taste. Or just know how to pick music other music bloggers ... like. Hmm.

Anyway, the Toronto five-piece is readying its second album and if the two tracks available on Unfamiliar Records' Compilation 1, especially "Coat," are any indication, it's gonna be a doozy: tight garage-punk thrash, dangerously witty lyrics dissecting the scene (some of the members are rock journos) and Stuart Berman's pissed-off prep school boy vocals (I giggle whenever I hear him sing-speak fucking ridiculous). It's a spectacular combination.

Drama Queen - Moi Caprice

Hits in the Car tipped me to this black-eyelinered, pretty-in-pink retrofuture prom theme from great emoting Danes Moi Caprice. Lovely.

Also: Oh, wow. If you're not already following it, Locust St. is running a superb new series to celebrate its second birthday, "100 years (in 10 jumps)." Rich with historical overviews, quotes, images (fine art juxtaposed with popular advertisements, book jacket covers, family photographs), and, of course, music, this is a blogosphere don't-even-think-about-passing-up. From the lyrical intro:

On a stretch of pavement, with a bit of chalk, draw a straight line from curb to stoop. Take a long step forward and draw a smaller, parallel line; repeat this act nine more times, making the last line as long as the first. Then find a child, or a sprightly adult, and ask her to leap from line to line . . . Two leaps takes you from the womb to a battlefield; four leaps is Buddy Bolden to Charlie Parker, or Buster Keaton to Monty Python; eight leaps, more often than not, "starts with a birthstone and ends with a tombstone" as the Go-Betweens once sang.