Saturn rising

Image: Jayme McGowan

Perception Stick - Talbot Tagora

Hyacinth Grrls - Abe Vigoda

"Perception Stick" is what screenplay pitchers refer to as high concept. Just sort of beats you into entertained submission with a, um, stick: point blank metaphor, rigor mortis beats (think Meg White), massive low end and narcotized coed vocals sticky with swamp (think a less-sophisticated Black Mountain). It's pretty great. Talbot Tagora's part of Los Angeles' Smell scene, which I'm loving against my better judgment. I ignored the initial buzz on neighbors Abe Vigoda, but looked the band up after their messy, convoluted (and loud so loud) strawberry jam with No Age at Pitchfest on a Sonic Youth cover. Yeah, they do sound a bit like No Age crossed with Animal Collective informed by Sonic Youth. And I suppose "Hyacinth Grrls" is a ref to The Wasteland, which I guess makes them a little literary too. God bless L.A. and may its music ever prosper!

Talbot Tagora: Buy some of their stuff, Myspace
Abe Vigoda: Skeleton (Amazon, eMusic) Myspace

Shape of My Heart - Noah and the Whale

So no, this isn't the car commercial song. But the first dozen times I saw that ad I thought good for the Magnetic Fields! The similarities were pretty superficial anyway. NatW, for example, isn't soaked in bleak irony; Noah (presumably) just has a funny-miserable voice. Also: British. Also: seems to have picked up the ever-popular eastern European brass thread. In fact, the band is of a piece with a dozen folk-pop outfits and has simply made the looser, less-calculated (better) LP Bishop Allen should have.

From Peaceful the World Lays Me Down (Amazon), MySpace