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  • Dr. Dre Makes Excuses For That Weak Jay-Z Track of His

    So the Kraftwerk beat ain’t that bad. It might even be great once a proper version drops. In the meantime, Captain Obvious (read: Dr. Dre) has released a statement on “Under Pressure,” the freshly-leaked Detox track that has some desk jockey shouting “New Music Cartel!” over its badly-compressed electro loops and the lazy Sunday efforts of Jay-Z.

    “I want to set the record straight for everybody who’s been waiting to hear my music,” Dre wrote on Interscope’s official site. “The song that’s on the internet is an incomplete song that I’m still working on. When it’s ready, you’ll be hearing it from me.”

    Good to know, especially since he originally promised the prospective single way back in April. Oh well. Someone had to be this year’s Axl Rose. Check out “Under Pressure” after the jump if you haven’t heard it already.

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    PRIMER: Melvins

    “Daunting” is one way of describing Melvins‘ deep, deep discography—look at that list—although “good luck” may be more like it. That’s why we asked frontman Buzz Osborne to sort through their towering stack of live albums, studio records and EPs for us, giving us the dirt on more than two decades of essential heavy music. And yes, that includes this year’s The Bride Screamed Murder LP, excerpted in the following MP3:

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    NOW PLAYING: Led Er Est/Ancien Régime, Split 12” EP

    The Details: Led Er Est/Ancien Régime, Split 12” EP (Mannequin, 2010)

    A Short Review: When Led Er Est played our OSCILLATIONS party the other night, we couldn’t help but notice the vellum-sheathed split LP on their merch table—an import-only pressing from Italy’s Mannequin Records. Sure enough, it features five cold-pressed exclusives, including a laser-tagged Solid Space cover (“A Darkness In My Soul”), Mute-d noise/darkwave instrumentals (“PS 18,” “Ants”), and a sleek slice of post-punk (“Orange”). If you live in the New York area, you definitely need to snag this at one of the trio’s local shows, especially since it goes for way too many euros overseas.

    As for Ancien Régime, we honestly hadn’t heard of the Roman band before dropping the needle down. True to their insert photo, the quartet is ready for whatever Cold Cave/Interpol comparisons you can come up with, with a heavy focus on beat-backed hooks and minimalist melodies. That said, they sound very 2003, which is going to sound flat-out awesome or annoying depending on your disposition. Personally, we’re into it, especially the locked groove at the end.

    PEEP SHOW: MGMT, “It’s Working”

    As directed by So Me of Ed Banger infamy. Too bad the rest of MGMT’s record is such a mess.

    Dave Sitek Reveals the Guest List For His Maximum Balloon Debut


    Maximum Balloon‘s first single, “Tiger” (the promising track that’s teased in the above clip, and features Aku from Dragons of Zynth), will be available on iTunes tomorrow—the first in a series of digital releases leading up to Dave Sitek’s debut LP on August 24. You can also check out a scantily-clad version of the song here.

    For up-to-the-minute updates on Sitek’s solo project, keep refreshing his home page over the coming weeks. Here’s the list of confirmed contributors so far:

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    DOWNLOAD THIS NOW: Jamie and Romy of the XX Deliver Two Very Different Mixtapes For Colette and The Pop Manifesto

    Photo: Jen Maler

    Judging by the fact that their server crashed a couple times in the past week, some of you must know about the exclusive xx mix available from our friends at The Pop Manifesto right now along with features on Neon Indian, Smith Westerns and Pantha Du Prince. Carefully compiled for the lovers in the audience by singer/multi-instrumentalist Romy Madley Croft, it features slow jams from Chromatics (“I’m On Fire”), Massive Attack (“Protection”) and 13 other smooth operators. (UPDATE: TPM‘s down again, so we’ve posted Romy’s mix for your streaming/downloading pleasure below. Just be sure to tip your server on the way out by reading the actual issue, as we consider The Pop Manifesto one of the few ‘digital magazines’ worth reading…outside of self-titled, of course.)

    In semi-related news, the trio’s main producer, Jamie Smith, unveiled his contribution to a Colette comp last month. The limited CD pressing is pretty pricey, though, so we’ve taken the luxury of uploading the MP3 version below. As you can probably tell from the tracklisting, it’s got some of the past year’s strongest electronic singles on lock, from Darkstar’s “Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer” to that Joy Orbison jam “Hyph Mngo.”

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    PEEP SHOW: King Midas Sound, “Lost”

    Check out a 60-minute mix from King Midas Sound here, and our feature with all three members—including the Bug’s Kevin Martin—here.

    LISTENING STATION: Demdike Stare

    If Alfred Hitchcock produced avant-techno records instead of mood-altering movies, they’d sound a lot like the boogie monster beats of Demdike Stare, a British duo best described by the following mix:

    And if that’s not enough for you, Sean Canty (Finders Keepers) and Miles Whittaker (Pendle Coven, MLZ) also gave us a run-through of their favorite records at the moment after the jump…

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    The Vaselines Wanna ‘Sex With an X’ You Up

    The Vaselines—a.k.a. a band we only know about because of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album—have finally gotten around to finishing their second album. Due out September 14 through Sub Pop, Sex With an X features a salacious record sleeve and 12 slices of “good clean smut with a twist of bitter.” Indie pop jams, in other words. Seriously; we’re listening to the stream right now and already singing along/dancing with ourselves.

    The back story via Sub Pop:

    Recorded outside Manchester at the Analogue Catalogue studio in Mossley with Julie McLarnon engineering and produced by Jamie Watson who produced that first album Dum Dum, Sex with an Xwas recorded the old-fashioned way: twelve songs in thirteen days (plus two b-sides). The Vaselines ca. 2010 is Eugene and Frances with guest musicians Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle & Sebastian on guitar and bass, and Michael McGaughrin from the 1990s on drums. It may have taken The Vaselines 20 years to get round to making this baby, but it was worth the wait—bringing their solo careers to a climax. The irony has not been lost. Who says indie music can’t be fun?

    Certainly not us. Check out the cover (a shot that’d stir David Lynch’s loins, no doubt), song titles, tour dates, and the album’s lead-off single after the jump…

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    Black Mountain Ready ‘Wilderness Heart’ LP, Share a New Single

    Finally. As much as we love Black Mountain‘s myriad side projects—especially Pink Mountaintops‘ last LP—self-titled‘s thrilled to hear that the band’s finally ready to release their third full-length record. Due out September 14 through Jagjaguwar, Wilderness Heart features some serious co-producers (Dave Sardy and Randall Dunn, who’ve worked with everyone from Sunn O))) to LCD Soundsystem) and a laundry list of influences that won’t make a lick of sense until we actually hear the damn thing. That includes the following: “New Order, King Crimson, Studio 54, Alex Chilton, sunshine, Janis Joplin, Please Kill Me, Shirley Collins, Mickey Newbury, jalapeno salsa, Night of The Hunter, Cactus Taqueria, Funky16Corners podcasts, Dennis Wilson, [and] the house blowing up in the desert at the end of Zabriskie Point.” Or as a press release explains it even further:

    The new record is packed with succinct rock songs that pulse and pound with startling precision: it pummels you, you ask for more. Wilderness Heart is arguably Black Mountain’s tightest, most concentrated outing, but there’s still plenty of raw rock energy at work. It’s their most metal and most folk oriented record so far.  It’s a Black Mountain pop record, which is to say it’s nothing like pop at all.

    Fair enough. For now, you might want to just listen to the new track after the jump, a little pavement-peeling single called “Old Fangs.” A stack of summer tour dates were also just announced.

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