Wild Flag is a quartet love affair smooshing Portland and D.C.-based warrior women together, combining the velvety and violent vocals/guitars of Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney), Mary Timony (Helium), and Rebecca Cole (The Minders) with the superb shuffle and stomp of mighty drummer Janet Weiss (S-K, Quasi, etc.).

Wild Flag is a rock album that needs to be in everyone's playlist this year, as it constantly excites and snuggles up to the listener with openly emotional attempts at romantic music-fandom bonding ("Romance"), twists and turns about feeling hot and cold with mysterious scratches ("Something Came Over Me"), whilst a whole lot of skittery guitars tweak and even psyche-chug above Weiss's skin-rattling fury. It's boss.

Sounding as fresh as a debut by a Go-Go's era femme-powered new wave band made up of grown-up punks, all of those great garage gal voices bringing to mind glories recent (e.g. The Woods, by S-K) throughout, but also the brutal, passionate art-pop rants of Lene Lovich ("Boom"), and even early 70s feminist rock ("Glass Tamourine"). Dub bass notes dangle with Elastica-sharp guitar tones ("Short Version"), and all out expansive American Patti Smith-esque rock anthems spill towards the end of the ten track full-lenth ("Race Horse," "Black Tiles").

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Sleater-Kinney are kind of like capers: you either really like them, or you really don't. Perhaps the most polarizing quality about them was the sound of Corin Tucker's voice -- that aside, the musicianship was almost always razor sharp and drum tight, and their breakup was a mixed bag of sadness. The reunion of drummer Janet Weiss (previously of the delectably square-jawed Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks) and guitarist Carrie Brownstein is therefore both wonderful, because they are excellent musicians, and -- despite the fact this may be Riot Grrrl sacrilege -- free of the histrionics of Tucker's vocals. Joined by Mary Timony (Helium), and Rebecca Cole (The Minders), the four come together like a Pacific Northwest rock-and-roll Voltron to create Wild Flag. Commenting on likelihood of the union, Merge Records stated on their website that "if someone drew a visual representation illustrating the ways in which all indie bands are interconnected, Brownstein, Cole, Timony, and Weiss would be in the same tiny sphere, so playing together felt almost inevitable." Amen.

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Welcome to Mergefest, Northwest edition. We're so unbelievably giddy about this show, we can hardly contain our little imaginary selves. From the moment this show was announced, we've been ticking off the days on our imaginary calendars, waiting and waiting for the magic that will occur the night of October 14th at Showbox at the Market, when the reverby swoonful magic of Teenage Fanclub will meet the crunchy and masterful indie rock of Superchunk, supported by our own hometown indie pop hereos Telekinesis. It's gonna be amazing.

On top of that amazement, all 3 bands will be touring new material! Teenage Fanclub just came out with the fabulous Shadows, which our own Chris Estey adored, stating of the track "The Fall" "Like with many great Teenage Fanclub songs, it creeps in the background till you remember what poured the Scotch into the Scotch-taped remnants of your own multi-shattered heart." Superchunk have the ever anticipated Majesty Shredding coming out in September, and Telekinesis are working on a new record right now. I'm sure we'll hear the hits we all want to hear, but we'll also be treated to some new stuff as well.

And, to celebrate, here's a video from each band:

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On Sunday, September 12th at Neptune Coffee, the Imaginary Crafty Listening Party will commence (Kelly's showing everyone how to make fabric flowers, woot!), and it will feature an original crafting soundtrack from Superchunk and the Thermals' new albums.

We have a full review of The Thermals coming up (it's a power pop romantic masterpiece), but we thought it would be good to specifically plug the seminal work of 90s punk pop royalty Superchunk. Especially since the new LP Majesty Shedding arrives along with must-have generational-rousing reissues of the band's second and third releases, No Pocky For Kitty and On The Mouth (1991 and 1993, respectively).

First of all, Majesty Shedding is the band's full-on reunion after many years and comes after Superchunk rubbed fan's tummies with their toys in the attic EP Leaves In The Gutter.

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{Thermals photo: Westin Glass / Superchunk photo: Jason Arthurs}

Last month's Imaginary Crafty Listening Party was bumpin with Lo & Behold Shrie teaching us all how to embroider {and armed us with TIG birdies to practice on} while we blissed out to the new Darren Hanlon and Menomena albums.

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(Teenage Fanclub play with Superchunk on October 14, 2010 at the Showbox in the Market.)

It's been a half decade since the last Teenage Fanclub record Man-Made, but their influence has never gone away, even if melancholy power pop bands have come along within that span of time which don't know how much they owe to the Scottish kings. Of course, on early 90s brightly shined gems like Bandwagonesque the band was itself unafraid to remind underground pop-lovers of Big Star or Badfinger or the brimming years of indie bands like Orange Juice and Josef K. from their own region less than ten years before.

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As you might have already heard in the podcast, one of the most impressive things to me about Telekinesis' rise to fame is the fact that they get to know Superchunk (one of my all time favorite bands). So you might understand why I nearly spit hot tea all over my monitor when I found this video this morning: Superchunk covering our dear imaginary favorites Telekinesis' "Tokyo" (collectively, one of our favorite songs of the year).

Please keep all electronics safe from any flying liquids due to excitement.

When I moved to Seattle 12 years ago, I spent a lot of time talking on the phone to friends back home, mostly about music. My friend Keith mentioned Polvo to me and I said I hadn't heard of them. I still vividly remember his response: "Get thee to a record store, woman! I'm hanging up right now. Go!" So I went out and bought Shapes. Two days later, I went back and bought Exploded Drawing. I was really drawn to both the sludgy drone of the guitar work and the random, weird Eastern backdrop of it all. And then it was over. Polvo was suddenly, sadly no more.

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Warning: This is an ecstatic early plug for the upcoming fan-dream book, Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label that Got Big and Stayed Small.

As Magnet magazine is quoted, "[Merge] might be responsible for more indie-rock classics than any other label in the past two decades." David Byrne considers their survival "kind of amazing these days." NPR asserts they're "one of the top independent labels in the world." In Our Noise author John Cook shows the letter that Glitterhouse sent to Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance (in Superchunk, of course, and who started the label) originally sent turning down European distribution (it's hilarious, considering what Merge would achieve); to the later days when Mac feels giddy and weird hanging out near Dr. Dre and Springsteen at Coachella.

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They won't have to wear a silly sombrero or hear a half-hearted team of waitstaff clapping and singing something that isn't "Happy Birthday" over a melting scoop of ice cream with a candle, but today is the second day of the XX Merge birthday festival. Happy 20th Birthday, Merge! You'll be able to drink legally next year! Considerate as they are, they have given us the gift of a Lou Barlow MP3 to celebrate. It beats the hell out of a High School Musical stationary set. Oh that Zack Effron, he's so dreamy... The track is called "Gravitate" and is off his new album Goodnight Unknown. Make sure to write a thank you card. That's proper ettiquite, at least that's what Grandma always told me...

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