I joined in the wailing when Mon Frere went down in 2007. Leader Nouela Johnson had such potential, her way-out style and insouciant songs wouldn't just stop there, would they? It seemed very James Marilyn Dean Monroe, a fickle flash-burn of utter musical sweetness gone before the world could be convinced. Then Johnson went on to play keyboards with Say Hi and other bands, and it seemed our frantic farewell may have been rightfully certain.

Now, like your most tender enemy and worst friend calling in the middle of the night, Johnson is back in Seattle, using her sly and swaggering voice to bob and spin over sauntering piano bomp in the self-titled People Eating People. Mark Gajadhar from Past Lives, the Blood Brothers and Champagne Champagne has helped her construct a delightful soundtrack for a dimly seductive grotto at the edge of night. Joined by members of Sirens Sister (Ben Libay) and Black Houses (Christiaan Morris), People Eating People seems like a very healthy project for a band title about cannibalism and a collection of kill-cabaret songs that nakedly studies psychic vampirism and dysfunctional trysts.

more...

Gothernburg, Sweden's sweet-voiced Sarah Assbring has teamed up with Rasmus Hagg of the duo Studio this time out, for the third album from El Perro del Mar, Love Is Not Pop.

"Album" might be pushing it, if you're looking for length, as this is seven new songs plus three remixes. Following up 2008's From The Valley To The Stars, which had oodles of small little ditties about desire and deities, "L is for Love" is just as romantic and lyrically ambitious, but deeper and more concerned with human amore. Besides a splendid if sobering adaptation of author-theologian G.K. Chesterton poem "It Is Something (To Have Wept)" Assbring (and Hagg) have crafted a stainless examination about what makes our bodies warm, and what turns our hearts cold. 

more...

Mariam Wallentin & Andreas Werliin are a married Gonthenburg, Sweden couple who make warm butterscotch sauce on vanilla ice cream music with just voice and some drums and a little sound splash here and there. Their band Wildbirds & Peacedrums is coming to the States in September, but let their new album "The Snake" help cool you down before the fall.

If you're like Pitchfork ("8.3"), The Guardian ("sensual, pulverizing, and mesmeric"), MOJO ("exceptional"), Uncut ("extraordinary"), or me ("Sweet!") it will massage away the prickly heat of the day as previous Control Group releases from El Perro Del Marr did. This Seattle-started label seems to have a sexy finger on the vein of the Nordic-soul fetish, and songs like "My Heart" and "There Is No Light" should be getting tons of airplay on certain stations with a similar taste in exquisitely made minimalism.

They toured supporting Lykke Li last February and their return here will spread through October. TCG also announces that the next El Perro Del Marr will be out around that time (September 22, specifically), their third one States-side entitled "Love Is Not Pop." Sweet!

more...

Schoolyard Heroes are releasing a 2-song holiday single today: "I want your soul for Christmas" and "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel!".

more...

It's kind of like -- and I don't mean this in any critical way -- a musical version of the Teletubbies, which I used to zone out to after a ferocious night of partying.

more...

It’s not everyday that you find a record that simply knocks you on your ass – but that’s exactly what happened to this powerpop-loving writer.

more...