ONE IN THE CHAMBER: Pre-orders are being taken for the new LP from Athens noise-rockers The Powder Room. It’s titled Lucky, and comes courtesy of Minneapolis label Learning Curve Records. A bonus 7-inch record is included, too. Now, this is being advertised as the band’s “debut” album, but it’s really only the debut of its presence on this particular label (which also hosts Athens’ Vincas). All real down bros know the band debuted on the vinyl scene back in 2014 with Curtains. Pre-orders ship from the label on Aug. 28, but The Powder Room will play a local release show Aug. 26 at the Caledonia Lounge with the aforementioned Vincas and Baltimore band Multicult. For more info, see learningcurverecords.com and facebook.com/thepowderroomathens.
HEAD TO HEAD: Kinda-famous Athens improviser and composer Killick has completed his second collaborative album with totally-famous improviser and composer Henry Kaiser. Both played guitar on the record, titled Xenosynchronicity II. The pair first worked together on 2012’s Nikola Tesla High School. Although Killick is known for his irreverence to both scene and style, not to mention his nonstop use of puns, he says specifically of this new record, “We played prismatic textures and moods, reflecting unabashed (ir)reverence for the styles and stylings of the greats, and for the guitar itself, simply strings tensioned across a board, but so, so much more.” That last bit may be a hyperbolic but, in any case, it is a much lighter and airy-sounding record than the duo’s previous one—perhaps not quite as perceptibly aggressive but equally pointed. A CD version will be available soon, and a preview is available at killick.bandcamp.com, where the entire record should be posted by September. For more information, visit that link or killick.me.
CONSOLATION PRIZES: Even though Athens band Velocirapture isn’t really a thing anymore, you can grab a hold of a lot of its history via the newly promoted album VRAP. I started hearing word of this a couple of weeks ago and thought I might have amnesia, because I couldn’t remember it at all, yet it reportedly came out in January. So I went to the group’s Winston Barbe and asked him. He told me, “[We] just self-released it online, and I didn’t do much to promote it outside of having a show where I handed out download codes. We put it out about a year after we finished it and a half-year since we stopped playing. So basically, we were in a weird spot with it—we spent years of our lives working on it and playing the songs, but by the time we put it out we weren’t so much a band anymore. So I decided just to throw it out there mostly for the handful of people who were genuine fans of the band.” These 17 tracks of indie-rock psych mostly feature a driving and straightforward sensibility but occasionally get a little murky. It’s recommended if you dig the Velvet Underground, Flying Nun Records and permanent vacations, and totally not recommended if you don’t. Grab it at velocirapture.bandcamp.com.
YES, DEAR, BUT IS IT ART?: Although the always infectious Meth Wax is no more, project leader Daniel Tanghal hasn’t exactly retired. After hinting at “returning to music someday,” that day came about a month later. He’s just released a new solo album named LSD Snuff Film, his second solo record this year. It’s pretty dang different than the last one, February, released in, uh, February. On that outing, everything was melodic, relatable and all-around tangible. On this new one, Tanghal hits the third rail from the word “go.” It’s loose, it barely acknowledges the existence of rock and roll, and it often intentionally unhinges itself. None of which is to say it’s bad. Far from it. It’s a cool reach of a record that, while it doesn’t always succeed, is a nice set of tunes colored way outside previous defined lines. Also, fans of Tanghal’s older work will still find hints of direct melodicism on tracks like “Femur Lampshade” and “Vegan Cheat Day.” Check it out at danieltanghal.bandcamp.com.
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