I stopped following Beast Coast on Twitter a while ago because I was tired of reading about her getting stoned or how awesome her cat was.

It’s a cat, all cats are awesome! Get over it! Anyway, to celebrate herself almost reaching the 50k follower mark on Twitter she’s uploaded a new track called “How They Want Me To Be”  in stereotypical Best Coast fashion, reverb-laden harmonies and draped with that drudging cloudy Summer sound.

Naturally the lyrics leave a little to be desired but they nail the melody, and as she mentions on her blog there’s a strong possibility that it’ll end up on their second album even though it’s still a ways away from being done. At the moment the track isn’t shareable so you have to head on over to her Soundcloud page to listen to it.

Connect with Best Coast: Facebook | Myspace | Twitter | Website | Last.fm

Best Coast – “How They Want Me To Be”

This pleases me greatly. Greatly,  I tell thee!

Last year the two dudes from Lafayette, Colorado that compromise Gauntlet Hair burst onto the “scene” with the pitch-perfect noise-concoction of debut single “I Was Thinking” and a couple of other jams equally as raucous.  The pair then released the single on vinyl via the newly-minted Forest Family Records label, then another single on Mexican Summer called “Out, Don’t…” along with a new song in the form of b-side “Heave”, and even though I never made a formal list that debut single was in my top 10 of last year.

Last November they signed to Dead Oceans (home of The Tallest Man On Earth) and now after months and months of waiting we finally have news of their debut self-titled full length album coming out on October 18th and below, thanks to Gorilla Vs Bear we have a brand new song “Top Bunk”.  The track soars and swirls atop the cave-dwelling vocals and as Dead Oceans mentioned it’s a “cooled-out, coastal slow-grind”, which if the whole album plays like that I’d be more than happy.

You can grab the track below and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for new stuff from these guys, the album is going to be immense.

Connect with Gauntlet Hair – Facebook / MySpace / Last.fm / Website

Gauntlet Hair – “Top Bunk”

For those of you (mainly bloggers and writers) who’ve had this album for the last few weeks you’ll know just how good this is. For those of you who haven’t then you’re about to be bedazzled.

It’s been over a year since Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin sauntered onto the scene as Cults with their hot-damn-how-good-is-this-sugary-sweet-dream-pop three-song Bandcamp posting.  Nobody knew anything about them, they didn’t post their songs to blogs or sites and just uploaded them to their Bandcamp page, but within a week they were blowing up from here to the indie blogs in Timbuktu.

Between then and now they’ve released 7″ singles on Forest Family Records, they’ve toured the U.S and Europe, they’ve released other singles on Record Store Day, they’ve posted remixes, videos,  b-sides, collaborations with family members, and everything else you can think of in between. Oh, they even signed a major fucking record deal with Columbia/Sony, but now we have the entire album to make our ears salivate and our mouth blister.  It’s been delayed for a little but finally comes out next week and thanks to NPR the entire jovial thing is streaming below.

Album of the year contender?  Damn right.

Connect with Cults – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Bandcamp | Website | Last.fm

I think it’s only fair that since they pushed back the release date of their eagerly-awaited debut album, that they put a new non-album track out there for us to hear, right?

The song “Make Time” is listed on the Irish iTunes store as a single with a release date of May 6th meaning it’s been around for about 10 days without anyone knowing.  You’d think that when you release music for people to buy that they’d make an announcement that it’d been released so that, you know, people can buy it and stuff, but I guess not with Cults.

Maybe they’re already millionaires? Maybe they’ve already moved into their Scrooge McDuck Money Bin and don’t need the cash? Oh, and I resent the generalisation that Scottish people are tight with their money, we’re actually a very charitable people and spend more money at Christmas than any other country in the U.K.  Granted that most of it’s on alcohol, but still.

Anyway, the song in question is beateriffic with handclaps flowering over the edge of Madeline’s feathery echo-tinged voice as it flits across their now-de facto-upbeat-twinkly sound.  You can grab it from iTunes for a buck or so (it’s not available in the U.S. but you can get it from the Irish iTunes store apparently) or you can just listen to it on repeat below.

Connect with Cults – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Bandcamp | Website | Last.fm

(via)

Connect with Cults – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Bandcamp | Website | Last.fm

(via)

With every new song that I hear from Cults, my anticipation-chubby gets that little bit more anticipatory.

Does that even make sense? I don’t fucking know, but with the rash of new bands that came out last year and released/are releasing an album this year, Cults and Yuck might be the only two who are consistently good.  Tennis kinda fell by the wayside after releasing their debut album in January and new artist Panda Bear’s album “Tomboy” literally sucked.

Well now the kindly dudes at NPR are streaming another new track from Cults’ debut album and presumably a week before the release of the album they’ll have the whole thing to listen to, two, too. to. tu.

Updated with a Soundcloud stream.  Check it out below at around the 26 minute mark.

Connect with Cults – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Bandcamp | Website | Last.fm

Unless you’ve seen Cults live in the last 12 months then this new song is the first in close to a year (except that “Oh My God” one they did with accompanying weird video). This time in 2010 they had only just come bounding onto the scene, layered-guitar-driven-dream-pop in tow.  They had upload three songs to their Bandcamp page and as soon as one blog got a hold of them they ended up everywhere, and rightly so, those three songs were gems.

They’ve done a few guest appearances on other artist’s work, most notably DOM’s “Bowl Cut” and featuring alongside Caroline Polachek and singer Madeline’s brother Richie on Guards’ debut EP, but that’s likely the extent of recorded new music from them.  Today, however, they uploaded a brand new song to their Soundcloud page and if “Go Outside” was the best of those three (it was), this new one is the second best; it starts off like a 60′s Motown crooner and drifts off into a bit of a wall-a-sound jam-sammich.

Presumably it’ll be on their major label debut LP coming out in a few, but give it a listen over at their soundcloud page or below thanks to Will.

Connect with Cults – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Bandcamp | Website | Last.fm

And so it happens again.

Last week when I posted the track from their upcoming split 7″ with Wavves I mentioned how the tracks that Best Coast have released after their album came out have all been better than some of the tracks on the album, and here’s another example to prove my point.

Taken from another split from Volcom with Jeff The Brotherhood that’s out now, it’s again standard Best Coast with juvenile lyrics, but it’s fun and catchy, and if you enjoy something then who gives a shit if the lyrics are shite?  Not this homie.

Connect with Best Coast - Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Last.fm

Best Coast-Sunny Adventure by VolcomEnt

Jeff the Brotherhood-Bummer by VolcomEnt

(via Weekly Tape Deck)

Ok, so it’s not new, but relatively few people have heard this as it was the accompanying b-side on their second 7″ single “Out, Don’t..” that was released back in October on Mexican Summer.

When I initially got the 7″ I had just a shitty 1979 Light & Sound machine portable turntable that I was playing my records on.  It did the job (I could hear the music) and its half-blown speaker actually added to the character of some of the records, as did the flashing light that would only flash if you turned the volume all the way up.  I’m telling you this because then I had no way of ripping vinyl and I gladly would’ve done so when I got this 7″ if I could’ve.

Then I finally got my hands on a turntable that I could rip my vinyl to my computer with, and so this is one of them. The song itself I actually prefer over the a-side, being louder and more mechanical, the vocals all but indecipherable as they’re drenched in reverb and sweat.  Maybe some tears, but definitely some blood.

I really hope these guys release some new tunes soon, or even announce when they’re releasing new music having been one of my most hopeful discoveries of 2010 (and “I Was Thinking…” being one of my favourite songs of last year).

They’ve also signed with Dead Oceans (Tallest Man On Earth, Bowerbirds, Dirty Projectors) so that LP release may be closer than we think/hope/know/wish for.

Connect with Gauntlet Hair – MySpace | Last.fm

Gauntlet Hair – Heave. by ListenBeforeYouBuy

I gush, what can I say?  Sorry?  Ok, maybe sometimes a “sorry” is warranted, but most of the time it’s not because I’m not the only one gushing.

The latter part of that sentence is definitely true for Cults.  I gushed back in March when they showed up unannounced out of nowhere and turned us all on.  I gushed when Forest Family Records told us they were their first signing/release on the new label, and I gushed when I got the limited edition vinyl.

Now I’m gushing because thanks to Adult Swim’s glorious 8 Singles in 8 Weeks project, we now have a brand new, gush-worthy Cults song.  It’s a little more upbeat than their previous three songs and the words are easier to make out, but it still has that sweet summer Cults sound to it.  Give it a listen below as well as the lead track for their first 7″ single “Go Outside”.  They also did a video for it, their first ever video (other than that video that was doing the rounds a month or two ago of them playing live).

Cults – “Oh My God”
Cults – “Go Outside”