WHAT IS GOING ON.

Reboot and redesign. Shutting down, but only for a short time. The archives are kind of whack right now.

For your Deckfight fix in the meantime, check Twitter & Tumblr.

Any more to say--deckfight [at] gmail [dot] com


More after the jump...

review: Mouse Fire -- Big Emotion

Mouse Fire
Big Emotion
Lujo Records, 2010

mp3: Mouse Fire -- "True I May Have Lost It"

Where does Mouse Fire exist?

Do they exist in the soft malleable, danceable part of your heart, the place where you feel guilty for liking a Top 40 song, a pop song? That place where you are just starting to understand that everyone, even you, even them, even your heroes, wants love, recognition, a Top 40 song, a pop song, a truly memorable song that has feet & minds & hearts twirling, wandering, wondering?

Or Florida, in most instances. But I don't usually find them in the usual Florida circles (maybe I'm not looking hard enough).

First disc--Wooden Teeth on Lujo Records. A favorite record label.

Then almost nothing. Never really heard of them touring (i'm sure they did).
never heard people talking about them (i'm sure they were).
not sure what was going on.

What was going on was a massive writing project that has turned out to be Big Emotion. But, where does Mouse Fire exist?

Not on any cool indie lists, for the most part, somehow outside of that mainstream punk rock realm. No Vans or Osiris.

But here's music like Cursive, No Knife, Minus the Bear possibly.

"Desert Woman" explains it slowly.

"Don't Mess With A Texan" bleeds goodness.

"True I May Have Lost It" exudes smoothness.

"The Comedy Of" plays what the kids love.

"But It's Not What You Think," follows the rules by the end.

Not so much on "Silly Boy From Tampa Bay" and "Tic Toc."

You are where Mouse Fire exists (I'm sure now).
More after the jump...

mp3: Megafaun -- "Volunteers"

mp3: Megafaun -- "Volunteers"

Durham's Megafaun is putting out a mini-album on Sept. 14. Read about the process on Hometapes' Tumblr.

Here are some Megafaun tour dates...

06/08/10 Arlington, VA @ IOTA Club & Cafe #
06/09/10 Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s #
06/10/10 Cambridge, MA @ Regattabar
06/11/10 Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse Music Hall #
06/12/10 Buffalo, NY @ Sound Lab #
06/13/10 Ann Arbor, MI @ Blind Big #
06/15/10 Milwaukee, WI @ Club Girabaldi #
06/16/10 Eau Claire, WI @ House of Rock #
06/17/10 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon #
06/19/10 Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop #
06/21/10 Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
06/22/10 Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
06/23/10 Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
08/06/10 Portland, OR @ Pickathon
08/07/10 Portland, OR @ Pickathon
09/11/10 Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Fest - King’s
^ with Tift Merritt
# with Sam Quinn


More after the jump...

Swing South: Native / This Town Needs Guns

mp3: Native -- "Ride The Tide"

Yeah, frantic math rock. Native is from Indiana and are kicking it hard with their new release, Wrestling Moves. Late 90s complex math rock.

The UK's This Town Needs Guns is a little gentler on the ears, tends more towards a poppier American Football or something like that. (Is that reference out of date?)

Anyway see the bands. Dates after the jump...



Jun 7 Black Cat w/ This Town Needs Guns Washington, Washington
Jun 8 2010 Local 506 w/ This Town Needs Guns Chapel Hill, North Caro, US
Jun 9 2010 Masquerade (Purgatory) w/ This Town Needs Guns Atlanta, Georgia
Jun 10 2010 Skull Alley w/ This Town Needs Guns Louisville, Kentucky , US

More after the jump...

review: Beta Radio -- Seven Sisters

Beta Radio
Seven Sisters
Self-released, 2010




Wilmington, North Carolina’s Beta Radio threw their hat into the Americana-Folk ring in early May with their debut album Seven Sisters. Ben Mabry and Brent Holloman (the duo behind Beta Radio) have offered up an album that is instantly familiar and undeniably catchy.

Musically reminiscent at times of Bon Iver’s atmosphere heavy For Emma, Forever Ago or the Grateful Dead’s "Mountains of the Moon" from their 1969 release Aoxomoxoa, the sonic landscape of Seven Sisters is sparse but far from empty. On tracks like "Khima," "Borderline" and "Brother, Sister," the slow scrawl of the banjo melody floats through the song and surrounds you like birdsong, coming at you predictably but surprisingly from several directions at once. Each of the songs on this album stays with you, forming a soundtrack for and changing the shape of the rest of your day.

It’s appropriate that a debut album concern itself with creation and Seven Sisters is no exception. Whether it is the creation of love and a place for that love, as the narrative of the album suggests; or the creation of the universe, as the album’s title and repetition of astronomical and astrological imagery suggests; Beta Radio’s lyrics and music carve out a space in your head and find a way to fit into your own cosmology.

Lyrically, Seven Sisters explores religion, albeit from a couch rather than a pulpit. The religious allusions are subtle and unobtrusive, concerning themselves more with mysticism than proselytization, much like David Eugene Edwards’ 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand.

Line for line, the lyrics are beautiful and surprising. In "A Place for Me" the lines “I wanted not to fight / With my heart but I’ll fight with my fists all night” evoke the heartache of leaving, of lovers’ spats of loss and regret.

The album leaves you with a simple but urgent lyric refrain in "Return to Darden Road"-- “Where do you go? / Come back to me / ‘Cause I love you so."
More after the jump...

review: Jamie Lidell's Compass 'doesn't get where it's trying to go'

Jamie Lidell
Compass
Warp Records, 2010

Review by Quentin Kenny

Unfortunately, Compass by Jamie Lidell too often doesn’t feel like enough of anything. It’s tough to hear Compass and not want to like it. It sounds fantastic. But gone is the relatively straightforward soul-pop of Jim, which frankly sounds almost boring in comparison, lost in a cacophony of distorted sounds and general weirdness.

It would be undeniable if it all went somewhere. But even on the tracks I like a lot, such as “I Wanna Be Your Telephone” or “Enough is Enough”, I find myself jumping back to the beginning, wondering if I missed the part where they turned into a song rather than an assortment of things that I like tenuously, though joyfully, set together. Muddled under the distortion and EFX, it can be tough to find that connection.

It’s the beats that keep it interesting though, sort of like that Sleigh Bells record but with a sophistication and craft that’ll actually keep it interesting for more than the length of time it took you to read this sentence. While that sound manages to keep Compass from feeling half thought-out, overall it’s still only taking me halfway there. I don't like or dislike the album. I'm more disappointed that it doesn't get to where it seems to be trying to go.


More after the jump...