Los Angeles Police Dept :: "Waste"

A fuzzed-out slow-drive, Los Angeles Police Dept offer up new single, "Waste". Like a mixture of Yuck and the Pixies "Where Is My Mind", "Waste" heads nowhere specific, churning through layers of fuzz to arrive at lyrics that largely play on the title like, "waste of my time". The last half features the band's architect, Ryan Pollie clipping out toward the top of his range. This might well be an anthem, but it isn't interested in making the listener feel especially comfortable.

bare pale :: "new start old end"

With a sound that mostly recalls the skuzziest end of dream pop, something a bit further left-wing than Yuck or a DIY, nihilist take on Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, bare pale, a London outfit, crafts a brilliant slow-drive on recent release, "new start old end". A cold medicine guitar interplays with a lazy drum riff, both of which grow in strength, if not in any particular insistence or urgency. Maybe a slow dance in an era that's forgotten the slow dance, or the soundtrack to the last prom that bare pale certainly never thought to attend, "new start old end" is shot through with nostalgia, a dreamy and half-remembered world.

[Elevator 2011] :: Bands On The Rise

As is the custom in the indie rock universe in this coming second decade of the 21st century, it is not simply enough to know about something, you must know about it first. Furthermore, you must make outlandish predictions regarding the future success of said thing. In this case, it is music. In this case, it is 2011 and our predictions for the bands and artists who will be taking off wildly in the coming year. After the jump in no order, with regard for your future listening and the wisdom of the crowd, your Elevator 2011 bands.

Yuck :: "Rubber"

It takes more than seven minutes to slog through the fuzz and the feedback of Yuck's "Rubber". The band that so stunned us earlier this year with the Pains of Being Pure At Heart-inspired "Georgia," have gone in something of a different direction as they ready their debut LP for a February release. Here, they evoke a ground-down Thurston Moore aesthetic, or the Pixies, if recorded underwater at half the BPMs. On "Rubber," you imagine the last grainy scenes of a movie with one of those unheroic, anti-climax endings where everything goes wrong and the girl ends up with someone else, and the VX gas hits San Francisco, and John McClane falls slowly from the 30th story of Nakatomi plaza.

Listen :: Yuck - "Rubber"

Yu(c)k :: "Daughter"

The UK's Yu(c)k have a fresh new cut called "Daughter." A far away piano progression backing some distant vocals, it sounds little like their hurricane of fuzz-pop, "Georgia." This is not a little bit haunting with oblique references to "the future" and empty space in spades.

Listen :: Yu(c)k - "Daughter" [zshare]