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KZSC Radio 200 Adds

Welcome to summer, KZSC-ers

They’re not quite coming from the beyond the grave; these are our charts from last Tuesday. Next Wednesday will bring new joys, but until them, check out this greatness:

Rock music wins:

Top 5 adds:

Soundtrack to your Motel Motel raptor battle adventure

1 Motel Motel – “New Denver” – We’re messy kids listening to The Walkmen, taking them by storm, upping the pop and having way too much Coffee Cigarette fun. By far one of my favorite new indie rock bands, Motel Motel are doing it right. (The songs “Coffee” and “Cigarettes” are by far some faves)

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This is your Neon Graveyard. Love, Gobble Gobble.

2 Gobble Gobble – “Neon Graveyard” – Pop music made on an acoustic guitar by a solemn boy run through a room full of vocal filters, chopped and cut for glitch effect, added blips and spilled out onto a CD. Some songs (esp. “Meteor Eschat”) are incredibly compelling. Honest and intimate despite the amount of sonic experimentation going on.

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We believe in indie rock, you can too: You Can Be a Wesley

3 You Can Be a Wesley – “Heard Like Us” –  Okay, let me be honest here. I’ve become disillusioned with this so called “indie rock” banner that us kids have been carrying for so long. That “sound” (you know, the classic one, the one that Spoon stands for) had eluded me, and experimental music took over my heart. Well, until now. Starting this week with Motel Motel and held up halfway by You Can Be a Wesley, my heart is now achingly happy about our genre. This band has enough upbeat pop sensibilities to keep your ADD-kid leg a-hoppin’ and enough indie rock sound to not make you sick from pop-cleanliness.  (Listen to “Stuck in a Battle”, please, for the goodness of your own happiness)

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Japandroids will set us all on fire.

4 Japandroids – “Post-Nothing” – We’re alive and well, we listen to Rock and Roll and as much as Los Angeles has made apathy hang on our lips like bummed cigarettes, we still believe in fun. We still have an ounce of hope and with that ounce we’re going to dance around and have fun. Go it? Good. Rock music is still alive, don’t forget. (“Young Hearts Spark Fire” is the soundtrack to this scene, to your new life. Get up, friends.)

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Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

TOP 30 SPINS

Falcao and Monashee

Mmmmhmmm don’t you love new music don’t you don’t you. KZSC would like to welcome these 5 wonderful new albums to our station (and your ears, if you’re lucky):

You can see them all eying that last roll like it’s the top spot on the KZSC charts.  They all want it.

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There are plenty of other releases on Woodsist worth checking out.  The new single from Real Estate from New Jersey is a wonderful piece of pop, with a little more of an indie rock bend than the rest of Woodsist’s releases. Definitely draws from earlier Yo La Tengo (like Painful or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out) but mixes the dreamy pop with a bit of a garagey stomp. Recommended.

Crystal Stilts‘ first EP, the new 12″ EP from Sacramento’s own Ganglians, a summer record if you want to have a really weird psychedelic summer that normalizes at points and then slaps you across the face, and the new single from the ever reliable Thee Oh Sees are all things that I recommend.

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St. Vincent takes hold of the top spot! Annie Clark has put out a wonderfully dynamic pop record, which spans many soundscapes and feelings.  The track “Actor Out of Work” has a fuzzy pop thing and an upbeat pace kind of like Julie Doiron’s “Consolation Prize” (a category of songs I like this year) and it’s wonderful.  It also has my favorite album cover of the year so far perhaps.  Apparently, Annie likes stark photographs of her face.

In other wonderful female-led bands, Oakland’s Dreamdate made their way onto the charts this week.  A charming pop record for fans of the Raincoats and other music that hits you over the head without really hitting you over the head.  This band and Grass Widow are really doing things in the bay area right now.

Our top add this week was Liectenstein on Slumberland from Sweden. Kind of like a ghostly version of the Vivian Girls with a taste of all the things that are back in ’09 (Shop Assistants, C86, Pop in general, Slumberland!), this record does not let down. At all. At all.

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Years, also new to the top 5, is a side project from the Arts and Crafts collective of Ohad Benchetrit, the man behind Do Make Say Think.  A&C never seems to put out anything bad.  This is no exception.  Here’s a look at the record cover.

San Francisco’s The Fresh and Onlys remain on our charts, and I hope to never see them leave. Their debut self-titled full length is one of the best things I’ve heard in 2009. It will not leave my turntable. It is some of the best written psych pop I’ve ever heard, will not leave my head ever. I find myself walking around using my thighs as drums as I sing “Peacock and Wing” or “Feelings in my Heart” at the top of my lungs. The album is layered, filled with backup vocals that sneak up on you and guitar parts that come out of nowhere. It comes from the best pop sensibilities with no fears of letting loose a little bit. San Francisco and Oakland are thriving right now. We’re close in Santa Cruz – get up there and see a show!

also, in our adds, we’ve got a new one on Slumberland from Bricolage, and something from Angel Deradoorian of the Dirty Projectors. Get excited.

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