Credit: YouTube

During last Wednesday’s Sting concert at Pier Six Concert Pavilion, a man wearing a gigantic bear head got on stage a minute and twenty seconds into a performance of The Police song “Next to You” and started shaking his head, waving his hands in the air, and dancing about the stage.

A YouTube video of the performance shows a clearly confused Sting giving a puzzled look over his shoulder as the man continued to shimmy around the bassist and pointing his thumb back toward the bear-man while mouthing the words, “Who’s that?”

The video, which you can see below, shows the man wearing the bear head dancing with various members of Sting’s backing band for about a minute and generally having what appears to be a pretty good time. There is no footage of what happened to the man wearing the bear head or when he left (or was escorted off) the stage. City Paper is seeking information regarding the identity of the man with the bear head. All tips can be sent to editorial@citypaper.com.

Tuesday night at the 9:30 Club found them in a somewhat unfamiliar territory: performing nearly a year removed from their last album with nothing but their back catalog from which to draw.  Which is to say, Animal Collective had to rely on the hits, as much as a band as divergent and awash in noise as Animal Collective is can have a “hit.” They more than rose to the occasion, performing a pulsing set of songs dating back to 2005′s Feels that demonstrated how the band’s full, four-piece lineup could be a proficient force equal parts air-tight and elastic.

As the Animal Collective is wont to do, a lot of their most familiar songs from past albums were tweaked, reworked, or enhanced, creating something familiar yet adventurously new.  The infectious, sugar-fed beat of “My Girls,” perhaps the group’s most popular song, seemed almost lithe compared to the album version, transforming the hook-heavy dance-pop song about familial duties into a communal sing-along. The bouncy Feels track “The Purple Bottle” had an added bass-heavy undercurrent, which sent the crowd in the middle of the 9:30 Club floor into a sweaty, throbbing frenzy.

While the band did play the drippy, other-worldly music of Centipede Hz songs “Today’s Supernatural,” “Applesauce,” “Wide Eyed,” and “Father Time,” they struck a better balance in trotting out old warhorses. Perhaps the most welcome development was the seeming rediscovery of the post-Merriweather EP Fall Be Kind, a darker foil to the ebullient, pop friendly songs that pushed Animal Collective from critical darlings to one of the massive bands atop the indie music heap.

The show had a little bit of everything, a little something for everyone, and that was maybe the best part about it.  With a wealth of material and an ever-fervent fanbase, Animal Collective finally indulged in reaching back a bit instead of continuing to push themselves forward. In truth, there were plenty of moments when they managed to do both.

With Hyman’s ferocious drumming, Deradoorian manning two keyboards and adding backing vocals, and Portner’s swirling, sometimes-mechanical-sounding guitars and spacey vocals of his own, the new songs debuted at Metro Gallery last night felt much denser than the tracks on Avey Tare’s 2010 solo effort Down There (they did play a reworked version of “Oliver Twist” from that album and Hyman’s percussion added energy and depth) and a bit more manic than Animal Collective’s more recent pop friendly efforts.

Still, if there’s a recurring theme from Portner’s songwriting in recent years, it’s that underneath the layers noise and effects are plenty of terrific melodies, and that was no different here. Last night’s set had plenty of sudden time changes, alien/robotic vocal trickery, and tonal tweaking, but the pop sensible underpinnings hit all the right sweet spots. You can see for yourself in these two videos below. The top one is shot by Nicky Smith, son of City Paper founder Russ Smith.

ATSF had previously announced tour dates in Brooklyn and the UK for later this month, but tonight’s show will be its first. Doors are at 10 p.m.

The lineup also includes Microkingdom, Chiffon, and DJ sets from Jason Willett and Mark Brown. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at True Vine starting today. While you’re there, you can also support Open Space by purchasing this sweet beer koozie with the gallery’s logo on fire (always good to have a sense of humor, no?).

*Disclosure: CP Designer Jasmine Sarp is a member of the collective that runs Open Space.

Infected Mushroom at Coachella 2012

Following the cancellation of the EDM-laden Moonrise Festival only weeks before the festival was scheduled to take place, several of the festival’s DJs have managed to land gigs elsewhere around town.

Baltimore Soundstage today announced a June 8 show featuring Israeli trance group Infected Mushroom. On Thursday, Soundstage announced a June 9 show with the electronic instrumental band Lotus.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Moonrise Festival organizers said the final permit needed for the festival, which was set to be held at Port Covington on June 8 and 9, would “not be approved.” However, a story Thursday in The Sun reported that Jerry Gottlieb of Charm City Hospitality, a festival organizer, failed to apply for all the necessary permits in time, according to City Council Vice President Ed Reisinger.

The Moonrise Festival was seen as a new alternative to Starscape, a 14-year festival at Fort Armistead Park with a similar electronic bent that last year ran into problems with overcrowding and drug overdoses, resulting in seven arrests on drug charges.

Panda Bear – “The Preakness”

Well this one was pretty easy. The Animal Collective member’s song named for the race was released in 2011 as a mixtape with four different pairs of shoes designed by each member of the band (no, really). It seems as Noah Lennox is using the race as metaphor for people jockeying for position in their own endeavors. He implores the listener to ignore this: “Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up/ Till the day you’ve got what you want.”

Animal Collective – “The Purple Bottle”

Speaking of Animal Collective, it was Avey Tare who met a girl who got him: “freaked freaked freaked on Preakness/ I’ve never met a girl that/ Likes to drink with horses/ Knows her Chinese ballet.” Who knew the infield was so sophisticated?

Dan Deacon – “Baltihorse”

This song comes out of the gate as a dizzying swirl of percussion and electronics, slows near the backstretch, and surges forward toward the finish line. It’s as exhilarating as any song in Deacon’s repertoire.

Horse Lords – “Wildcat Strike”

How could we not include Horse Lords? Their name makes it sound like they maintain a private box with tinted windows at Pimlico, where they sit in a chair stroking a cat and counting their winnings. It’s hard to say just what this song is about, as there are no words, but “Wildcat Strike” would be a great name for a racehorse.

Ponytail – “Burning Saddles”

Here’s another example of a band name that sort of lends itself to this. And hey, the song title even works here! We’re not exactly sure who made this video at the zoo, but whatever. City Paper does not keep a jockey on retainer, so we’re not quite sure if the term “burning saddles” has any sort of meaning in that line of work. If it does, it can’t be good.

Rod Lee – “Hey Riders”

The opening refrain of “Hey riders! /Give ‘em some room” is what we imagine the winning jockey yells as he surges for the finish line.

Celebration – “Pony”

This is as sexualized as the local psych rock stalwarts get, with lead singer Katrina Ford pushing her voice to the ecstatic heights of Debbie Harry territory. Here’s a hint: riding a pony is metaphor for sex.

TT the Artist – “Pony”

TT the Artist employed said metaphor on this club track. As an added bonus, there are remixes by Cex, James Nasty, Murder Mark, Kilbourne, Baglady, and Rick Rab. That’s like scoring two trifectas.

Secret Mountains – “High Horse”

Singer Kelly Laughlin may be out of the mix now, and her powerful vocal on this track is a good reminder of why she’ll be missed. Of course, the title is probably a reference to the ol’ idiom “get off your high horse,” but we’ll take it.

Adventure – “Wild Wild Ride”

We also could have gone with “Iron Stallion” off Adventure’s 2008 self-titled album, but this song is aptly titled and would probably make for a great soundtrack while cruising around the track at Pimlico.

Oxes – “Horses Are OK”

One group of animals showing love to another. Isn’t that sweet? We’re not exactly sure why the person who uploaded this to YouTube felt the need to upgrade “OK” to “Good.” Either way, chances are if you’re a fan of horse racing you tend to agree.

Beach House – “Zebra”

Okay, okay. We are well aware there are no zebras being raced at the Preakness. But in the chorus, Victoria Legrand correctly identifies a zebra as an equid, part of the horse family: “Any way you run, you run before us/ Black and white horse arching among us.” And the imagery of beautiful horses galloping is the stuff horse racing buffs will talk about when you bring up euthanasia or ask where the fun is in seeing a little man whip an animal around a dirt oval.

Ratscape, which leans more toward the punk and metal side of things, is scheduled for July 19-21 and will once again be staged at Hour Haus. Bands confirmed so far include: Arbouretum, Slow Jerks, Lazlo Lee & The Motherless Children, Advlts, Raindeer, Hot God , Baklavaa, Rukut, and Ravagers. Organizers confirmed there would eventually be 40 bands over the festival’s three days.

Scapescape, a festival more akin to Whartscape (R.I.P.), is set for Aug. 30-Sept. 1 and will have three venues again this year, the parking lot next to The Metro Gallery, The Windup Space, and… the plaza near Man/Woman statue, which will be used for light projections at night. No bands are confirmed just yet.

We’ll keep you updated on lineup confirmations as we receive them.

May 15
Thirty: 30 Creative Minds Under 30
6 P.M., Maryland Art Place, 8 Market Place, suite 100, (410) 962-8565, mdartplace.org, free.
Continuing its series highlighting the processes of young artists, Maryland Art Place hosts Charlotte Keniston, Rebecca Chan, and Ginerva Shay in a panel discussion.

May 16
David Lynch Inspired Art Show
7-9 P.M., The Windup Space, 12 W. North Ave., (410) 244-8855, thewindupspace.com, free.
Before Saturday’s David Lynchfest featuring bands and burlesque, swing by the Windup for an art show of artwork inspired by the quirky mind behind Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks.

May 17
Closing Reception: Blaster’s Baltimore Years
7-11 P.M., Current Space, 421 N. Howard St., (410) 343-9295, currentspace.com, free.
Enjoy a video performance of Corn and Smoke featuring Karl Ekdahl, Sarah Fask, Sarah Magida, Liz King, Laure Drogul, John Eaton, Patrick Riffe and others, new work by Dan Breen and John Eaton, and the work of a true original, Blaster Al Ackerman.

May 18
Red Emma’s Closing Party
6 P.M., Red Emma’s, 800 Saint Paul St., (410) 230-0450, redemmas.org.
Your favorite anarchist bookstore and mine is leaving its old location for a comfy new spot in the North Avenue Market. Celebrate with music, cheap books, and libations.

May 19
Art Outside
11 A.M.-4:30 P.M., Druid Hill Park, artoutsidemd.org, free.
Hey, come on out and enjoy ceramics, painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed-media, jewelry, and much more en plein air.

May 20
Dinner & Bikes
7 P.M., The Chicken Box, 1 W. North Ave., dinnerandbikesbaltimore.eventbrite.com, $5-$10.
Cyclists and cycle advocates can talk about how lame Baltimore’s infrastructure is over a vegan and gluten-free buffet cooked by Joshua Ploeg, hear Elly Blue give a presentation on transportation equity, and see an excerpt from Aftermass, a documentary on cycling activism in Portland. Bon apetit. (Disclosure: I live with Bikemore founder Chris Merriam)

May 21
Random Access Memories: Daft Punk record drop listening party with Mugzy and DJ Just K
9 P.M., The Metro Gallery, 1700 N. Charles St., (410) 244-0899, themetrogallery.net, free.
If you haven’t stolen the new Daft Punk album off the internet or streamed it legally via iTunes, now is your chance to stay up all night to get a first listen.

May 22
Spring Beer Cocktail Party
6-9 P.M., Heavy Seas Alehouse, 1300 Bank St., (410) 522-0850, heavyseasalehouse.com, $35.
Beer cocktails are just as they sound: beer with other kinds of booze in it. We like beer and we like booze, so we’re interested to see what Heavy Seas has whipped up.

It was in 2011 when Jeff Mangum, the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel who is considered something of a recluse, played two sold-out shows in the same space.

Tickets go on sale May 10 at noon through missiontix.com and at Red Emma’s Bookstore Cafe and Charmington’s Cafe.

You can stream Dungeonesse here and Bruce Willen and William Cashion’s ambient noise group here. Happy listening.

On Friday night Beach House, perhaps the biggest active band to emerge from Baltimore’s music scene, performed to a packed crowd at the Lyric Opera House, their first time performing in their hometown in three years.

Now let’s stop right there. It is at this point in the review I must reveal something of a critical bias, and something related to said bias that played out on Twitter between the band and a local blogger just hours before the show.

Well before openers Lower Dens and Yo La Tengo were set to take stage, Beach House, comprised of Alex Scally on guitar and Victoria Legrand on keys and vocals, tweeted out: “Incredibly grateful and excited to watch @TheRealYLT and @lowerdens tonight at the lyric in bmore. First hometown show in 3 years!”

The Baltimore Chop, author of CP’s Best Local Blog in 2011 (and, full disclosure, a friend of this writer), offered the following explanation for the long layoff: “Because you’re posers.”

In a tweet that has since been deleted, the band responded, “born and raised, come say to our faces.” To which the Chop responded: “it’s not your actual residential status I challenge” and “as far as saying anything to your face, I can’t be bothered to pony up for the Lyric or Merriweather.”

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to toss out the word “posers,” and the cost seemed about right for a venue of this size and magnitude, but let me say this: Three years is a long time for a local band to skip over its hometown. There are many touring bands from other parts of the country that have played Baltimore multiple times in that span.

When I relayed this opinion to another friend of mine, he sent me a Spotify link to the Morrissey song “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful.” But that’s not really it. This isn’t one of those “they sold out!” diatribes. It’s petty and petulant to throw around that tired argument, so forget all that. Any band that is successful enough to actually make a living off their art and years of hard work has every right to do just that. But plenty of Baltimore bands have reached this level and still managed to play hometown shows with regularity.

There are few, if any, social contracts a band should be beholden to, but playing at least occasional shows for local fans, many of them people who watched the group grow over time and have supported their work for years before they became successful, should be one of them. If Bruce Fucking Springsteen can play the Stone Pony every couple years, Beach House can at least stop somewhere in town.

So I went to the Lyric not feeling as if this was a triumphant hometown return but thinking I needed to be won over once again.

And there were plenty of moments from the set that won me over.

Beach House’s success in recent years has allowed them to put together a stage show that creates an alluring and captivating beauty suitable to the dreamy mood of its music. Lights swoosh with purples, oranges, and corals. Big beams spiral into the rafters of the large opera house. Little white lights on a dark backdrop twinkle like stars in the sky. During spare, calming moments, Legrand and Scally are sometimes lit by only a key light, creating a presence of beguiling mystery. There were a few times, however, where quick flashes of piercing white lights were a bit overwhelming, causing audience members to turn away or shade their eyes.

It’s clear their busy live schedule has made them tight and crisp as band, and the addition of a touring drummer gives songs, new and old, greater depth and immediacy.

Old favorites “You Came To Me,” “Gila,” and “Master of None,” sounded fuller and fleshed out, perfect companions to the tighter arrangements from Beach House’s two most recent albums, Teen Dream and Bloom.

Several songs in, after informing the audience it was okay to leave their seats and stand, Beach House ran through a performance of “Norway,” off Teen Dream, that was so powerful and enchanting it probably would have gotten people out of their chairs on its own.

Throughout the night, Scally showed as much energy as a guitarist who remains mostly seated can show, bouncing around on his stool and sometimes letting the swoons of a song bring him to his feet. It was sometime around “Master of None” or “Silver Soul” that Legrand seemed to find another gear, becoming more demonstrative in her stage mannerisms, more energetic in her playing, and pushing the range of her lush vocals.

The final stretch of “Wishes,” “Take Care,” and “Myth,” showed the band at its most radiant and majestic, in full command of songs that wash over the crowd with their ethereal beauty.

Had they pulled me back in? Definitely. Beach House has upped their game as performers and professionals, the fruits of many years of hard work. And there is something rather remarkable about seeing a local group you’ve seen perform in front of a few dozen people take on a sold out opera house. They’ve earned everything that’s come their way.

Still, there was a little bit of irony in Beach House having Yo La Tengo play just before them as a special guest. The trio’s set was spare and beautiful, if only a bit too brief. But the thing about Yo La Tengo is they’ve been one of the hardest-working bands for nearly three decades and have grown to become one of the most respected bands in independent music, and they still accord their native Hoboken special treatment, including an eight-show run at Maxwell’s last December.

There’s something to be said for that.

On Monday, local producer Schwarz debuted the music video for his latest club track “U R Beautiful,” wherein he earnestly tells listeners “I want y’all to stop for a minute/ and just think about how fucking beautiful you are” and that “anybody telling you anything different right now is full of fucking shit/ Y’all look sexy as fuck right now. Let’s fucking get it.”

Furthermore, you should “know yourself/ know your body/ love yourself/ love your body.”

The video itself features Schwarz standing on a swing in tighty whities, Schwarz singing the self-affirming lyrics of the song into an array of mirrors, and a whole host of people dancing to the song’s catchy beat in their own individual way.

I watched the video while I was sick and in bed and still felt sexy as hell. See for yourself.

A download of the song, out via Thunder Zone, can be purchased here.

Credit: Pat Graham

On Apr. 5, the popular soul night will move from its usual location in the basement of Lithuanian Hall to the grand ballroom upstairs, which can hold more than 300 people. Svenonius, Michelle Mae, James Canty, and Mark Cisneros will perform two sets in the middle of DJ sets by regular hosts Rob Fearless and King Gilbert. The Save Your Soul staples of imported beer and honey shots will be sold at two bar locations in the ballroom.

There are no advance ticket sales, so be sure to get there close to the 9 p.m. start time, because this is bound to sell out quick.

In this Ben O’Brien-directed clip, the manic beats of the America track “Crash Jam” are synced up to bits and pieces of a P90X workout video, speeding the fitness models up to look like spazzed-out windup toys on a sugar rush during strenuous activity or slowing them down during periods of rest or stretching to look like members of a cult. We’ve never tried P90X, but it’s supposed to be pretty exhausting. Here, it comes across as more of a farce, which is how we’d prefer to view it.

We’re not the biggest fans of Pitbull’s music, but we are very much looking forward to lots of references  to partying and some energetic fist-pumping from Mr. Bull, as seen here:

Also performing are famed thrift store enthusiasts Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Pro tip: You bros should hit up The Wise Penny, our 2012 pick for the Best Designer Thrift Store.

It appears the title has changed from Double Dagger Is Dead to If We Shout Loud Enough, a phrase borrowed from the lyrics of More track “Vivre Sans Temps Mort” which we also featured in our farewell piece.

You can watch a trailer for the documentary here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Buried in the blurb accompanying the trailer is the name of the final Double Dagger album, titled 333, which you can buy as part of a limited LP-DVD package with the film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dope Body's Andrew Laumann and the crowd at Longshots Sports Bar and Grill. All photos by J.M. Giordano.

Abingdon is a speck of a town, nestled between Route 40 and Interstate 95 just beyond the banks of the Bush River in Harford County. It is close enough to these major thoroughfares and to the towns of Aberdeen and Bel Air to feel like the byproduct of suburban sprawl but desolate enough to look like it’s a rural outpost in the middle of nowhere. According to the Harford County Board of Elections, 56.15 percent of the voters who cast their ballots in the Abingdon Elementary School cafeteria this past presidential election favored the Romney-Ryan ticket.

I knew little of Abingdon before last weekend, but I knew enough about Harford County to sense the obvious, and likely intentional, juxtaposition of noisy Baltimore rock bands Dope Body and Roomrunner playing a show in this corner of the world. With that in mind, regular City Paper photographer J.M. Giordano and I went northeast on the night of Nov. 30 to see how it would play out.

As we turned off Route 40, about seven miles outside Aberdeen,  and started navigating a small back road,  past Buddy’s Auto and a dealership for Caterpillar heavy machinery, Giordano quipped that the bands would likely be playing behind chicken wire, a reference to one of the rough-and-tumble joints Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi played in The Blues Brothers. He was joking, of course, but the truth of it is we didn’t really know who would show up to this show and how they would react when they did. This was a Baltimore warehouse show set in the heart of Fox Nation, and unlike your standard DIY show around the city, the outcome of heading to Longshots Sports Bar and Grill — home, it’s worth noting, of the Camel Toe Patio — seemed entirely unpredictable.

Aside from that ostentatiously named patio, which is visually represented on the bar’s Facebook page with an illustration of a camel draping its leg over a clothed woman’s shoulder and covering her crotch with its hoof, there are three rooms in Longshots: a pool room, featuring two tables and walls covered in more than 30 different types of Coors Light signs; the bar area with a long rectangular bar and a few high tables with four bar stools each; and a large open room with a stage, yet another pool table, and an unused back bar. On the bar sat an officially licensed box for score submissions to the American Poolplayers Association; on the wall behind the bar was a miniature shrine dedicated to NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Seated in the bar area as Bel Air punk act Sea Patterns played in the adjoining room was a man in his early 70′s with slicked-back black hair and a gray suit. Was he enjoying the music? He waved off this idea and said, “I’ve heard better.” The dozen or so other folks sitting around the bar — the guy in his mid 40′s wearing a long-sleeve white shirt with Mr. Boh on it, the burly, bald, mustachioed man wearing a Ravens sweatshirt and nursing a Smirnoff Ice of his own volition, the woman in her late 30′s who was practically pouring out of her shirt, drawing the attention of several men — none of them seemed to mind. They were locked into their conversations or their drinks or their pool. Frankly, I don’t think our suited friend would have really complained had we not asked him.

The prospect of an oddball fish-out-of-water scenario, like the one in Blues Brothers, officially ceased when the area in front of the stage was overrun by a like-minded school of fish. They filled the room and packed tightly in front of the stage: teenagers, kids who’ve had to suffer through the “I don’t want you going to the city. It’s too dangerous” speech from their parents, kids who don’t have cars of their own, kids without a half decent music venue for miles and miles. They came because, for them, for their group, this was the coolest thing happening in Harford County. It was the coolest thing to happen there in some time.

Roomrunner's Denny Bowen.

And they treated it as such, recklessly and carelessly throwing their bodies about as Roomrunner sent out a blast of gnarling, screeching guitars. Conjure up any cliche about teenage angst you want, but as they pushed, shoved, and pogoed about the room, seeing them let everything loose looked volatile but felt thrilling. At one point a guy hopped on his buddy’s shoulders to furiously fling his fists towards the stage. He came perilously close to hitting his head on the fan above but did not seem to give one single fuck. A layer of condensation on the windows behind the stage continued to creep upward as the heat and energy rose.

The crowd was a little bit smaller but no less riotous for the contorted angular rock of Dope Body. At one point, singer Andrew Laumann, perhaps caught up in the moment, declared to the sweaty mass, “I’m self-proclaimed white trash!” It was meant to be a unifier, but it felt as much like a recognition of the obvious divide in Longshots. The kids didn’t identify with the people at the bar and the people at the bar didn’t identify with the kids. The two worlds brushed up against each other without seeming to notice. And if they did, they didn’t seem to care. Both were willing to leave well enough alone. Left to their own devices, the kids were able to shed all of the frustrations of living in Harford County, if only for a little bit. In that sense, the night, and the venue, were kind of perfect.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On Sunday night, we got our first recorded taste of just what that sounds like, with two tracks from the “Honeycomb/Gotham” 7-inch uploaded to the band’s site. Indeed, the A-side, “Honeycomb,” features a sample of a radio promo spot before launching into a collage of manipulated gurgles of electronic noises, resembling something off a whimsical, hyperactive video game soundtrack. B-side “Gotham” is much darker and spare but is no less apparent in its representation of these otherworldly sounds.

You can hear the two songs for yourself here. The single will be available through Domino Records’ online store on June 26 and is scheduled to hit shelves in the summer.

The 7-inch, limited to a pressing of 500 copies on orange vinyl, is available for preorder through Friends. Or, if you so choose, you can purchase a copy at the Ottobar on April 19, when Wasner opens for Sharon Van Etten.

Earlier this year, City Paper sat down and talked with Wasner about her solo work; you can read the interview here.

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It ranks as one of the tightest pop songs in the band’s repertoire, featuring beautifully arpeggiating keys from Victoria Legrand and some of Alex Scally’s most ebullient guitar playing to date. As for the vocals, Legrand continues to show a crispness and sense of melody in her singing, pulling back another layer of the bedroom haze and giving the lushness and tranquility of her voice more resonance.

The new record, Bloom, will be released on Sub Pop May 15. In an interview with NME, Alex Scally says the album will be “their own Pet Sounds or Disintegration, not in sound, but as something which feels like a definitive statement.”

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With No Age guitarist Randy Randall for “When I’m in a Car” in tow, the group’s 1:14 jam features a new layer of buzzy skittishness that hits the same pleasure spots as some of the more propulsive Wire songs.

Hear the full song below. Jazz Minds comes out March 20 on Load Records.

The entire video focuses on a seated Jana Hunter, as seen through a convex screen resembling that of an old television set. You know the kind, the huge boxes that required proper positioning of an antenna so the picture wouldn’t scramble.

As the song begins its slow build, the image of Hunter begins to flutter. With each new element of instrumentation, the fluttering becomes more pronounced, creating something of a waveform filament to place over top of the image of Hunter singing. When the song reaches its zenith, we are thrown into swirling black and white colors, then a shot of Hunter singing the chorus that kind of looks like a colorized version of the authoritarian figure in the 1984 Macintosh Super Bowl commercial, and finally the crystalline opening shot from whence we came.

You can view the video in its entirety below. Nootropics hits shelves on May 1. You can see Lower Dens four days after that at the Ottobar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First, let’s get to the video, for the song “Diagonally Talking Echo.” The layers of swirling guitars we’ve come to love in Wong’s music are given a full color wheel treatment, first seen on screen as circular splotches of various hues and then as a full-on psychedelic swirl.

Beneath that layer we see Wong, his face painted completely red, offering a rare vocal accompaniment, a shifting series of wordless wails and mumblings, to his guitar work. With the utterance of a short “waaaa,” the shot shifts to colliding bodies of water, and for the grand, thickly layered musical finale, a combination of everything.

As for the contest, Wong is asking people to post a recorded narration of a vivid dream that has affected them to his Soundcloud page. He will then take some of the descriptions and write original soundtracks for each. Snippets of the recorded results will be posted online beginning Feb. 20.

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As part of the its second annual compilation, the label has culled 30 new songs from some of the area’s top talent. Some we’ve heard—new songs from Secret Mountains, the first releases of Wye Oak lead singer Jenn Wasner’s solo project Flock of Dimes—but much of it is brand new, including unreleased songs from Dan Deacon, Ponytail’s Dustin Wong and Molly Siegel, Jason Urick, and many, many more.

Below we’ve got the full track list and the world premiere of a new track from psych-rock veteran Celebration, titled “Sure Shot.” Friends is giving away the compilation for free on Thanksgiving. For all you collectors out there, the compilation will be getting a physical release as a two-tape package, which begins shipping in about a week.

Side A
Celebration – Sure Shot
Future Islands – Tomorrow (Live @ KEXP)
Weekends – Basement Fuzz
Microkingdom – God’s Total Woman
Moss of Aura – Post
Jason Urick – Woman (For Jah Shaka)

Side B
Oxes – Hiawatha (Live @ WNUR)
Witch Hat – Break Interstate Park
Violet Hour – Absence of Limbs
Sri Aurobindo – No Coincidence
Lonnie Walker – Inside Factories
Height With Friends – Mustard Seed

Side C
Soft Cat – This Is How We Walk on the Moon
Lands and Peoples – Memo (Live)
Flock Of Dimes – Prison Bride
Beth Varden – I Can’t Stand
Brian Adam Ant – Psychic Assassins
Secret Mountains – Weepy Little Fingers
Buhloones – Something Else Exchange
Holy Ghost Party – Breakfast
Beyond Say – Bowl of Water Moccassins

Side D
Dan Deacon – The Token Circle High
Co La – Visions of Excess (Wet Version)
Jake Lingan – Hair Trigger
Vlonde – Love Theme
Avocado Happy Hour – Tactic
Dustin Wong and Molly Siegel – Untitled
Chase O’Hara and Amy Reid – Love You in Summer
Inflatable Mattress – Fantasy Motorboat
Neal Reinalda – Sunset in Baltimore

Celebration
- Sure Shot by friendsrecords

For more details and a few words from founding member Jeff McGrath, head over to Impose Magazine/Bmore Musically Informed, where the story was first reported by Brett Yale of Friends Records.

The nut of it:

Jeff [McGrath] explains, “It sort of just feels like we’re moving out of an apartment.” A few weeks ago William Cashion of Future Islands asked Thank You if they wanted to join them for a January tour. When the band got together to discuss William’s proposal, it became evident to everyone that not all of the members still enjoyed touring or had the will to continue to do so.

Each of Thank You’s LPs since their days with original drummer Elke Wardlaw have been hand-crafted with a strong ode to their live performance. First and foremost, Thank You is very much a live band. Without this component, all four current members couldn’t envision moving forward under the same moniker. Jeff was quick to point out that they’ll all remain best friends, they all plan to stay living in Baltimore, and that they all plan to continue making music – just with different friends and artists. This makes sense, especially when considering the musical cycle currently occurring in Baltimore.

Thank You was probably one of the most unsung bands in the city, which is to say it never caught on nationally as big as it should have. Thank You was sort of like our own little secret. Its live shows were mammoth, a delirious swirl of keys, guitar, and bass created by McGrath and Michael Bouyoucas, with Emmanuel Nicolaidis posted up in the back, all flying limbs as his hands and feet worked parts of the drum kit at a seemingly inhuman rate. The band this year added Stephen Santillan on bass, and it’s sad to see that this lineup will be short-lived.