THITH ZINE » WE’RE LISTENING TO…

Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker

Jason — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:00:50 +0000

This Tame Impala record that came out a few months ago is fairly righteous. Lush, gigantic and hooky Pop-Psych. It has me thinking of the whole lineage of Nuggets and after running from early Who or Meddle era Pink Floyd through SST era Screaming Trees, Ride and sprawling 90’s rockers Doves and Verve etc. But it’s certainly not all retro and there’s more than enough contemporary references to make it all feel new and exciting. Mostly this is because for a record so awash in weighty and wooly textures it feels remarkably light, airy and concise.

High long vocal phrases swimming over fat fuzzed guitars, bubbling basslines and tomahawk drums with the tracks dodging in and out one another and rising into sing along choruses.

Plus, the video for ‘Solitude is Bliss’ is one of our favorites of the year.

A few Nuggets:

Running the line:

Radio THITH30 mins of Maximum Mutant Rn’B and House Gaze MIX #2

Jason — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:35:42 +0000

The Hundred In The Hands – 30 Min Mixtape by thehundredinthehands
1. POM POM: #4
2. Holy Ghost!: I WIll come Back
3. Eddie Kendricks: Keep On Truckin’
4. Ike & TIna: I Wanna Jump
5. Jackson 5: Hum Along and Dance
6. Sam The Sham: Wooly Bully
7. Small Faces: C’mon Children
8. Taleb Kweli: Just To Get By
9. Soul Position: Things Go Better

1. POM POM: #4
Pom Pom is an anonymous minimal techno project presumed to be out of Berlin… ?… we think. We don’t know but we first wrote about them here: http://thehundredinthehands.com/pom-pom-32/
We were listening to this a lot when we wrote the record. And you can kind of here the influence on some of the more dark and sparse moments in Young Aren’t Young and Killing It.

2. Holy Ghost!: I WIll come Back
Holy Ghost are our neighbors and by strange twists of fate we were in and out of two studios just before and after them while making our record. Everything we heard from them got us going and we stalked them into doing an “In The Studio” feature for us.

3. Eddie Kendricks: Keep On Truckin’
Tom Moulton is the godfather of the remix. His production pushed simple songs well beyond the pop into absolute floor stompers. Avant pop for sure. Love the xylophone/bells/whatever that is on this. Massive track, just seems to grow fiercer as it goes. And… are you going to argue with a man with a buckle like that? No. No, you’re not.

4. Ike & TIna: I Wanna Jump
Yeah, Tina rules. End of story. And if you don’t know, now you know. And okay, Ike… Ike was a ginormous asshole, but he also played on arguably the first proper rock’nroll songs ever and his guitar here kills it… but, no, really it’s Tina, let’s be honest.

5. Jackson 5: Hum Along and Dance
It’s the Jacksons at their most insane and one of the legendary break beats. Title says it all.

6. Sam The Sham: Wooly Bully
Sam is more punk than you. All there is to it.

7. Small Faces: C’mon Children
Small Faces were vicious and this track their most vicious. The guitar is so huge, no wave a decade and ½ early and just nutso. It’s from ’65 and you can just about see the parents running from the room. For a generation that still had memories of the war, this sound must have been horrific. C’mon children indeed.

8. Taleb Kweli: Just To Get By
Impeccable flow and lyrics. “I let them know we missin you, the love is unconditional/Even when the condition is critical/when the livin’ is miserable/Your position is pivotal, I ain’t bullshittin you/Now, why would I lie? Just to get by?”

9. Soul Position: Things Go Better
This record was kind of slept on but every time we play it out someone asks about it. That orchestra sample is so intense and the way it builds to the end with the old soul style harmony is amazing. Plus it seems like one of the most genuine descriptions of making music for all the right reasons I can think of. Plus, what an awesome record cover.

Big Jams not Hammocks Jamaica (the band) debut LP “No Problem”

Jason — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:47:08 +0000

Feel like extending summer? Feel like it’s just too soon for sweaters and the fall? Well here’s a big giant slice of transistor radio AM pop to help. The compression is slamming, the tunes aiming for big blasts capital J Jams with nearly no pauses between. It’s just one song and then the next. An obliterated Cars alternate soundtrack to Dazed And Confused/Over The Edge.

It’s out next week, grab it: here.
More here.

RADIO THITH Maximum Mutant Rn’B & Avant Pop mixtape #1

Jason — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:45:59 +0000

Here’s a summertime mixtape we made.
The Hundred In The Hands – Power Hour Mix by thehundredinthehands

Tracklist:

Depeche Mode – New Life
Suicide – Ghost Rider
The Comix – Touche Pas Mon Sexe
Giorgio Moroder – Utopia Me Giorgio
Madonna – Get Into The Groove
The Crystals – Then He Kissed Me
The Stooges – 1969
The Animals – Bright Lights , Big City
Beat Happening – Angel Gone
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – The Tracks Of My Tears
J Dilla – Two Can Win
De La Soul – 3 The Magic Number
Ultramagnetic Mcs – Funky
Highlighters Band – The Funky 16 Corners
Mfsb – Love Is The Message
X Ray Spex – Identity
The Misfits – Skulls
Warren Smith – Red Cadillac And A Black Mustache
Majestic Arrows – If I Had A Little Love ( Rehearsal Tape)

DEPECHE MODE – NEW LIFE This might be a plastic advert for a brave new world, but Depeche Mode and a lot of the first wave of synth pop bands still remind us of a Blade Runner dystopia. The songs are skeletal and anemic, it’s the end of the world and the machines have run riot. New life, new life.

SUICIDE – GHOST RIDER Oh, yeah, M.I.A. used this didn’t she? I guess if you’re going to steal, steal from the best? We’re stealing it back.

THE COMIX – TOUCHE PAS MON SEXE …It might be a dystopia but it’s a spastic and sexy one.

GIORGIO MORODER – UTOPIA ME GIORGIO The name of this Dystopia will be Gorgio. First there was Kraftwerk and then came Moroder and everything was different.

MADONNA – GET INTO THE GROOVE Guilty pleasure maybe, but it’s good. admit it. And she’s another who learned (and stole) from the best.

THE CRYSTALS – THEN HE KISSED ME Romance, tears, and a wall of sound.

THE STOOGES – 1969 Broken glass, sex and a wall of sound.

THE ANIMALS – BRIGHT LIGHTS , BIG CITY Eric Burdon had one of those voices that could stop traffic. Gets us every time.

BEAT HAPPENING – ANGEL GONE the original DIY post punk bedroom pop. Simultaneously dysfunctional and proactive, Calvin Johnson and Beat Happening founded K records and defined the sound of the indie troubadour

SMOKEY ROBINSON + THE MIRACLES – THE TRACKS OF MY TEARS If this song doesn’t melt you, there’s something wrong with you.

J DILLA – TWO CAN WIN when the Donuts LP came out you could feel a shift. the story of it’s making is tragic and the sound is redemptive and nostalgic. Like lying in the living room listening to 45’s in a patch of sun on a Saturday morning.

DE LA SOUL – 3 THE MAGIC NUMBER We just love this record. the skits, the vibe, 1989 was a high water mark for the fun side of hip hop. On the other side of the year money and posturing would have their way and hip hop would never be the same,

Sample of field recording of girls in Washington D.C. playing double dutch. Off this old folk LP called, ‘Old Mother Hippletoe: Rural and Urban Children’s songs’

ULTRAMAGNETIC MCS – FUNKY Ultramagnetic never seems to get their due. They were mighty and their sound both tough and fun. It’s also from that bit of hip hop from the late 80’s, like golden oldies. Someone should really start a golden oldies hip hop radio station.

HIGHLIGHTERS BAND – THE FUNKY 16 CORNERS This song is so banging it’s criminal. That’s funky four to the right, funky four to the left, funky four to the back and funky for to the front. 16.

MFSB – LOVE IS THE MESSAGE It would be nice if we could just burn down the memory of Studio 54 and all the tacky pop culture references to disco and just get into it.

X RAY SPEX – IDENTITY No one ever screamed it quite so well.

THE MISFITS – SKULLS Okay, the lyrics are extremely ugly and more than a bit misogynistic but the man had a way with a hook. Combining the best of 50’s B movies with an adrenaline kick of 50’s pop. It’s always Halloween.

WARREN SMITH – RED CADILLAC AND A BLACK MUSTACHE Recorded at Sun around 1956 this is perfect, simple, 4 chords proto-punk. Jonathan Richmond in a ducktail.

MAJESTIC ARROWS – IF I HAD A LITTLE LOVE ( REHEARSAL TAPE)Closing it down with a final slow dance. This comes on a Numero Label soul comp. Excellent.

PVT “Church With No Magic”

Jason — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:46:53 +0000

Loving this new LP from our label mates PVT. It’s incredibly lush and dreamy but in an almost violently jerky way. Little by little album pulls you in further and deeper and by tracks 4 – 6 it feels as if it’s describing a really unified and unique picture of the world. “The Quick Mile” “Window” and ‘Crimson Swan’ feeling almost like a garage band doing IDM Arvo Pärt.

It comes out next week.
Grab it here:
More here:

MNDR E.P.E

Jason — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:59:51 +0000

We played a show in London a couple of weeks ago with MNDR. and in addition to bonding a little over our mutual California roots, we really dug her set.
Finally had a chance to listen to the EP “E.P.E.” and it’s fairly banging. Big vocals, big beats, big synths. But it’s the less banging of all the tracks “I Go Away” that’s our current favorite. It’s all melancholic and heart broken. A torch song of the sort that demands a blustery autumn day, a corvette and a long coast line. Both it and “Fade To Black” work best because they seem less interested in calling the kids out on the floor and seem more tuned into something introspective. Plus her blog is fairly awesome: mndrmndr.com/blog

Hard Times on the Factory Floor

Jason — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:15:55 +0000

Just picked this up and it’s a flippin’ killer. Track one, ‘Lying’ is all taught, evil, deep basslines revolving around psych vocals while ‘Wooden Box’ shakes violently forward with metallic synth pulses and stabs. Between the both there’s more than a taste of Suicide and Silver Apples making the Factory Floor name remind equally of a Warhol/Joy Division. Clearly they’re not afraid of negative space as both songs build off simple, skeletal beginnings to kind of obliterate everything around them. Clear vinyl too. Nice.

get it here
Myspace them here

“The Ruins of Detroit” photos by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre/////“Virgo” Re-Issue of this classic House LP

Jason — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:29:33 +0000

This August, super cool art publisher Steidl is putting out a really beautiful collection of pictures of abandoned spaces in Detroit by artists Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Since the 1960’s, American cities had been going bad. Robert Moses and scores of modernist urban planners experimented on the organism and their failures led to fiscal crisis and the collapse of social infrastructures.
Cities are living organisms. They’re fragile and their relations symbiotic; relying on the people that live inside to keep it whole and growing strong. We live in cities and depend on them not just for our beds but for our inspiration and creative health. If left malnourished the city gets sick or injured.

By the mid to late eighties, decline was in it’s final stages. The golden age of soul, of Motown, of funk and disco was over and an entire generation of kids had already come up afterwards to go popping, locking and inventing new styles that were already dominating the U.S. charts. But some of the kids in places like Detroit and Chicago were growing inspired in absence and they were beginning to make another language. Using recently affordable synths and drums machines to rebuild a new approximation of soul and funk and they did it in gutted warehouses and industrial spaces left rusting. The roots of House and Techno are dug in that rotting of American cities.

///////

Originally released in 1989 and already somewhat late to the Trax party, Vertigo’s self-titled debut is Parliament meets Kraftwerk and still as startling, orginal and alien as it must have been when it first came out.

Eric Lewis and Merwyn Sanders grew up in isolation from the scenes in Detroit and New York. Insular to their scene in Chicago they were little kids playing in funk and soul cover bands before they were even teenagers. The Chicago scene was growing, simple explosive venues stripped of everything but the music pumped to body rattling volume and fuelled on a need to connect and let go. Lewis & Sanders began hanging out in the clubs, at ‘The Warehouse’, ‘The Music Box’, ‘The Power Plant’, where they would listen to legendary dj’s like Ron Hardy or Frankie Knuckles. When they started producing their own music they did it by building out from sketches inspired by their love for the House Music they were hearing on the South Side. “Song ideas, somewhat unfinished in a sense,” says Merwyn on the liner notes. But these are ideas you dissolve into. Lushly romantic layers of synths building atop lean beats and icy hi-hats. It’s intoxicating, the colors vibrant and seductive. It’s also music made before computers, with simple triggers and synths being played by hand and because of it, there’s a certain looseness and a character that kind of went missing in a lot of the dance music that came after. Above all else, you can feel it. It’s physical music stoking the soul.

Ron Hardy at the Music Box in the mid-80’s

The first 12” is dominated by the powerful instrumentals. “Do You Know Who You Are”, “Vision”, “Take Me Higher” This is music from a future church. Gospel chords, inspirational titles; these are good boys hell-bent on defining their own spirit and sound. Airy synths rising higher, the hi-hat cutting against this smoke, while faster hooks play out poly-rhythmically and pads play out like a choir.

By contrast, the second 12 is strict and sinister. “Ride” is a dark cycle of pulsing and swelling hooks swinging around the words, “It’s time to ride the wave, ride with me.” They’re spoken softly and smoothly over and over and the track is simply incredible. As is “All The Time” with it’s sly slapped bass and menacing deep chords.

This is an empty husk of a city. A future space removed of all but brief reminders of the world that was.

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is temporary by nature, the volatile result of the end of an era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time: being dismayed, or admiring, wondering about the permanence of things.”
-Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Check out more of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s work here
Grab “Virgo” here
and see more of the abandoned building of Detroit here

Rules The Waves! Moving to the Uk for the summer!

Eleanore — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:32:45 +0000

After this US tour, we’re going to shift to London while we play a bunch of festivals. We’ll be gone all of July & August. Out of the Brooklyn humidity!
The Warp folks were asking us what we thought about it all, you know, Britan as such and we said…

Jason “We both grew up with anglophile dads well steeped in British music. Beatles in the crib, wot wot. Mine subscribed to Q and in those pre-Nirvana ‘Nevermind’ days, UK mags were about the only place you could find out about the good bands. Bands like the Smiths were not making it on national television in America while, ‘our’ bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. were all but invisible. First place I used to go when I walked in a record shop was the NME and The Face to start flipping through reading reviews before heading over to the ‘Alternative/Import’ section. I can still remember clearly staring at picture in Melody Maker of kids in ridiculously baggy jeans and floppy hats milling outside a Happy Mondays show and thinking it was about the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Manchester, so much to answer for. Seriously, I still get psyched when we end up in some of these places. And the first time I got reviewed in Q and NME, it was a real milestone.”

Eleanore “Last fall, we came over to work on the LP with Richard X for two weeks. He took us around to some of his DJ nights and we were really excited to be seeing a bit more of London than we usually do on tour. It was awesome to just walk around go to the Tate Modern and be able to hangout in these shops like Rough Trade and Pure Groove. England just seems to get so much more excited about music than they do in the states. And what Jason’s talking about really hasn’t changed too much, it seems like we almost always have one eye clued toward the UK. Habitual Guardian readers. The fact that we’re going to be over and playing these festivals with some of our favorite bands and getting a chance to get out of London and see even more is amazing.”

Jason “And then there’s the Roast. We’re coming over for about 9 weeks in July/August, which means at least 9 Sunday Roasts. Seriously. This is a big deal to us. It might be the single greatest cultural achievement the British have given the world.”

Here some of our favorite all time British bands and a playlist of 101 bands from Ingerland, Ireland & Scotland!

see all 101 here

FLYING LOTUS ‘COSMOGRAMMA’!

Jason — Sat, 01 May 2010 16:31:36 +0000

If Flying Lotus’ ‘Los Angeles’ was an empty somnambulant and zombie-like cityscape filled with the humming of power lines, ‘Cosmogramma’ is the sound of those cables and wires sprung wildly loose and the city rendered with all it’s confused hyper-awareness intact. ‘Cosmogramma’ is all vibrancy and energy, flickering neon shards of city life folding in and around itself.

The big gritty beats are as ever present but they’re wrapped in and around strings, synth-lines and melodies. A more human human emerging from the sub-epidermal depths of ‘Los Angeles’ blood and organs pulse in habitual vocal strands, samples and verses. Bass, guitars, and horns bubbling with Roy Ayers jazz/soul hybridisms. Everybody loves the sunshine. ‘Los Angeles’ suggested introspection, winter and loneliness, a headphone mix on a long walk home, ‘Cosmogramma’ is that city waking warm; a day out spent cruising from neighborhood to neighborhood with the windows rolled down.

Everything on the record demands attention. The details blur and melt not in the darkness and depths of an obliterated haze but in the glare and hot light of day.
It’s a big album filled with multiple moods and attentions; a fever dream informed as much by your own trip as it is it’s own sense of time and place.