Note: Album streams and MP3s may only be available for a limited time.

Andre Williams – That’s All I Need
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AWOLNATION – Back From Earth
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Band of Horses – Infinite Arms
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Berry – Blue Sky, Raging Sun
Listen: “Circles and Squares” (mp3) | “Out” (mp3)
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The Black Keys – Brothers
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Club 8 – The People’s Record
Listen: “Western Hospitality” (mp3)
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Jamie Lidell – Compass
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Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid
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LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
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Marching Band – Pop Cycle
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Mother/Father – Physical Heaven
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Norman – Hay, Hay, Make a Wish and Turn Away
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Pearly Gate Music – Pearly Gate Music
Listen: “Big Escape” (mp3)
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Pontiak – Living
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Reflection Eternal – Revolutions Per Minute
Listen: “Midnight Hour” (stream) | “Ballad of Black Gold” (stream)
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Solex vs. Cristina Martinez + Jon Spencer – Amsterdam Throwdown King Street Showdown
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Tracey Thorn – Love and Its Opposite
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Under Byen – Alt Er Tabt
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Various Artists – Tru Toughts Funk
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Pontiak
Sea Voids
(Thrill Jockey)


In my review of their album Maker earlier this year I pointed out that listening on headphones on an underground train had befuddled me on first listen, but that once I’d thrown it on using real speakers I’d found an earsplitting hunk of wonder.

Good news, everybody!

They’ve done it again. This album is less of a sea and more of an ocean, from the big and deep and slow and menacing blues stomp that gives into altogether more swaggery one at the opening, to the dripping guitar chords that roll into one another across most of the other tracks, and including the little islands of acoustic-guitar that pop up a couple times. There are nine tracks in just over half an hour of music here, but the album has such a coherence and intensity of sound that listening to it seems epic—in a good way. An engine of tight, steady drumming punctuates the whole album. Pontiak have found a way to energize psychedelic/stoner rock without—as I said in the last review of their music—ever seeming to do anything spectacular. Which is a kind of spectacularness itself.

Pontiak
Maker
(Thrill Jockey)


This album puzzled me the first time I listened to it, and I think now I know the reason why: I was listening to it on headphones on a train traveling underneath London, and the album was recorded in a 12’ x 12’ shack in rural Virginia. We weren’t even close to being on the same page.

“Maker” is crank-up-your-speakers-til-they-rattle music. The opener, “Laywayed”, sets the tone, buzzing guitar echoing a sorta bluesy but not quite riff against itself, against the drum, against the bass, back against itself again. It’s like the music is throwing itself against the walls of the tiny little studio. Actually, it’s probably not so much “like” that, but rather, it probably is that. “Wax Worship” uses longer, droning tones with both the instruments and the vocals to similar overlapping, up against the walls motherfuckers effect, whereas “Headless Conference” drops the vocals and spends just over a minute machinegunning your brains out.

One impressive aspect of this album is that Pontiak’s tone is always more or less the same, but no two songs sound alike: “Wild Knife Fight” is driven by a syncopated bassline and terrific interaction between the lead and backing vocals, “Heat Pleasure” is a minute and a half of cymbals with the stringed players taking the backup role (you know you want to hear it now), and “Aestival” slows down to a lilting, softer sound that seems to subtly ripple outwards until the ripples are slapping each other stupid. The title track clocks in at thirteen-plus minutes, never seems to do anything spectacular, and yet again, creates an intriguing piece of music through the nuances of the interactions between the instruments, before changing course and breaking out into a Zeppelinish riff at the halfway mark, then breaking that riff back down into something else as the song swaggers across the back half. Then on “Seminal Shining” these guys pull out the brushes and the acoustic guitars and a terrific vocal duet. “Honey” and “AASSTTEERR” strap the dirty guitars back on, and I suspect that the latter is two flowers intertwining. But not really.

Pontiak – Aestival from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.