Sound Board: The Week’s Best Tracks

Our picks for the best tracks out there for the week of July 20–24, 2015. Headphone-tested, FLOOD-approved.
Staff Picks
Sound Board: The Week’s Best Tracks

Our picks for the best tracks out there for the week of July 20–24, 2015. Headphone-tested, FLOOD-approved.

Words: FLOOD Staff

July 24, 2015

2015. Sound Board july

Sharp singles from upcoming albums (Fuzz, Deradoorian, DRINKS, Gun Outfit, Kurt Vile), sparse alternate takes (Matthew E. White), and explosive stand-alone tracks (Peaches featuring Nick Zinner) were favorite tracks from this week.

Check them all out below.


Fuzz, “Pollinate”

Made up of Charles Moothart (Ty Segall Band) on guitar, Chad Ubovic (Meatbodies) on bass, and Ty Segall on drums, the sludge-trio trade vocal spots (and solos), and have been playing shows and dropping singles sporadically since their self-titled debut in 2013. Staying true to their influences, Fuzz are numerically moving forward with II, a fourteen-song set, from which you can hear the  “Pollinate”—a heavy track with Segall on vocals, ripping guitar licks, and a heart-rattling bass line.

Matthew E. White, “Vision”

A year after releasing his horn-guitar-piano-driven debut, Big Inner, Matthew E. White put out Outer Face, an EP in which he refused to allow himself horns, guitars, or piano. Now he’s pulled the reverse trick, scrubbing everything but the guitar, piano, and rhythm instruments from this year’s excellent Fresh Blood. White is billing this “No Skin” version of the album as a “minimalist” arrangement, which is the kind of thing only an artist as devoted to large-band maximalism as White would ever call the standard rock and roll band setup. The new take on Fresh Blood‘s “Vision” highlights White’s warm voice and the playful details about the song that come front and center when the orchestration is stripped away.

Kurt Vile, “Pretty Pimpin”

First up is the album opener “Pretty Pimpin,” a bright choogler that is distinctly KV, and has been shared along with a video chronicling the many minds (and bodies) of the Pennsylvania native as he goes through a day across various spots in LA (including what I’m pretty sure is the same Echo Park alley used in the Tom Waits video for “In the Neighborhood”).

https://soundcloud.com/anticon/deradoorian-the-eye/s-9MyJm

Deradoorian, “The Eye”

We’ve already watched Angel Deradoorian piece together “A Beautiful Woman,” and now we have “The Eye,” the second single from her forthcoming solo debut LP, The Expanding Flower Planet. “The Eye” finds its groove quickly and stays in it, an insistent bassline buried in the mix nudging Deradoorian’s overdubbed vocals along.

DRINKS, “Laying Down Rock”

“Laying Down Rock”—Hermits on Holiday‘s opening track—features White Fence’s Tim Presley on lead vocals (and lyrics that include MapQuest for some reason?), all atop a simple and mesmerizing guitar riff. It’s not hard to hear, or appreciate, the whimsical influence that The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society had on the DRINKS track.

https://soundcloud.com/adultswimsingles/peaches

Peaches ft Nick Zinner, “Bodyline”

As part of its incredibly stacked 2015 Singles program, this week Adult Swim dropped a brand-new track by the recently reemerged queen of the world: Peaches. “Bodyline”—which features the strong, distorted guitar work of Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ Nick Zinner—is absolutely explosive. The multi-talented songstress shouts “Don’t knock it until you try it” while drums pound with a steady, rapid-fire beat. It’s a perfect credo for the provocative artist and an ultra-appealing call for acceptance of sexual fluidity.

Gun Outfit, “Gotta Wanna”

Gun Outfit have just announced the October release of Dream All Over, whose lead single, “Gotta Wanna,” you can hear below. Sharp and Keith trade vocals, the pair coming across like a slightly buffed version of David and Cassie Berman circa Silver Jews’ Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. But “Gotta Wanna” is far from revisionary; with its nods toward clean-toned post-rock and wooly Pacific Northwest folk, it cuts its own very American path.