Published on August 19th, 2011 | Jonny Abrams

NewTube: The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, TV Girl, WATERS, Dave Depper, PAPA, Future Islands, Patrick Kelleher And His Cold Dead Hands

Sit back, relax, and yet NewTube guide you through some of the splendid-est new music out there…

The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble – “Bop”

Okay, this isn’t new, but the release of this rather spooky teaser for the German eccentrics’ new album Mr. Machine is the perfect excuse to flaunt this joyously bewildering epic from last year’s You Make Me Real album – especially as a reinterpreted version of it is featured on the new record.

Herrs Brandt, Brauer and Frick have expanded into a ten-piece and bookended their band name with the words ‘The’ and ‘Ensemble’, enabling them to upgrade their live show to something quite spectacular in the process.

This was evidenced at the Eurosonic Conference in Holland earlier this year, at which they performed You Make Me Real in its entirety, apparently using eighty pages of sheet music for each track. Using classical instrumentation and percussion to create something that sounds like glitchy, minimal techno, this is music that will set your brain racing, your head bopping and quite possibly your heart pounding to the Homework-era Daft Punk-style beat. Mr. Machine is penned in for an October release on !K7.

For more information and a list of live dates, please visit www.brandtbrauerfrick.de

TV Girl – “Baby You Were There”

Clocking in at comfortably under two minutes, this absolute gem comes from the San Diego duo’s forthcoming Benny and the Jetts EP (Elton John’s best song by far, in our book, but we’ll attempt to find out why they decided to pay homage), which you can download for free by liking their Facebook page.

With a warm electronic patchwork cosseting the kind of melody that puts us in mind of songs covered by The Beatles on their first two LPs, this is perfect summer soundtrack fare and bodes extremely well for the EP, which Rocksucker is downloading as we write this.

They list Animal Collective and J Dilla amongst their influences and it does come across as something of a halfway point between them, so you can imagine how bursting with colour their sound is. We daresay this isn’t the last you’ve heard of TV Girl on these pages. Now, watch this brilliant, bizarre, Justin Smith-directed video…

For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/tvgirlmusic

WATERS – “O Holy Break Of Day”

Coming across like mix of Band of Horses and In It For The Money-era Supergrass – indeed, the vocal style is eerily similar to that of a certain Gaz Coombes (which is no bad thing in our book) – this track bodes very well for this new project of former Port O’Brien front man Van Pierszalowski.

Forthcoming parent album Out In The Light was recorded over an intense ten-day period in Texas with John Congleton [Explosions in the Sky, The Walkmen, St. Vincent] on production duties and, according to Van, is about “waking up…getting out of a situation that seems endless, and realizing you’re not too old to make dramatic and sudden changes in your life.

It is about starting over.” How very apt.

For more information and a list of live dates – including two UK shows in September – please visit http://stereogum.com/715942/waters-van-pierszalowski-ex-port-obrien-for-the-one/mp3s/

Dave Depper & The Ram Project – “Monkberry Moon Delight”

The Decemberists collaborator Dave Depper undertook a real labour of love in covering Paul & Linda McCartney’s classic Ram album – yes, the entire album – and you can judge for yourself how it stands up to the original when it’s released on Monday through City Slang.

Here he is performing “Monkberry Moon Delight” Joan Hiller and members of Museé Mechaniqué at a show in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

For more information, please visit myspace.com/davedepper

PAPA – “I Am The Lion King”

Great titles abound here, from the name of this song to the Psychedelic Judaism (in conjunction with Hit City U.S.A.) label it’s released on and the song “Let’s Make You Pregnant” which follows this sunny slice of feel-good groove-pop on PAPA’s A Good Woman Is Hard To Find EP, which will be available from October 4th. Singer Darren Weiss describes PAPA’s sound as “American soul music with a punk-rock mentality” – but, then, he also says on the accompanying press release that “everyone becomes sea urchins and rats at night”, so who knows what to believe?

Whatever, this is melodic, sexily-delivered and pleasingly beatsy so it seems you would do well to catch them when they support Girls on their September/October North American tour. In the apparent absence of an official video, here is a live version of “I Am The Lion King”…

For more information and a list of live dates, please visit www.myspace.com/papabandmusic

Future Islands – “Balance”

The second single to be released from their forthcoming On The Water album (October 11th, Thrill Jockey Records), “Balance” combines ocean ambience with pulsing eighties electro and a vocal that from singer Samuel T. Herring that somehow manages to be gruff and wispy at the same time. It’s lovely stuff from the Baltimore trio, who describe the narrative arc present in On The Water as being about “two journeys – one physical, one psychological”.

For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/futureislands

Patrick Kelleher And His Cold Dead Hands – “Miracle Candle”

The critically-acclaimed Irish electro-monger’s second album Golden Syrup is out now on Osaka Records.

For more information, please visit myspace.com/patrickkelleher

Artists: Dave Depper, Future Islands, newtube, PAPA, Patrick Kelleher And His Cold Dead Hands, The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, TV Girl, WATERS

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.