Altered Zones

Manchester anons Wu Lyf just posted a video for "Dirt," which drops their album title, Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, in its lyrics. The track is expectedly epic, with incomprehensible screams that only rival one of our favorite tracks from last year, "Heavy Pop." --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones

Wu Lyf's own label, Lyf Recording, will release Go Tell Fire To The Mountain will June 14th, preorder it on Boomkat. Take a look at their YouTube channel for more goodies and teasers for the upcoming album.

--Previously

MP3: Wu Lyf: "Heavy Pop"

Just off the heels of dropping an album teaser on YouTube last week, anonymous Manchester-based collective WU LYF, affectionately known as World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation, just premiered the first song off the upcoming effort, Go Tell Fire To The Mountain. In other news, WU LYF will be treating New Yorkers to their first couple of US tour dates on April 1st at Glasslands and April 2nd at DIY archivists Shea Stadium. We'll be crossing our fingers, hoping that Shea will record their live set. --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones

Subscribe to trubluloveu's YouTube account for breaking songs from Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, out June 13th. Grab tickets to WU LYF's US debut shows at Popgun Booking

--Previously

MP3: WU LYF: Heavy Pop

As 2010 draws to an close, Altered Zones brings you its collective year-end recap. Today, we list our favorite tracks of the year, with favorite albums due tomorrow. You can also check our list of the year's favorite music videos here, and don't forget to stay tuned through the holiday break for daily year-end mixtapes from our favorite artists.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round" [4AD]

MP3: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round"

Balam Acab: "See Birds" [Tri Angle]

MP3: Balam Acab: "See Birds (Moon)"

In a year when many artists explored the meaning of image and identity in an age of faceless, over-abundant information, Balam Acab was initially lumped in with a wave of internet-dwelling producers who put more weight on artifice and presentation than substance. "See Birds" (and the ensuing EP) quickly dusted off any scene associations, and distinguished itself by actually owning a deep-rooted, intoxicating groove. From the triplet sway and watery reverb of the beat, to the the ghostly keyboard stabs, to the feedbacking, echoing sample that drives it, "See Birds" stood out by employing dub for it's sonic palette. Its use of vocal samples as an independent instrument rather than a reference, besides resulting in one of the years most bizarrely memorable "hooks," also strips it of any sense of irony, coming off rather like a heartfelt transmission from someone who, at the moment, would really rather be left in the shadows. --Noam Klar

Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan" [self-released]

MP3: Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan"

Baby Jazz's very first track, "Michael Jordan" is a 12-minute megamix collaboration between Golden Chow (Samuel Cooper of Sunglasses) and Teen Wolfe (Elgin Braden of Aux Arc). The track starts with a cacophony of angular, glitchy samples and reversed female harmonies. But after 80 seconds of rising and waning sonic patterns-- usually lost the moment they are grasped-- a beat finally organizes the chaos. From there on in, Baby Jazz skips from genre to genre and sample to sample like a mini pop culture role call of feel-good cues. We hear Chris Tucker screaming on the phone in Rush Hour, some rando screaming "NOBODY TURNS DOWN DRUGS", orgasms, and the intro to Dolly Parton's "Don't Drop Out". A hilarious and joyful musical rendition of my YouTube history. --Ric Leichtung

Blondes: "You Mean So Much to Me" [Merok]

MP3: Blondes: "You Mean So Much To Me"

Along with Teengirl Fantasy, Brooklyn electronic duo Blondes pretty much led the pack this year in re-envisioning the electronic music pioneers of the 20th century as music the rock kids could get down to. “You Mean So Much To Me,” the  9-minute opener of the duo's Touched EP, sounds like something Juan Atkins, E2-E4-era Manuel Göttsching, and Cluster might come up with if they convened for a late-night bump-and-grind on an autobahn ride to nowhere. Sam Haar and Zachary whisper synth ribbons and ethereal vocal samples into a delicate cymbal patter until they unleash the eternal techno 4/4. You can read it as an invitation to dance or permission to sink deeper into your beanbag; either way, it's proof that the millennial generation is making headway on a new, glitch-free strain of intelligent dance music. --Emilie Friedlander

Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home or I Die Alone" [Fire Talk]

MP3: Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home Or I Die Alone"

Cole Furlow, aka Dead Gaze, has been churning out one fantastic jam after another this year, but few tracks anywhere have struck me the way this one does. Through the first half, Furlow sounds like he's pleading with someone. More importantly, it sounds like he really means it. As the track progresses, the song gets brighter, leaving us to believe that someone must have finally taken him home. --Jheri Evans

Games: "Planet Party" [Hippos in Tanks]

MP3: Games: "Planet Party"

It's been nine months since Games first arrived via "Planet Party." Needless to say, a lot has happened since, but the original genus for the duo's work still holds true. "Planet Party" is a diabolical excursion into midi-funk through the backdoors of our collective computer love, culling our internal memory for sampled bits and progenerated synth scapes. If there was ever a definitive sound of the past year, and counterpoint to "proto-chillwave," this was it. --Michael McGregor

Girl Unit: "Wut" [Night Slugs]

MP3: Girl Unit: "Wut"

Counting local club producers such as Mosca, Kingdom, and label founders L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok among its ranks, the artist collective and upstart UK label Night Slugs had one of the most influential and consistent runs of releases this year, presenting an assimilated and innovative take on UK bass music. Girl Unit's "Wut" was easily its defining moment, in which the disparate elements of Southern rap, electro, grime and Baltimore club crystallized into one bold, forceful statement of intent. With its 7-minute sprawl and cyclical structure, the track oozes confident craft, coming in with a deceptively innocuous melody, before dropping a down-tempo bombshell of sub bass, air horns and pitch-shifted cries over a backing of buzzy, minor synth chords. --Noam Klar

Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop" [Olde English Spelling Bee]

MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"

Greatest Hits lives up to their name. "Danse Pop" is a brief two minutes of sheer danceable ecstasy. The song wastes no time kicking into place and immediately has you sliding every which way across the hardwood floor. Just don't slip when it's all greased with the sweat of everyone else unable to contain this groove. --Jheri Evans

Hotel Mexico: "Its Twinkle" [Second Royal]

You can't not love the "Love Gun"-inspired riff that opens "Its Twinkle" by Japan's Hotel Mexico. But there's more to this song than that killer, 4-second, descending shredder of a hook. Layer upon layer of guitar, bass, samples, and tambourines build on that riff, as other melodic parts come in and out of focus like the phase of two droning tones. A soft falsetto emerges from the busy instrumental tapestry, changing the sonic climate with an added sense of fragility. The initial reason-- the "hot riff"-- that made you fall in love with "It's Twinkle" fades into the background. --Ric Leichtung

James Blake: "CMYK" [R&S]

MP3: James Blake: "CMYK"

A close relative of the cut-and-paste R&B hook Deadboy worked into his devastating "U Cheated," James Blake’s ubiquitous "CMYK" begins in a far more delicate fashion, before overwhelming with a 2-step wave at the drop. Starting with the notes on a synth falling like water in a fiendish Morse pattern of drops, you can’t help but be lulled into a moment of stillness before the fuzzy wall of sound hits. "CMYK" is so restless that its vocal snippets slip in and out of time, rushing around the track like echoes of its own past and future pitched forward and back before the energy of the whole collapses in on itself. --d

Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage" [Sacred Bones]

MP3: Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage"

Nice Face, the madcap bedroom project of Brooklyn’s Ian Magee, has been channeling some serious hyperactivity since he started self-releasing his first cassettes and singles back in 2008. “I Want Your Damage,” our favorite of the pint-sized psych-rock stompers that made it onto his Immer Etwas LP this year, combines the fuzzed assault of Wooden Shjips, Purrling Hiss, et al. with the off-color zaniness of the B-52s. We're psyched to hear someone actually rock out over a drum machine, and can thank Nice Face for the kind reminder that precision and lo-fi values are by no means mutually exclusive. --Emilie Friedlander

oOoOO: "NoSummr4U" [Disaro]

MP3: oOoOO: "NoSummr4U"

Though this year saw music's darker retreats illuminated by the likes of Salem, Nike7UP and Stalker, San Franciscan producer oOoOO conjured the most poignant image of C21st cultural pollution. His self-titled EP, released in autumn by Tri Angle Records, is a beguiling, obsessive collection of possessed pop poltergeists that may be veiled in an unsettling gothic sparseness, but still burn effervescent at the core with pure melodic feeling. Non-EP track "Nosummr4U" is the best gateway into the sensual shadow-world of oOoOo, though. Its disembodied lullaby hooks and super-sleazy soft-metal guitar shredding is simultaneously alienating and enrapturing. --Jack Shankly

Pure Ecstasy: "Voices" [Acephale]

MP3: Pure Ecstasy: "Voices"

In the past year I've gone from seeing Pure Ecstasy in the back parking lot of an Ethiopian restaurant on a dismal, cold night in Austin to the background music on an advertisement with a pale, stumbling Kate Moss-type. Both fit them perfectly. The understated-ness of this band must not be, well, understated. "Voices" is rife with blown-out blue notes and phantasmic guitar tones, backed by softened vocals which sometimes stretch out in love-lost angst. With its simple but steadfast lyrics, Pure Ecstasy's "Voices" reminds us that you dont have to be a TS Eliot to be affective. --Ryan Ellis

Salem: "King Night" [IAMSOUND]

MP3: Salem: "King Night"

When it hit the blogosphere last June, Salem’s “King Night” felt BIG. Huge, even. In fact, it sounded like these Chicago enfant terribles were trying to pull us out of the muddy highway ditch that their Water EP had dumped us into just a few months earlier. Setting aside the half-hearted white-boy rhymes and syrup-slow siren calls for a minute, Salem shocked us with a sample that seemed to be the electronic trio's antithesis: a heavenly, full-choir rendition of the Christmas carol “O Holy Night”, which speaks of a coming savior, and is bound to evoke the starry-eyed rapture of your elementary school Christmas pageant. Six months ahead of season, “King Night” set its source material to paper-thin beats and a bassline so blown-out it made you check to see if your speakers were broken. It was hyperbolic, a bit tacky, and almost tragically optimistic. --Emilie Friedlander

Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters" [True Panther]

MP3: Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters"

On "Cheaters", Ohio duo Teengirl Fantasy explore the more interesting peripheries of house and dance music, rather than these genres' more central, crowd-pleasing elements. As a result, the track feels like a careful distillation of all those subtle pulsations, innate rhythmic shifts, and density of sound that make the club such a good place to be. The vocal source material, culled from Love Committee's 70s R&B cut "Cheaters Never Win", appropriately swirls like some pained smoke-machine spirit through all of this anti-banger's small gaps. --Shea Bermingham

Teen Inc.: "Fountains" [self-released]

MP3: Teen Inc.: "Fountains"

Teen Inc. found something special this Spring in the super-smooth sound of fusion and funk. "Fountains" comes off super epic and endlessly groovy, a supreme trip through wobbly synthesizer, slapbass, and plaintive falsetto. Perhaps part of the reason this song has bounced around so much in my head (and in my iTunes) is because of the unfortunately small sample size of Teen Inc.'s catalog: two songs, one solitary, self-released 7" record. However, give me an LP full of this sound on a long drive any day and I guarantee you'll see a satisfied dude. Fingers crossed for something similar to this fantasy in 2011. --Ian Nelson

Tjutjuna: "Mosquito Hawk" [Fire Talk]

Ty Segall: "My Sunshine" [Goner]

MP3: Ty Segall: "My Sunshine"

I don’t think there’s a single other track that I’ve listened to more than “My Sunshine” this year. Ty takes his signature garage-pop and toughens it with a dose of classic 90’s grunge brilliance. The song tears itself apart, screams till it's hoarse, and then snaps back into place; always on the edge of self-destruction but never ceding to the crush of its own noise. It's songs like this that make me wish that the spirit of '91 was still alive on the radio waves. Were it only a few decades earlier, this one would have every kid in the country howling along in their bedrooms. --Andy French

Vacant Lots: "Confusion" [Ancient Hills Music]

MP3: The Vacant Lots: "Confusion"

The "psych" tag has been getting thrown around pretty arbitrarily recently (day-glo hypnogogia?), but in the classic sense, it could hardly apply more than it does to the Vacant Lots. "Confusion", one a handful of absolute burners from this Burlington duo, doesn't aim for any vast imaginary worlds (though it does nod to some monolithic/prog-temple vibes), instead preferring a dopesmoking hypnosis and half-disquieting/half-cozy drug-rug nostalgia borne of teenage garage jam thrills and more acquired tastes for drone and minimal guitar mesmerics. --Richard MacFarlane

WU LYF: "Heavy Pop" [self-released]

MP3: WU LYF: "Heavy Pop"

It's refreshing to hear such genuine, visceral soul on this out-of-nowhere hit from mysterious Mancunian outfit WU LYF. Such rawness and emotion tends to be absent from a lot of contemporary leftfield pop, but "Heavy Pop" stays true to its namesake, trudging through continual set-backs and triumphs, drum-rolls, guitar chimes, and gravel-throated howls. The climax comes in the form of a rambunctious, exhausted collapse; fitting of a track so emotionally invested, and as a result, so gloriously draining. --Shea Bermingham

In the last several years, there's been an explosion of small-scale DIY music. Altered Zones is a team of 14 music blogs dedicated to exploring these emerging musical worlds, traversing genres from psych and drone to electronic and underground pop. Our mission is to highlight the most notable and adventurous new artists, and to serve as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground.

To launch the site, we've each chosen one favorite track, cassette, and album from the first half of this year. Today we open with tracks, cassettes will be covered tomorrow, and albums will run on Friday. Our regular posting schedule begins Monday. We hope you enjoy reading and listening.

Welcome to Altered Zones.

WU LYF: "Heavy Pop"

Transparent says:
We love this song for its convulsive negative electricity and cracked beauty. It's quite a feat for a song this insanely loose to be so hard-hitting and emphatic, but "Heavy Pop" somehow manages, rattling along on heroically punch-drunk percussion but retaining a peculiar stateliness in its faraway funeral chords and cathedral echo. Then there's that voice to get over-- that excoriating, hell-scorched, torture-rack, dream-stalking strangled howl of a voice.

MP3: WU LYF: "Heavy Pop"

Concrete Gold/Heavy Pop 12" is available now at wulyf.org (limited to 500)

Raw Moans: "Rose Bath"

Don't Die Wondering says:
I was first introduced to Raw Moans' re-imagining of forgotten hip-hop classics into soulful bedroom hymns by "Fuck the Day," a tender, yet fey interpretation of an old Snoop jam. That song's follow-up, "Rose Bath", seems to encapsulate even more expressively the record's title: "We Want It Beautiful Not Real." A mantra completely lacking any sense of irony or bravado, such a sense of yearning for something transient or completely non-existent is perfectly borne out in the twisted melodies, ghostly falsettos and funereal synths of these songs.

MP3: Raw Moans: "Rose Bath"

Raw Moans CD-R is forthcoming on Disaro

Dead Luke: "The Best Drug I've Ever Done"

Raven Sings the Blues says:
Hailing from the Madison, WI experimental scene that produced Zola Jesus and Julian Lynch, Dead Luke's first proper LP, American Haircut, is a psychedelic opus that culminates in the swirling, murky pools of album closer, "The Best Drug I've Ever Done." This track seems to encapsulate everything that's come before; it's a deep, slow burn, building on shimmer and drone. And rather than explode into chaotic waves of climax, it simply melts away into the ether, leaving you wondering what audio specter just transpired.

MP3: Dead Luke: "The Best Drug I've Ever Done"

American Haircut LP is out now on Florida's Dying (limited to 500)

Echo Lake: "In Dreams"

20 Jazz Funk Greats says:
We just had a baby. He’s our first.

His eyes, pale blue horizonless seas of unfocused consciousness. His hands, frantic, uncoordinated attempts at spatial awareness. It's difficult not to anthropomorphise what's in his newly formed cortex of neurons, blowing miniature electrostatic kisses at each other for the very first time.

We listened to this song a lot during the final days of my wife's pregnancy. Its naive, tentative lullaby qualities and hopeful nature seemed to fit with the change about to come, and I like to think it's what our boy is now trying to sing to us-- the sound from in there.

MP3: Echo Lake: "In Dreams"

Mind Spiders: "World's Destroyed"

Weekly Tape Deck says:
Their power-pop steez and addictive hum-along hook put Denton's Mind Spiders right at home in the Dirtnap Records catalog. The two opening chords of "World's Destroyed" are a concentrated tease, only alluding to the pop madness about to be unleashed. One of four offerings from Marked Men guitarist/vocalist Mark Ryan's debut solo EP, this is proof that the North Texas scene is holding strong.

MP3: Mind Spiders: "World's Destroyed"

Mind Spiders 7" is out now on Dirtnap

Ariel Pink with Added Pizzazz: "In the Heat of the Night"

Gorilla vs. Bear says:
Ariel Pink's first post-Before Today output comes in the form of "In the Heat of the Night," the opening track from his new collaborative 12" EP with avant-jazzers Yells at Eels (aka Added Pizzazz), a Dallas/Denton crew flanked by local legends the Gonzalez family. Previously heard on the abbreviated version of "Hot Body Rub" that kicks off Before Today, the free-jazz group showcases their steez on this woozy, slightly off-kilter jam, which was recently aptly summed up by an anonymous scribe as "Roxy Music on DMT."

MP3: Ariel Pink with Added Pizzazz: "In the Heat of the Night"

Ariel Pink with Added Pizzazz 12" is out July 9 on Free Dope and Fucking in the Streets

Up Died Sound: "Dust"

Visitation Rites says:
If you've ever taken music lessons, "Dust" by Brooklyn's Up Died Sound will return you to the time when you played your first harmonic minor scale and gasped as a new universe opened up before you-- the perfumed and half-imaginary unknown that Westerners once knew as "the Orient." Here, rock comes face to face with its non-Western alter ego, the hybrid of Anglo-American psych and traditional Arabesque music forged by Turkish legends Selda Bağcan and Erkin Koray. Perhaps psychedelia has always been about finding a way out, but this jam offers two modes of egress: one guitar arching upward like the ceiling of Alhambra, and another driving down toward the center of the earth, hoping to emerge on the other side.

MP3: Up Died Sound: "Dust"

D/R/U/G/S - "Love (Love/Lust)"

Get Off the Coast says:
This spiraling club sprawler slings you through a vortex of sound and emotion in instances that bleed between lines of reality and fiction, allowing you to sink into a semi-comatose state. D/R/U/G/S couldn't be a more appropriate name for the group, and this track's ability to leave you with an almost carnivorous desire for more leans towards lust more than love.

MP3: D/R/U/G/S: "Love (Love/Lust")

Get more D/R/U/G/S on Tumblr

Games: "Planet Party"

Friendship Bracelet says:
"Planet Party" soundtracks an artificial body's programmed inclination to get down. From standing position, muscular pistons churn and high horsepower heart chambers pump thick, oil-rich blood solution to the extremities. Inertia builds quickly, and for the following two and a half minutes, the intelligent body can do no wrong, impressing male and female bodies alike with its handclap-like heart sequence.

MP3: Games: "Planet Party"

Get more Games at Soundcloud

Oberhofer: "I Could Go"

Yours Truly says:
Sometimes I wish I was a kid again, as Ahmad once said. Back in the day, I didn't have a care in the world. Youthful naivete is bliss, and that’s what makes Oberhofer so great. At just 22, Brad Oberhofer is creating music at a level far beyond his years. His effortless blend of scream-sung lyrics, skip-along whistling, erratic percussion, and unexpected song dynamics is one that many bands attempt without success. But Oberhofer's approach feels genuine, and that's precisely what draws you in. It's that youthful flair, that unadulterated sound, that makes this music so appealing.

MP3: Oberhofer: "I Could Go"

o0O0o0O0o 7" is out August 3 and available for pre-order at Insound

Tennis: "Marathon"

Delicious Scopitone says:
It's pouring as I write this, and with my mind on "Marathon" by Tennis, I could drown in the wide puddles of water forming all around me. "Marathon" was written about the Denver-based husband/wife duo's experience sailing around the East Coast together, and listening to its breezy beauty makes it easy to imagine the feeling of being out at sea.

MP3: Tennis: "Marathon"

Marathon 7" is out later this month via Underwater Peoples

Velvet Davenport: "Lemon"

Chocolate Bobka says:
The last time I caught a glimpse of the underworld was on a rainy Spring afternoon. The rain had penetrated the roof of my building and flooded my kitchen, spraying the marble floor with glistening metallic drops. Closer examination proved they were not raindrops, but tiny other worlds, and I saw Velvet Davenport inside of one. These early psychedelic seekers and fractal dreamers sang a joyous tune, uniting the people in their enchanted bliss. "Lemon" was the song, and they told me it came from the mental vault of a visionary voyager who got lost somewhere along the way. Hopefully he/she will hear the song and find their way back to the droplet.

Velvet Davenport: "Lemon"

Lemon Drop Square Box cassette is out now on Moon Glyph (limited to 200)

Gobble Gobble: "Wrinklecarver"

The Road Goes Ever On says:
There was a short period when I thought I'd never hear another song that made that familiar smile grow across my face-- the one you get when you click play and immediately know you’ve found something special, something unique. Fortunately, the words of Gobble Gobble's Cecil Frena in "Wrinklecarver"("I don't wanna live without it/ I don’t wanna think about it") brought it back months ago. Bizarre synth textures and an unmatched vocal presence leave energy dripping from every second of this song, like honey oozing from the combs of an apiary long since farmed.

Gobble Gobble: "Wrinklecarver"

Follow Gobble Gobble on Tumblr

Sun Araw: "Deep Cover"

Rose Quartz says:
Cameron Stallones' smoked out dub-brooder feels positively anthemic. Set more in a trash heap of defunct soul feelings than in the neo-mystical ruins of previous endeavours, the vibes run real deep on this seven minute jammer. It's drenched in a type of dread that seems both antiquated and ultra modern; maybe he's found some tear in the cosmic tissue between his voice and the lost ones he tries to summon, maybe he's just speaking from the heart. Either way, those squelched drums and eerie-ass organ warbles make for some weird and powerful new gospel; drop in, drop out.

Sun Araw: "Deep Cover"

On Patrol CD is out now on Not Not Fun