June 1, 2011

Today's Hotness: The Swirlies, Good Dangers

swirlies-photobyBradSearles
>> [PHOTO CREDIT: Brad Searles] That distant rumbling you half-hear and half-feel can only mean that legendary chimp rock superheroes The Swirlies are powering up for an indeterminate span of time. We caught wind of the activity via a well-informed Facebook friend Tuesday, and confirmed this afternoon that, yes, in fact The Swirlies will play Philadelphia's Johnny Brenda's Saturday July 23rd. Curiously, the gig will be a matinee. We can't find other dates, not even at The Swirlies' web dojo, but we did notice that the band's bio was updated only last week. We have heard pretty credible information that additional but limited East Coast appearances beyond the JB's date are a possibility. Watch this space for more information. The Swirlies are best known for a series of spectacular releases on Taang! records in the early '90s, including 1992's What To Do About Them EP [MP3s], 1993's mind-blowing Blonder Tongue Audio Baton [MP3s] and 1994's Brokedick Car EP [MP3s]. The mercurial act last roared to life in the winter of 2009, and we wrote about the Philly and Cambridge shows here and here respectively.

The Swirlies' "Wrong Tube"

>> Speaking of 2009: it's been a long time coming, but Good Dangers, the London-based guitar pop outfit that rose from the ashes of spiky pop purveyors Assembly Now, has finally issued a debut single. We'd been in touch with the quintet -- which touts the core members of Assembly Now along with new member Jenny on keys -- as far back as November 2009 and had been waiting on new recordings ever since. We are happy to report it has been well worth the wait. The digital-only single -- a split with Peppercorn issued by Cosine Records May 31 -- features the Good Dangers' "So Unkind;" catch the stream below and watch the video right here. The music isn't jarringly different from the latter Assembly Now efforts, particularly the earnest vocals, but there is a new lush density and hypnotic repetition that clearly sets "So Unkind" apart. While the song is the band's first official release, we are excited to find that there are already three other videos posted to Vimeo: "Brasilia;" "Waves;" and "Beat Of Your Heart." All of the tracks are strong, and we're hopeful an EP or even full length is in the offing. Longtime readers may recall that Assembly Now's song "It's Magnetic" was [still is] one of our favorites of 2007, although our blog post from December 2007 saying as much was rendered useless by the shuttering of web playlister Imeem.

Good Dangers' "So Unkind"

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