Zulu Report: An Aural Blast Of Summer For Your Head And Soul

Our friends over at Kitsilano’s Zulu Records once again present their weekly Scout feature, the Zulu Report. Within, staff from the West 4th music store provide The Track, the song that is on heavy rotation that week; The Playlist, which is pretty self-explanatory; The Gig, the must see show of the week; and The Glance, a view ahead to music on the horizon. From their ears to yours, enjoy…

The Track

The song on heavy rotation in the store this week…

Kurt Vile performs “My Best Friends” from album God Is Saying This To You (Mexican Summer).

I’m pleased to report that Kurt Vile’s second album, God Is Saying This To You, has been magically brought back into print, so that all who missed out on this killer album the first time around can now enrich your lives with it. Vile is a classic longhair rocker, with one foot in the swampy marshlands of fuzzed out stomp-rock, and the other foot out in the dusty fields of long forgotten folk idioms. As this clip shows, Vile doesn’t have any particular angle or schema – he’s just a Philly rocker doin’ what he does until there’s nothing left to do, get me?

The Playlist

Our picks for the week…

THE SIGHT BELOW It Falls Apart (Ghostly)
Oh man this beautiful, gauzed-out pop atmospherics from the PacNorwest mystery crew, but it sounds like it comes from a Bristol shoegaze outfit, circa ’91 (if that means anything to you).

GONJASUFI A Sufi And A Killer (Warp)
This is the sound of your brain sizzling in the summer heat. Gonjasufi are the psych-hop troupe. Breathe in these desert visions and try not to get lost in the dunes.

PAVEMENT Quarantine The Past (Matador)
The heavyweights of 90’s slacker indie rock culture are back on the road this summer, and that means rolling out a pastward glance at some of their primo-est album cuts. What can I say? Pavement are still the cream of the crop.

MGMT Congratulations (Sony)
MGMT are the pop band to beat. Their July show sold out in a matter of minutes, probably because Congratulations is a veritable goldmine of left-turn pop turned again askew.

BRASSTRONAUT Mount Chimaera (Unfamiliar).
Local hit-boy Edo delivers on his promise to get you rumpus shaking. Brasstronaut is Vancouver’s premier spaced out fusion of flavours, like an aural course in future studies.

DISAPPEARS Lux (Kranky)
These Chicago dreamers have the whole fuzzed out, chugging space garage thing down so well that I’m convinced they’re either from the future or outer space. Or both.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu (Decca)
Rufus’ concept album about the mysterious lady that hides in the dark corner of our souls.

CARIBOU Swim (Merge)
Dan Snaith is a national treasure, and doesn’t fail to deliver another stone cold stunner of an album. Think rural dance music for the summer-time psychedelic-set.

THE MORNING BENDERS Big Echo (Rough Trade)
Crashing through the pale, the Morning Benders are the perfect sunny pop band for Vancouver summers spent bike-riding to the beach.

THE DEFEKTORS Bottom Of The City (Nominal)
The Defektors have been a mainstay of Vancouver’s live scene, and Bottom Of The City if the first full-length statement of intent from these warped, night-vision punk rockers.

The Gig

Fucked Up at the Biltmore on Thursday May 13th

Fucked Up are a 6-person crew of epic post-hardcore thrashers from Toronto who tour in a school bus converted to run on some kind of eco-friendly bio fuel. So long story short, they’re the real deal. Their shows are legendary, epic exorcisms of the human soul. Frontman Pink Eyes is known to strip down to his skivvies and, erm, embrace the moment. Things may get a little weird, sure, but not without reason. This crew is out for blood (in a good way), and seeing them do the wild, frantic things they do is not something to be missed.