The Oakland based progressive, avant art rock band Makeunder has released a new single entitled, Great Headless Blank. This song is the title track of their brand new EP and is exciting, interesting and encompasses splashes of electronic (computer parody) sound installations that take you on a wild musical ride. Great Headless Blank is reminiscent of new wave music like DEVO and Talking Heads and could be a soundtrack to a David Lynch short film. The music is like an artsy ice bucket to the face, which can be refreshing and utterly intense. There is a bit of swagger to the music though. You can hear a soulful confidence in the songs that seperates it from being avant nerd rock or classical alt rock, which can be coy and standoffish.

"Makeunder is the solo project of bandleader Hamilton Ulmer, who crafted his first release using a violin, saxophone, fatigued vocals and a small hand drum. Since then, Ulmer has rounded out the band’s lineup with Van Jackson-Weaver (vocals, guitars), Samantha York (vocals), Mario Godoy (synths, saxophone), Carolyn Walter (saxophones, winds) and John Doing (percussion). In Great Headless Blank, Ulmer confronts personal tragedies sorting through the ashes with a juxtaposed, exuberant sound comparable to Passion Pit’s Gossamer."

Makeunder is a bold music project and we're into to this new track. Take a minute to check it out!

Letter Ghost, the latest release from Portland, ME’s Blood Warrior, is an eerily-beautiful record. The vocals on these tracks are some of the most honest and chilling I’ve heard in recent months. The lead vocals are dripping in sorrow and intense emotion--the singer’s voice rising, falling, even quivering on some notes. I guess the best way to put it might be that Letter Ghost sounds like a mournful musical eulogy.

My favorite track was "All Your Thoughts", with its poignant lyrics and ghostly backing vocals. This song is perhaps the best example of the dirge-esque qualities of Letter Ghost, evoking visions of a mournful procession slowly making its way to the burial grounds.

For more info about Blood Warrior (including upcoming shows), check out their website.

-Dan McMahon (@dmcmhn)
 

San Francisco's Brick and Mortar Music Hall will be hosting an awesome Beijing invasion on June 1st in the Mission District. A Recordings Ltd. (Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre's record label) artists, Birdstriking will be performing in support of their new self titled album. The strange and experimental nu-gaze band, The Pleasure Routine will be sharing the bill with Birdstriking along with the psych, slightly prog influenced experimental band,  Chui Wan and Birdstriking/Chui Wan combo side project, Deadly Cradle Death. If all of that info is not cool enough, long time Brian Jonestown Massacre member, Ricky Maymi will be DJing at the show!

You can get out of town (and the country) just by proxy of wandering into this awesome International show. Get a taste of a different culture! The music is going to be noisy, ear splitting and massively fun.

Xiu Xiu may be getting a little too big for the britches of The Deli Magazine San Francisco, but we'd like to give them a shout anyway. It is important for us to continue to highlight this local music duo because they are an emerging experimental art rock powerhouse who will probably never get the mainstream or even indie media coverage they deserve due to their highly off kilter and at times, grotesque art and music style.

This Friday (May 15th), Xiu Xiu will be supporting the soulful Canadian rock band, Timber Timbre at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Timber Timbre sounds like a nice blend of The Black Angels and The Black Keys. They sound good and they sound cool (like James Dean cool), so experiencing their live show after Xiu Xiu's out of the box performance will allow you to let your hair down and dance and shuffle around a bit. Don't miss this show!

A brand new single from the San Francisco based experimental black metal band, Mamaleek has emerged. The new track is entitled, Nothing But Loss and is the very first single to be released from the musical duo's (who are also brothers) upcoming full length album, Via Dolorosa (which Vice kindly defined as "Way of Suffering" in Latin, a reference to the street in Jerusalem down which Jesus supposedly dragged himself to his death).

The exciting thing about Nothing But Loss is that it is not normal at all. It's an intense metal track that sounds like the guitar riffs are being guided with a slide (if you're not sure what is slide is or what slide guitar is, it would behoove you to look it up for reference) and has almost a country, honky tonk style to it. It's pretty cool to hear the guitars wail and whine beneath death metal vocals. The graveling screaming is almost romanticized because of the slight sweetness of the music, as Mamaleek chose to write the song in a higher octave, so it's not the usual creepy black metal style that's played in the lowest tones of E or A. The unique choices the band makes in regards to how they interpret black metal makes them all the more relevant as a ground breaking band.

At the end of the song, it slows down and breaks down a bit to create a dramatic tapering off of strangeness. The song is surprisingly pleasing to listen to and has a lot of character. They have a scary band name and an even scarier album name, but don't let that put you off. Mamaleek's new album is due out on May 26th via The Flesner Records