Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Cloud Nothings: "Psychic Trauma"

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Cloud Nothings: "Psychic Trauma" Posted: 25 Feb 2014 02:16 PM PST   Front page photo by Tom Spray Cloud Nothings' "Psychic Trauma" opens with a gentle, slack-wristed two-guitar strum that you could almost mistake for Pavement. Dylan Baldi's voice still has that teen-wolf wildness stalking its edges—his mouth opens into a yowl on the "psy" of "psy-chic trauma"—but for forty seconds, you are in a mellow place, some friends passing long-necked beers on a stoop. Then, drummer Jayson Gerycz inserts a fish hook into the song's mouth and pulls backwards; the song drops into minor-key, and the song begins, steadily, to speed up. Gerycz's drumming is exhilarating, both relentlessly on-beat and just-moments ahead. "I can't believe what you're telling me is true/ My mind is always racing listening to you," Baldi sings, and the band surges in sympathy, pressing its foot heavier on the odometer until the needle floats and the scenery begins flashing by too quickly. It's the sound of an incoming neurological lightning storm. Cloud Nothings: "Psychic Trauma" on SoundCloud.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me"

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Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me" Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:05 AM PST There's an internal dissonance that exists within Dylan Baldi, and you can hear it in every Cloud Nothings album—hell, pretty much every Cloud Nothings song.  He always sounds strained in the way the best melodic, shoutalong punk songwriters need to be, his ambitions meeting resistance from any number of sources: the crude recording equipment of Turning On, his rudimentary skills as a drummer and bassist on the project's promising self-titled effort, and after Cloud Nothings expanded to a full band equally informed by In Utero and Youth of America, his reputation as a precocious pop-punk type. Attack on Memory was a fantastic, diverse record that handled these concerns on a case-by-case basis, but on "I'm Not Part of Me," the first single and closer on Here and Nowhere Else, Baldi wants it all, right now. Proving definitively that the ferocious drive of the full-band Cloud Nothings had way more to do with the addition of drummer Jayson Gerycz than that of Steve Albini, producer John Congleton's typically immaculate touch is nowhere to be found here—in fact, Cloud Nothings sound even more ugly and gnarled, Gerycz's Tré Cool-like fills fighting for space amongst murky, downtuned guitars. But even if it sounds like Cloud Nothings are heading back towards the primordial murk of Turning On, there's significant growth in Baldi's songwriting, as he strives for something beyond the simple but effective A-B, verse-chorus structure of songs like "Stay Useless" or "Forget You All The Time": a fantastic, steering wheel-punching chorus bolstered by about five hooks that an entire song could be built around. Each hook serves as proof of why "I'm Not Part of Me" might be Cloud Nothings' greatest achievement: Baldi's pretty good at making punk rock, excellent at making noisy pop, and pretty much unparalleled at doing both at the same time. Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me" on SoundCloud.

Musique Non Stop - SPIN Mix

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1. Cloud Nothings Herald New Album With Triumphant 'I'm Not Part of Me'
2. Pixies' Mean 'Magdelena' Comes to Life in Odd, Arty Video
3. Sinjin Hawke and MikeQ's 'Thunderscan' Mines '90s Rave Graphics for Potent Futurism
4. Watch the Darcys' Seedy, Reno-Set 'Horses Fell' Video
5. David Lynch Is a Sage Spirit-Guide on 'And Light Shines'
6. Hear Lana Del Rey's Creepy 'Once Upon a Dream' Cover in 'Maleficent' Trailer

Cloud Nothings Herald New Album With Triumphant 'I'm Not Part of Me' Posted: 27 Jan 2014 10:03 AM PST When Cloud Nothings debuted their new album earlier this month live in Brooklyn, the onstage urgency and iffy sound quality left an impression of savage fierceness...

Musique Non Stop - SPIN Mix

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1. Austra Host Mind-Warping Dance Party in 'Hurt Me Now' Video
2. Beck Teases 'Morning Phase' With Vinyl-Cutting Video, Sets Release Date
3. Rick Ross Overlooks Ferris Wheel in Random 'Bound 2 (Remix)' Video
4. Savages Score Beachside Murder in Brutal 'Strife' Video
5. Stream Alison Valentine's New Roller Rink Jam 'Curious'
6. Stream Cloud Nothings' Ferocious Live Debut of Their New Album
7. Stream Drowners' Flirty 'A Button on Your Blouse'
8. James Blake Drops New Song '40455,' Remixes Beyonce for BBC Radio Session
9. Stream Charli XCX's Punky Kiss-Off 'Allergic to Love'
10. Watch Broken Bells Unveil 'The Changing Lights' for 'Take Away Show'

Austra Host Mind-Warping Dance Party in 'Hurt Me Now' Video Posted: 17 Jan 2014 10:54 AM PST For the last several months, Austra have repped for their Olympia album with a string of intense and outré music videos. First there was the startlingly intimate visual for