The Crimea

DOWNLOAD: The Crimea - Loop a Loop (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Crimea - Lottery Winners on Acid (MP3)

The Crimea

Just a couple considerations for what I'm sure is an already busy weekend.

Touring here ~~for what I'm pretty sure is the first time~~ are London five-piece The Crimea, who are really easy to write about, even without actually listening to their music, because there's lots of interesting factoids. John Peel loved them, and their 2002 independent single "Lottery Winners on Acid" got them signed to Warner Brothers who put out their 2005 debut Tragedy Rocks. A re-release of "Lottery Winners" scraped the UK Singles Charts and then they were then unceremoniously dropped by WB soon after. Pressing on, they released their second album, Secrets of the Witching Hour, forfree via their website last year (before Radiohead did it, mind you) and put out 16 remixes of the single "Loop a Loop" via 16 blogs (including Music Like Dirt and Nothing But Greenlights). Oh, and singer Davy Macmanus is brother of superstar BBC1 DJ Annie Mac.

While it might not scale the heights of Tragedy Rocks, Secrets of the Witching Hour is as good album, full of anthemic (but not too anthemic) songs, punctuated by the McManus' world-weary lyrics and vocals. Songs like "Loop a Loop" don't sound like much at first but then you sort of catch yourself digging it halfway through. A lot of their songs catch you off guard like that. Will they be any good live? Find out Saturday (7/12) at Cake Shop or Sunday (7/13) at Union Hall. There's also a 7/14 date for "McCarren Park" but what exactly that means I'm not sure. Full tourdates below.

Also visiting this weekend are New Zealand's Cut Off Your Hands who just wrapped up a short West Coast tour with We Are Scientists. You might have seen last year at BV's Pianos day party that happened during CMJ. I missed it so I'm going to try extra hard to make it to one of these shows this weekend -- either tonight (7/11) at Cake Shop (where they're playing with Elephant 6 legends Elf Power) or tomorrow (7/12) at Market Hotel. Weird venues for a band whose records are as polished as COYH's recent singles. I mean that in a good way, their music is as sparkling as it is frantic and catchy. The band's debut album, You & I, is in the can and should be out this fall sometime. I can only assume we'll get a preview this weekend.