I’ve recently discovered Philadelphia-based indie rockers who go by the name Thinking Machines (probably got the name from Dune). I’ve instantly fell in love with their new album, Work Tapes. They play the kind of music inspired by Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, Guided by Voices and other giants of American indie. This means heavy and screaming guitar noise, disharmonic feel, creative drum patterns and the vocals which sound dry and honest, burned-out, desperate and full of tragedy without anything cheesy. They cleverly move along the borders of shoegaze, lo-fi and post-hardcore (I especially love how they remind me of Hot Snakes and Les Savy Fav). Sensitivity also plays a large part, the jingling guitars and slower stand-outs are in nice contrast with the blitzkrieg of power-driven guitar-whirlwinds. The fuzzy overdrive of the album is an awesome proof that there is a huge non-mainstream source of rock music from previous decades that’s still worth preserving and drawing on. Give the band some myspace-love and buy the album when it comes out early April.

Thinking Machines - Parallax [mediafire] // [ysi]

You must have figured it out by now, that we Kunkers have to defy the seemingly certain aspects and preferences that we set up for ourselves. So besides posting new tracks from the electro-freaks of Australia, etc, sometimes we have to share some beauty or beast that doesn’t wanna make people dance. This is the case with Now, Now Every Children, a band from Minneapolis, US. Lo-fi aesthetics and a beautiful girl with a beautiful voice doing the vocals. Haunting like Cat Power, PJ Harvey or Kim Gordon… The music is grand, noisy and brings back nice memories from the 90s but dressed up to please the audiences of 2008. This is another way of making US-indie music, combining the beauties and tradition of women vocalists and the power of guitar-noise. Btw I’m a sucker for female voc and it gives me the heartwarming-confusing feeling of a sadness that is like completely same and different from mine at the same time. Gender stuff is weird stuff.

Buy their album over here. Actually, I think I like it more than the new Love Is All.

Now, Now Every Children - Headlights [zshare] // [ysi]

Equal parts off-the-wall and adorable, casio-loop lovin’ Hedluv is irresistible. A super lo-fi and much wittier version of the Streets. Though this seems to be basically a side project, they’ve got some gigs lined up and who knows — casios are totally 2009 right? Make sure also not to miss their so bad it’s good website here, complete with video for H30 LUV. Another superb find by Headphone Sex.

Hedluv - Intro [yousendit]

Hedluv - H30 LUV [yousendit]