From the veritable shelf of new music (and thick stack of vinyl releases) at Good Records today, we chose a limited edition 7" by the most beloved indie-rock band after Pavement and a new record by the kings of '90s alt rock.
Modest Mouse: "Autumn Beds" 7" [Epic]
This single, numbered to 4,000 copies, is the second in a series of four to come out between proper releases for Modest Mouse. "Autumn Beds" has the most banjo noodling ever heard out front in a tune by the melancholy Washingtonians. Heartbeat drums make the mid-tempo weeper a little more nuanced, but mostly it's disjointed, giving fans only vague hints about the song's origin in time. Isaac Brock told Stop Smiling that he doesn't want the new music to sound the same all the way through -- the Pixies can rock wildly different tones and paces in one song, he said, and we agree with him on that much. The six-minute B-side "Whale Song" is full of drone, with the same kind of sour attitude that made "Alone Down There" both intriguing and ultimately depressing. The vocals start three minutes in, but its worth the wait to hear Johnny Marr wail on electric to close out the song, and the morsel of Modest Mouse to hold fans over until August when Brock told Pitchfork he hopes an EP will be out.
Dinosaur Jr.: Farm [Jagjaguar]
The latest record from a band made even cooler by its rampant touring with indie-pop orchestra Broken Social Scene rescues the absolute best of '90s rock and keeps it going. "Over It" could play in the opening credits of a sitcom about slacker twenty-somethings, scoring piggyback scenes, jumping-on-the-bed mayhem and such. Where Paste thinks the band went wrong with a more structured, chilled-out release than the reunion-marking Beyond, we're like that we can bob our head before our mind gets blown. Don't misunderstand; J Mascis is still so fierce on guitar it hurts. Watch him shred on "I Don't Wanna Go There" via a Pitchfork "In the Studio" special below.
