Deadshirt

Deadshirt is Listening…Bringing you a rundown of our staff and guest contributors’ favorite new tracks released in the past week after they’ve had the weekend to blast them in their cars, in a club, alone in their rooms, etc.

Max Robinson is worshipping at the techno-altar to…

“Cream on Chrome”
Ratatat
Experimental Alternative Rock

After a five-year silence, robot rockers Ratatat dropped a brand new single at Coachella on Saturday. While 2010’s LP4 was largely disappointing, “Cream on Chrome” is a strong return to form for the duo of Mike Stroud and Evan Mast. “Cream on Chrome” SOUNDS like a comeback, like Ratatat has returned to the modern era through Dr. Doom’s time platform to impart a new gospel of mechanical groove. It’s a simple, straightforward track that smartly focuses on Stroud’s guitar work while vibing off their trademark “background music from Space Egypt” sound. There’s a ton of promise in the back to basics, flashy but not too flashy approach heard in “Cream on Chrome.” Hopefully this is but one stellar track off a new album at least comparable to the incredible LP3.

Julian Ames is driving off into the sunset to…

“In Films”
Chromatics
Dear Tommy
Electropop

Still no word on when the next Chromatics studio album, Dear Tommy, is supposed to drop. Earlier in the year the band promised it would be out by Valentine’s Day, but the holiday came and went without any album to speak of. We’ve gotten plenty of tastes from the album in the form of singles “Just Like You,” “I Can Never Be Myself When You’re Around” (which I also reviewed), and now “In Films.” In my review of “I Can Never Be Myself,” I described the song as “cinematic,” a word I think fits the band perfectly, and the new song proves my point. The hazy yet hopeful tone mixed with the part new wave/part modern feel of “In Films” makes it sound like a perfect ending song to a John Hughes movie. The song has a simple hook of “ooh’s” and is filled with references to movie terms, like “matinee,” “double feature,” “drive-in,” “‘action’ yells director,” ect. With this new track, the Drive soundtrack alums prove once again that their songs are best enjoyed, as the title indicates, “In Films.”

Mike Pfeiffer is saving the world to…

“Collapse of Classical Reality”
20SIX Hundred
Carpenter
Retro Electronica

Ambient music can generally suck my ass. I like hooks. I like to sing along and be able to play a song. Generally I like music that sounds like it’s in a trailer for a movie. Love ya, Brian Eno, but Music for Airports can stay there. But sometimes I need something to give my activities an air of gravitas, and there’s nothing for that quite like film scores. Some of my favorites come from horror master and polymath John Carpenter, who released a bang-up cultural touchstone pretty much every year in the eighties. His scores shaped and inspired three decades of science fiction and horror filmmakers—and the folks at Retro Promenade, who put together the dope Carpenter mixtape available on Bandcamp. It’s twenty tracks of glassy and sinister synth jams that draw inspo from classics like The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China. The one that grabbed me immediately was “Collapse of Classical Reality,” a super-creepy tribute to Prince of Darkness, the one where the Antichrist is a tube of goop in the basement of a church. It presses all the buttons that make the world hypercolor neon and spawn horrors in every dark corner, and I love it. If you like this track, it’s definitely worth throwing down Pay-What-You-Can style and getting the rest of the album, if only to absolutely dominate the mood of your next eighties-themed Halloween party.

That’s what we’ve been listening to this week—what’s got your ear this week? Tweet your recommendations @DeadshirtDotNet or drop us a line on our Facebook page.