Rubies

Danceable folk, homemade disco, and lost love laments; these are just a few facets of California-based Duo, Rubies. The poised and dynamic range of songwriting keeps the listener excited by offering fresh and honest versions of future dancefloor and living room classics. Simone Rubi (lead vocals, keyboards) entices the crowd while Terri Loewenthal (bass) keeps them dancing. Add some shimmering guitar, the harmonies and beats provided by machine or borrowed man, and try to resist. While it could be in a crowded avant-garde discotheque in NYC, a motorik infused warehouse in Berlin, or the pine-needle carpeted redwoods of Big Sur, you will be easily moved by the conviction that Rubies offers. Both huge and intimate moments make the live show a beautifully creative experience.

For our debut album, "Explode from the Center," we were lucky enough to have helping hands from Eirik Glambek-Boe (Kings of Convenience) and his new group "Kommode", Leslie Feist, Karl-Jonas Winqvist (Blood Music), Dan Judd (Sorcerer), Lars Skoglund (Laakso, Lykke Li), Maria Eriksson (The Concretes) and a small army of other talented folks from all over the world. Simone and Terri also play in the pop group "Call and Response".

Gala Drop

Gala Drop's s/t

Gala Drop are from Lisboa. Their music has evolved into a blend of tribal/latin-American influenced rhythms, kraut-rock synthesizer jams and much more.

Flying Saucer Attack

Seemingly emerging out of nowhere following an initial single or two, Flying Saucer Attack's debut album crystallized an incipient 1990s underground as in thrall to folk music as to feedback blasts and Krautrock influences. The description the band members themselves used, also considered by some as an alternate title to this album, was "rural psychedelia," and rarely has form so readily followed function. The original duo of Pearce and Brook, with some help from friend/Third Eye Foundation mainman Matt Elliott on percussion and clarinet (thus creating an even more alien atmosphere on "Moonset"), created a thick, evocatively haunting collection of modern mind-blowers. If any one thing could be singled out about the album, it's the continual contrast between Pearce's soft, reflective singing, often sunk deep into the overall mix and treated with heavy-duty echo, and his often tremendous guitar work, electric squalls, and drones piled atop one another. Songs like the exultant "Wish" and "A Silent Tide" are the breathtaking results. Initial comparisons were made to My Bloody Valentine and the shoegazing crowd, but they're misplaced -- it's a consciously different style employing some similar elements, but with notably varying results. Two astonishing drone/tribal instrumentals are named "Popol Vuh 2" and "Popol Vuh 1," both open tips of the hat to the long-lived German experimental group. The completely out-of-left-field number, though, is the cover of Suede's "The Drowners" -- changing nothing about the pace but overdriving the feedback and relentlessly toning down the vocals, FSA turn the neo-glam piece into a noisefest beyond description. Compared to later albums, Flying Saucer Attack sets more of an immediately consistent mood -- some numbers aside, the dreamy singing, the seemingly straightforward guitar parts that get more involved the more one listens, and more continue from track to track, generally speaking. The end results, though, are more than worth it.