I recall teasing you about the eventual presence of one of Philly’s finest, King Kong Ding Dong, in the pages of this your most dedicated blog. Well, here you go, they have a new album out, it goes by the name of Youth Culture Index and you can download it for free here. Do it, but also buy the CD because what they do deserves strong and enthusiastic support.

And what is it that they do?

They craft epic pieces of psychedelic pop music- if Espers broke into Phil Spector’s manor somewhere in the hills of LA, they would eventually get lost in the labyrinthine and baroque corridors of this haunted place, tired and hungry fall asleep in whichever bedroom they happened to stumble upon first, surrounded by statues of grimacing satyrs and hyeratic nymphs, and they would sleep, and they would dream of the revenants of black ghostgirls with astonishing afros shimmying across the room to the tribal stomp of a heartbreaking ballad. And when they woke up they would go back to their van, grab their instruments and make music beautiful like this. This is what they do.

King Kong Ding Dong- Hot Train

The good folks at Kill Shaman/Bipolar Bear sent us a treasure trove of goodies, we will be dropping them here and there like bread crumbs which are booby traps in the bloodsplattered paving stones of the Minotaur’s Lair.

Let us begin with one off Bipolar Bear’s recent Manbase 7’’ on Labil. Check them out once again punching the metronome off the top of the piano and getting on with it. They have the oscillation in them and not that many bands can say that, it’s all about that fat stumbling, shuffling and pounding towards the erection of a cage of barbed wire where you find yourself trapped with a swarm of beautiful feral beasts intent on shredding your face off, fly like a Butterfly and kick like a mule, there is no other way out.

Bipolar Bear- Manbase

Fabulous Diamonds’ was 20JFg tribal ghost dance album of last year. You can imagine our excitement when the nice people at Albert’s Basement sent us this version of Cemetery included in the Warm Cupboard LP, where the original has been pumped with even more echo and wobble. It sounds as if someone had made peanutbutter with the sounds of the No Wave compilation, spread it over a nice slice of organic bread, dipped it in a fat jar of codeine syrup, taken a bite and gone to have a chat with the spirits. Yummy in that special kind of way.

Fabulous Diamonds- Cemetary Dub