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Cold Cave w/Austra
Bowery Ballroom
Saturday, August 6

Better than: Keeping it all inside.

Tortured, downtrodden, and fashionable, Cold Cave has dug deep and thoroughly into the ever-resurfacing chasm of 80's nostalgia. Their blend of gothic new wave, industrial, and synthed-out disco has all the melodramatic stoicism of that decade's often dread-soaked spin on pop. But on Saturday, the band's music wasn't the brooding or foot-dragging polemic that it had been built to resemble. With severe and almost comical furiousness, Cold Cave seemed less focused on dwelling on the pain as they were on expelling it openly and uncouthly.

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Louis Caldarola

​Noveller is the nom de musique of Sarah Lipstate, whose precise compositions build on a cathartic repetition of righteous riff aktion colored with gorgeous loopingfuckdoodlery and noise gush. Live, it's just Lipstate, all by her lonesome, just the way she likes it, slinging her guitar with rows upon rows of pedals at her feet while abstract, mind-bending visuals play behind her. She's not partial to "band" situations—but more on that later.

The Branca/Chatham/No Wave disciple has been a Brooklyn mainstay since arriving in 2007, pulling guitar duty for electronics-twiddling noiserock mashmongers Parts & Labor (she quit) and minimalist synth-popsters Cold Cave (she got kicked out) before focusing on Noveller full-time.

Lipstate has a mesmerizing new LP called Glacial Glow, releases her own shit via her own Saffron Recordings label, and tours in her sister's Jeep. She recently paired up with Lee Ranaldo and played with feuding guitar army visionaries Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham; she also serves as mentor and frequent collaborator for Jesus Lizard bassist David Wm. Sims and his experimental solo project, unFact. We had a lot to talk about.

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​For entry, RSVP here. A band pairing that makes a surprising, in-retrospect-obvious amount of sense. Apropos of very little, we may or may not have heard Cold Cave's "Life Magazine" being used as bumper music on NPR the other day. [@matadorrecords]

Arthur Baker, sans crazy stomach flu

​Producer and DJ Arthur Baker helped change the sound of New York in the early '80s, producing the pioneering Kraftwerk electro-twurk of Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 single "Planet Rock" and running early hip-hop label Streetwise. He was ready to spout about all this stuff at the M for Montreal Festival this weekend, a nifty showcase for 30 Canadian bands--and a festival kind enough to fly the Village Voice out for a sneak peek at this year's crop of poutine-eating popsters. Baker was booked to chat at Friday's producer's panel alongside Bjork wrangler Valgier Sigurdsson, Arcade Fire knob-twiddler Howard Bilerman, and a few other esteemed headphone jockeys. However, dude got crazy stomach flu and did the whole damn thing from his bed in England via Skype. In between bloops, blips, dropped calls and static, the New York dance legend dropped some science about getting New Order to play nice, cracked wise about turning down the Happy Mondays, and announced an upcoming collaboration with Cold Cave.

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Just happy these guys got paid. That is a lightning fast licensing turnaround, Matador. [Fader]

​If you missed our five other co-signs, please consider streaming the new Cold Cave for absolutely no money or commitment over at Matador. If it's not "The Trees Grew Emotions and Died," it's gotta be "Love Comes Close," if you know what we're saying. No? Whatever. Also new with these guys: Wes talking about what he does all day with Brandon Stosuy at Stereogum. (Mostly opening mail.) [Matador]

You'll never be this young again. Surfer Blood photo by Rebecca Smeyne.

​You feel sorry for Surfer Blood, you really do. It's CMJ Tuesday, there's some invisible wheel turning, and when you walk into the basement of Cake Shop at 4:30pm on a sunny afternoon you all of a sudden know where the arrow stopped. Human sacrifice is still this festival's weirdest ritual: the singling out of one act just naive enough to accept invitations to 11 or 12 different showcases, unmindful of the wear and tear and constant scrutiny. By Saturday, they'll be an entirely different band, if they don't break up before then.

But at Cake Shop, for the first one, they merely seem a bit dazed. The billion-band afternoon showcase delirious-soundman sound is not a great fit for these guys, who've surely been chosen in part by whatever cruel god runs this thing for how aptly they sum up any number of zeitgeists: Very Best/Fool's Gold post-world rhythms, Free Energy pelvis-thrust Thin Lizzy revivalism, no-fi reverb and feedback, and just a hint of some early Weezer pop-metal formalism. Frontman John Paul Pitts rocks a yellow sweater and mumbles something about being "slaves to rave"; he also ad-libs the word "spiritual" into a song-title that already had the words "floating" and "vibes" in it--again, these guys are playing like 11 more times.

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​If you RSVP here, and get there before 10pm. Consider this the official SOTC lock of next week, although you didn't need us three experts to tell you that. Probably time to start making that CMJ schedule, huh.

​Newly Matador-signed emo-noise collective Cold Cave are getting their Fashion's Night Out on tonight at the Rogan Store, where they'll play at 10pm in a line-up that also includes rarely-seen footage shot by Albert Mayles of Little Edie, Sharon Tate, and Ringo Starr. Plus designers, drinks, general merriment. The whole thing starts at 6pm. It cannot be overstated how small this store is, from a performance/band standpoint, so crowd in early if you want to crowd in at all. Should be spooky.

Martin Myers

​Friend of SOTC Max G. Morton and his band, Cold Cave, have signed to Matador records. Cold Cave, which has expanded from its early days as a Philadelphia-based domestic project for Morton and Heartworm proprietor Wes Eisold to something more dynamic and inclusive (the band now includes Caralee McElroy, formerly of Xiu Xiu, and Prurient's Dominick Fernow), recently put out Love Comes Close themselves. Matador will re-release the record on November 3, with some added value TBA. The openly nostalgic New Order homage that is "Love Comes Close" and the Pet Shop Boys tweaking "Youth and Lust" have replaced "The Trees Grew Emotions and Died" as our anthems with these guys; Matador has two other tracks from the record, "Life Magazine" and "The Laurels of Erotomania," available for download at the label's site. Congratulations and a salute to all involved.

Welcome: Cold Cave [Matador]