Cigarette Tricks: What to Download Tuesday: White Fence

Tim Presley is a busy man. It wasn't but three posts ago that we were introducing his new White Fence project with Ty Segall. And today marks the release of the first volume of his double 2012 White Fence LP, Family Perfume. As I suggested in my previous post on Presley, he is all over the place stylistically in the various projects he is involved with. That said, Family Perfume, Vol. 1 stays firmly in the lo-fi neo-pscyedelia realm, wearing its influences on its sleeve (Syd Barrett and Skip Spence, with some nods to the likes of The Beatles and Donovan in their more experimental or trippy moments). But this record doesn't sound like a simple redux of 60s/70s psychedelia. It somehow retains the stamp of being a 2012 Bay-area garage rock take on the genre. And while the casual music fan might be put off by various interludes of experimentation (some songs disintegrate into distortion and reverb, others have mistakes and false starts left in the final cut), the patient listener will be rewarded by an album of rich melodies and instrumentation. Tracks "Balance Yr Heart," "Hope! Servitude, I Have No!," and "A Hermes Blues" standout, but the album as a whole hangs together nicely, a collection of tunes that sound both experimental and poppy, imitative and intimate, familiar and strange. Read Ty Segall's thoughts on Family Perfume, Vol 1 over on the Woodist website because, well, it's some pretty great rock 'n' roll rambling that somehow captures just how exciting this record is. For instance, "[t]his is freak your fucking mom out cause she caught you naked in the back yard blasting this shit rock. This is not a joke. This is the hit factory...And this is just vol. one." Indeed, Vol. 2 will be out May 15th. With the Chromatics release last week and this White Fence record, 2012 is shaping up to be a good year for double records! And be sure to catch White Fence in concert if you can. He's scheduled for gigs with Ty Segall and The Strange Boys throughout the spring, including a Toronto date on May 12th which will also feature Father John Misty.

Lots of other great releases this week as well. Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt releases the second Lotus Plaza record, Spooky Action at a Distance. It's a very close runner up in the "record of the week" category. Be sure to give it a listen. Also, the Screaming Females fourth record, Ugly, is sounding great and will likely do big things for them. In addition, the full list after the jump features the likes of Bear In Heaven, Black Mountain, Orbital, Great Lake Swimmers and more. It's a great week for new releases so get listening!

White Fence, Family Perfume, Vol. 1