Hell's Belles

Vintage sounds, dusty grooves, and 21st-century freaks.

Like this.  A lot. This is a fuzzy pyschedelic dream, complete with banjo.  (I know, right??)

Here’s what we know about Conner:

He’s from Texas.  And you don’t mess with Texas.

He likes Bon Iver and Bob Dylan.

He’s pretty darn smart, in a book fashion.  (He went to Yale University.)

This tune is not a fluke.  (You can get a whole EP from his facebook page and find this out for yourself.)

According to his twitter profile, he eats farts for a living.  Which, if he’s still a college student, may very well be true.

Smoke Fairies’ fabulous show at ULU on Friday has had me in a creepy folky deviltunes kind of mindset of late, hence a bumper post about newish discoveries – some folky, some freaked-out, all fabulous.  Acoustic guitars don’t always have to equate “nerds in ugly sweaters singing about their feelings”, which can only be a good thing.

King Dude

First up, Seattle’s King Dude, possibly worth it on the name alone, and definitely pays off in the weirdness:

King Dude – My Beloved Ghost by hells-belles

Mississippi Witch

King Dude reminds me of the brilliant but incredibly slack Mississippi Witch, who hail from Bristol, and have been “working on” their (his?) second album since about 2008.  This one’s from the first album. I adore it, so if you’re reading this, Oli, please get it together and give us album #2:

Mississippi Witch – Buckshot Cornflower by hells-belles

U.S. Girls

More freaky than folky is U.S. Girls, which is one of those bands that likes to confuse things by being just one person, the one in question being Californian Meghan Remy.   This little gem, which kicks off more than a bit like a psyched-out Loco-Motion* (Little Eva’s, not Kylie Minogue’s, if you please), is coming our way in June on limited split 10″ vinyl via Fat Cat sister label Palmist Records.

US Girls – If These Walls Could Talk by Palmist Records

The other side of that split will include this track by Slim Twig, whose vox have a little bit of Lux Interior about them.  Or maybe that’s just me.

Slim Twig – Priscilla by Palmist Records

* Come to think of it, I reckon that intro is actually a sample.

My latest lady-crush is Sea of Bees, a one-woman band from Sacramento.  Sea of Bees (real name: Jules) is on tour with Smoke Fairies in the UK right now, and her off-kilter storytelling folk will be a fine partner for the Smokes’ creepy acoustic folk-blues.

“Marmalade” is taken from the forthcoming Songs For The Ravens album, and is at the slightly rockier end of Sea of Bees. I grabbed this track from her website, and if you head there you can find more musical goodies including her 2009 EP.  She’s also a good follow on Twitter.  She’s a very witty and funny lady.

Sea of Bees – Marmalade by hells-belles

[buy the album!]

UPDATE: My boyfriend got heroically drunk and “interviewed” the equally inebriated Sea of Bees.  And recorded it.  You can hear it, uncut, here:

http://goodbyefaithfulkingdom.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-preposterous-interview-with-sea-of.html