You can stream No Age’s Subpop debut, Nouns, in its entirety, on their Myspace.

If you’re a certain type of person, you’ll probably download it from there too.

It’s been awhile since we heard from Ashtmatic Kitty, but they’re back with a vengeance, dang! They’re announcing not one, not two, not five, but SEVEN new signings:

Ermasse Zoupla
DM Stith
Welcome Wagon
I Heart Lung
Shannon Stephens
Osso

PLUS illustrator Laura Park, who’s kicking off things right now with a hand-assembled $3 mini-comic. And AK’s put together a mix featuring all the new artists, which you can download from the AK site, or, stream at, surprise, asthmatickitty.muxtape.com.

If you see Jason Anderson and he seems a bit tired, it’s probably because he is. And if he’s not, he should be. Since last year’s full-length, Tonight, came out on ECA Records, he’s kept it coming. The rundown:

…and my favorite old JA song, from 2005’s The Wreath:

For your weeekend listening pleasure, I supplemented that Muxtape of Hemstad’s s/t album with muxtapes of 2 other Catbird Records discs: the Music From Big Pink-y Cosmic American Music of Moviola’s Dead Knowledge and the Roxy Music-meets-The Fall-by-way-of-Chicago art rock of Manishevitz’s East To East.

FWIW, there’s also a new Catbird Records mix featuring a whole slew of good tracks from the Catbird family.

I know none of these can approach the magnificence of the original Catbird muxtape, but what can you do?

Anyway, enjoy.

My man Quartermass recently came across an amazing eBay find: Destroyer’s original demo cassette from 1995. There’s not a whole hell of a lot of information available; the album seems to be comprised mostly of songs from Golden Bridge, with a few exceptions: “Dogs Know More Than This,” “Sad Kennedy/Blue Destroyer,” and “Karen Is In Rome,” none of which I think have been circulated before.

I probably don’t need to tell you, but this release is pretty much for die-hards only– these oldest recordings tend to be VERY lo-fi kinda stuff. In any case, though, QM has been gracious enough to digitize the whole cassette and currently has it available for download at his site SevenTenTwelve.

…all the backlashy “just more of the same” reviews, which one might expect after nine albums, except that it’s silly to hear it coming from reviewers who only actually heard one of those albums. The erratic semi-random nature of the Rubies mania of aught-six is thus confirmed.

Interviewer: Trouble in Dreams, stylistically, is in the same vein as Rubies. Why did you decide to keep a similar feel with this album?

Dan Bejar: I don’t see many similarities at all. I feel there’s way more similarities to This Night and Your Blues, if one were going to try and draw parallels to past Destroyer albums. Problem is Rubies is the only Destroyer record most people have ever heard.

This next song is from an album called Your Blues… which is an album none of you know.

I saw Destroyer last night, and yes, it was a very good show. The band is, as everyone is saying, totally on their game, plus, they all seem to be having a lot of fun, and on top of that, Dan is as loose as I have ever seen him. Which, all together means: you should not miss this show.

IF you are a Destroyer fan, that is.

I realize that there’s some degree of general “backlash” toward Destroyer since Trouble In Dreams came out, and you know, I’m actually fine with that. I’m guessing Dan is fine with that too. Destroyer was never meant to be one of those “Hott Indie Acts” mentioned in the same breath as ______ or _______. Rubies just somehow, unexpectedly got sucked into that cycle, and now the market’s just correcting. If you don’t get what all the fuss is about, it’s probably because the extent of your experience with Destroyer goes back one album. And the thing is, there were SIX of them before Rubies.

This is a tenuous metaphor, but… it’s sort of like saying, “I don’t get why people are so crazy about Al Pacino… I saw him in ‘Ocean’s Thirteen,’ and he was alright… and I just saw this new movie ‘88 Minutes’– honestly, I just don’t get why people think he’s such a great actor.”

Or hell, maybe you just don’t like Destroyer. Maybe you don’t like that nasal Bejar vocal delivery, or his obtuse lyrics, or his 7-minute compositions. And Christ, man, that’s fine. Not everyone likes coconut, or nature documentaries, or bicycles. Stop getting offended every time someone’s opinion about a band differs from your own.

STILL, that being said, (and I should know better than to even waste time calling out Pitchfork on something) I feel compelled to say that Trouble In Dreams deserved better from Pitchfork (and no offense to Mr. Bowers, who I respect very much). And I’m very, very surprised that Matt Lemay didn’t get assigned that review; seems like he would have been the obvious choice for that. Curious.

This post is a special service to all us old folks (over 30):

1.) Tomorow night, 4/25, at Southpaw in Brooklyn: it’s like 1988 in 2008, as the Homestead sound makes a return in the form of a crazy triple-bill featuring Big Dipper, Ohio’s Great Plains, and Antietam (NYC’ers may recognize Antietam’s Josh Madell as the owner of Other Music). I believe this tour is to support the new Big Dipper 3-CD collection out on Merge, but all of these bands are worth checking out, particularly if you’re someone who thinks indie music started in 2004.

2.) A NEW release on Teenbeat! And it’s almost like a new Unrest album… in fact, though, it’s the self-titled release by Maybe It’s Reno, a project fronted by Unrest/Velocity Girl/Air Miami’s Bridget Cross, and featuring Phil Krauth and Mark Robinson.

3.) Did you SEE that insane line-up for ATP New York? Here’s a taste:

…plus more. I told you: insane.

$500-$1000 tickets for the 3-day (9/19-9/21) fest go on sale tomorrow @ 10am.

4.) OMG, ALL, the Descendents descendant who appeared on about 3/4 of all mixtapes I made in the early 90’s, are reuiniting to play Chicago’s Riot Fest in October. I was just playing this song in my head mere days ago:

I know this clip is “making the rounds” all over this morning, so normally, I wouldn’t bother to post it… but the thing is, this Grizzly Bear song, from last night’s Conan, is the best Grizzly Bear song I’ve heard since “Knife.”

Grizzly Bear - “While You Wait for the Others”

Not sure how Merge feels about it, but So Much Silence has a vinyl rip of Destroyer’s track from the exclusive Record Store Day split-7″ with Wye Oak. Go check it out.

And a note for NYC folks: Wednesday’s Destroyer show at Bowery is sold out, but tix are still available for the Music Hall of Williamsburg show tomorrow.

I know for a fact that there a whole slew of kids out there who think ‘The Replacements’ is just the name of a lame Keanu Reeves movie. But they would do well to school themselves about one of the most important bands EVER. Rhino’s Deluxe Reissues of all the ‘Mats Twin/Tone era albums is out this week (with Pitchfork reviews today). Hie thee to your record store and buy these.

And, BTW, here’s the greatest music video ever made: