Made In America - DUMB NUMBERS (2013)

Independent film-maker, musician, and current Los Angeles resident by way of Australia, Adam Harding has a new music project called Dumb Numbers. Having released a handful of solo 7" singles over the years Harding has hinted at a full length album for some time but seemed to keep himself well-occupied in the film industry. Now, expanding on his past music and video collaborations with Dinosaur Jr./Sebadoh's Lou Barlow, Harding has recruited the talents of Murph (Dinosaur, Jr.), Dale Crover (Melvins), Bobb Burno (Best Coast) and Chad Metheny (Emperor X) and released Dumber Numbers self-titled debut through Joyful Noise Recordings.

Made In America - Speedy Ortiz, "Major Arcana" (2013)

In 2012 singer/guitarist Sadie Dupuis started writing songs under the name Speedy Ortiz after the breakup of her band Quilty. She quickly recruited Matt Robidoux (guitar), Mike Falcone (drums) and Darl Ferm (bass) to round out a band and released the promising five-track Sports EP on Exploding In Sound Records. 

The sound of the Massachusetts based band is heavily steeped in 90s sludgy lo-fi alternative. Dupuis crafts songs like Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, part poetry, part angular journey that gets you from point A to point B in the most unexpected ways but still manages to keep you fastened in the whole way. Dupuis once fronted an all-female Pavement cover band called Babement.

2013 brought the release of their official debut Major Arcana on D.C. based Carpark Records. Dupuis proves that she can wax poetic with the best of them but with the help of producer Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur, Jr., Chelsea Light Moving) the songs sport a more mature sound that harkens the heydays of Sonic Youth and Sebadoh. Speedy Ortiz has been showing up on many "best new music" lists around the interwebs this year and rightly so. So dig out your best holy blue jeans and flannel shirt and enjoy.

Made In America - Potty Mouth, "Hell Bent" (2013)

Bands like Northhampton, Massachusettes alt-rockers Potty Mouth make me happy. They make me happy because they sound so damn good and they sound so good because they've been able to accomplish what's always been so hard to do in music. That's allowing their influences to gently affect their music but not overwhelm it, letting it feel familiar but original. They also rock.

Potty Mouth are made up of Abby Weems, Ally Einbinder, Phoebe Harris, and Victoria Mandanas. The quartet formed in 2011 and quickly released their Sun Damaged EP the following year which emanated the best parts of 90's alternative from Bikini Kill to Sebadoh and Sonic Youth, that's driving rhythms and melodic choruses. Later that year they released the first single and video for the song "Damages" from what would become their debut album, Hell Bent.

2013 has them gearing up to release their debut Hell Bent on Marshall Teller Records (UK) and Old Flame Records (US). The release date is set for September 17th. If the single "The Spins" is any representation of what's on Hell Bent then you'd be doing yourself a favor to pre-order the album right now.

Made In America - The Babies

One of the best things about the do-it-yourself ethic of the independent music scene is the camaraderie that exists between musicans and their willingness to work with each other for the sake of making good music. Often this leads to great side-projects and sometimes these side-projects turn into full time bands. If not for this we would've never had bands like The Breeders or Sebadoh.

The Babies are one of these types of bands, a one time side-project turned full time band. The Babies originated at Brooklyn house party meeting between Vivian Girls guitarist Cassie Ramone and Kevin Morby, bassist for the indie-folk act Woods. Originally meant to be another creative outlet between Ramone and Morby, they would later add drummer Justin Sullivan from Bossy, release a handfull of 7" singles on various lables and then a demos E.P. for New Images Records in 2010. 2011 would find the band releasing their self-titled debut on Shrimper Records. 

Their lo-fi jangly guitar sound with call-and-respond vocals would become more refined the following year while working with Los Angeles based producer Rob Barbato (Darker My Love, The Fall, Cass McCombs) and would lead to thier most recent album Our House On The Hill, released last year on Woodsist Records.

Ramone and Morby share songwriting and vocal duties throughout the album and deftly dish out songs with swirling meloncholic peaks that leave you wonderfully dizzy at times. Our House On The Hill is indie-pop to the core but gets you there through folk and punk rock territory with scatterlings of organ, piano and saxaphone used nicely to fill in that sound.