Temporary Residence: 20 Essential Tracks

Sleeping People – “People Staying Awake”
from Growing (2007)

Temporary Residence has had a pretty strong connection to San Diego music for a significant portion of its existence, from Pinback to Three Mile Pilot and Systems Officer. Sleeping People might not be as recognizable name as Pinback, though their dramatic post-rock sound most certainly leaves an impact (and if the name sounds familiar, it might be because Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman was once a member). “People Staying Awake,” the closing track on 2007’s Growing, not only winks at their name, but provides one of the most ass kicking listens in their catalog, jerking back and forth between syncopated rhythms and heavy riffs. And in its second half, Pinback’s Rob Crow lends his vocal talents to the tormented opus. – JT

Young Widows – “Took A Turn”
from Old Wounds (2008)

Young Widows have released three full-lengths on Temporary Residence: 2014’s Easy Pain, 2011’s In and Out of Youth and Lightness, and 2008’s Old Wounds, the band’s most acclaimed record to date. Although rooted in noise rock, Old Wounds eschews the particular machismo that seems so commonplace in the genre, even as their sound quite obviously takes its influence from those bands and retains a particular grit. “Took A Turn,” moreover, is the perfect album opener. The stereo configuration is impressive: a lurching, rhythmic bass line from Nick Thieneman staggers out of the right speaker, as Evan Patterson’s vocals appear on the left seconds later. Near the one-minute mark, Patterson summons Jeremy McMonigle to the right speaker with a simple call (“drums”) and at 1:33, Patterson’s guitar comes screaming out of the left speaker. The effect is electrifying: a minute and half of lurching tension coming to a head (though Kurt Ballou’s production surely helps—the tone here is just massive). (Watch this video of them playing the song at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn to get the full idea. The stage lights only appear when Patterson’s guitar comes in; it’s awe-inspiring to watch.) – BB

The Books – “Beautiful People”
from The Way Out (2010)

This Brooklyn duo worked hard to perfect a beautifully weird hybrid of the digital songcraft of Boards of Canada with the whispered indie-pop of Death Cab for Cutie or The Shins. When they came to TRL for what would be their final album together, Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto largely jettisoned their M.O. of quietly processed guitar plucks and found sound for something more upbeat and aggressive. Supported by orchestral samples, backmasked vocals, and simple yet insistent drumbeats and guitar chords, this ode to mathematical concepts (!) is a short, sharp, shocked highlight of the album and an intriguing entry point to the rest of their hazy collage-pop catalog originally on the Tomlab label. – AB

Grails – “Deep Politics”
from Deep Politics (2011)

Portland’s Grails have historically been one of the more grandiose and cinematic bands on the Temporary Residence roster, almost like a more digestible Godspeed You! Black Emperor beefed up with occasional metal heaviness. “Deep Politics,” from the album of the same name, is a little bit different. It’s subtler and more somber, mournful in its minor key tones and beautifully orchestrated strings. It’s a devastatingly gorgeous post-rock noir, the kind of thing that tends to be over-described as “cinematic.” But here’s the thing: It really is. This track sounds like a film score to a particularly gutting work of drama. I can’t say for sure where the plot goes, but something this beautiful can only end in tragedy. – JT

Pinback – “True North”
from Information Retrieved (2012)

There’s a cornball bro-heavy sports bar in San Diego called True North, situated conspicuously among mom-and-pop boutiques and farm-to-table restaurants, which rubbed residents the wrong way when it opened. I can’t help but wonder if that’s what inspired the title of this track, which finds Rob Crow singing “You look like such a dick sometimes.” Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but in any case it’s one of the strongest tracks on Information Retrieved, the band’s last full-length, which doesn’t necessarily mean final. Though since Crow has shifted his priorities toward new band Rob Crow’s Gloomy Place, that’s certainly a possibility. – JT

Zammuto – “Groan Man, Don’t Cry”
from Zammuto (2012)

Two years after the release of The Way Out, Nick Zammuto announced The Books were splitting up so he and Paul de Jong could make other things on their own. Three months later and BAM, here’s thing number one. Zammuto’s self-titled debut narrowed the focus of The Books’ collage-pop into more structured yet still curious rock songs, imagining a kinder, gentler side to the often relentless sounds of an Animal Collective or a Battles. There’s a lot going on in this cut, a microcosm of an album with a lot going on: vocodered lyrics unable to hide their melodic lilt, cyclical guitar riffs, powerful organ parts, and the clicking, snappy sounds of deceptively naive production. – AB

Coliseum – “Fuzzbang”
from Sister Faith (2013)

Not quite a punk band, not quite a metal band, and not 100 percent anything else, Coliseum has straddled a strange borderline in heavy music for more than a decade. With Sister Faith, however, they revealed themselves as, above all, a spectacular rock ‘n’ roll band courtesy of the aptly-titled closing track, “Fuzzbang.” More akin to Torche’s catchiest moments than the group’s typically dark post-punk-inspired crunch, “Fuzzbang” showed that the Louisville, Kentucky trio were capable of throwing earnestness to the wind and just having a hell of a lot of fun. – JT

Eluvium – “Don’t Get Any Closer”
from Nightmare Ending (2013)

Nightmare Ending was the record where Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) took all the potential he’d shown on past albums and combined it into a stretching, amorphous opus. The 84-minute record is full of ambient noise experiments, pop-leaning minimalism and surprising collaborations but one of the record’s most striking moments came in the form of this deceptively simple opener. Taking a simple piano ballad and layering it over pulsing noise, Cooper creates gorgeous, disorienting moments that are begging to be looped for hours. During its eight-minute run, all time is suspended and all troubles matter just a little less. – ATB

United Nations – “Serious Business”
from The Next Four Years (2014)

Geoff Rickly’s conceptual punk outfit United Nations is as much a work of satire as it is a visceral exercise in throat-shredding catharsis. They’ve used punnery and cynicism to flip Beatles, Black Flag and Refused references into commentaries on the state of hardcore, which can be as funny as it is bitingly cynical. But then again, it’d all be pretty hollow if they didn’t write some incredible songs. Take, for instance, “Serious Business,” which explodes from the first note into a searing black metal blast and maintains an in-the-red level of white-knuckle intensity as it gradually transitions into Converge-style hardcore. The band’s sense of humor aside, this is no laughing matter. Rickly says it, himself: “This is serious business!” – JT

Prefuse 73 – “See More Than Just Stars” (feat. Helado Negro)
from Rivington Não Rio (2015)

Guillermo Scott Herren built a career making hip-hop-influenced IDM as Prefuse 73 for the Warp label until his unceremonious release in 2011. He celebrated landing at TRL in 2015 with a burst of three releases in four months. Two EPs of the squelchy, glitchy music his fans had grown to love (Forsyth Garden, Every Color of Darkness) bookended May’s Rivington Não Rio LP, which featured Prefuse 73 embracing some of the post-rock tones of his new labelmates. His instrumentals felt jazzier and more atmospheric, and with Helado Negro’s yearning vocals “See More Than Just Stars” was the star of a clutch of sung tracks elevated to a new plane of wholeness, as if pulled from the catalog of TV on the Radio or some other actual band. – AB