Music might be fun! It's an interactive experience, not a chore - or worse, a meaningless task repeated endlessly for an unclear reason, like clicking on a playlist and going about your regular, everyday (TEDIUM) business. That's why Drag City/Sea Note are proud to bring back a favorite format from the days of standalone physical records: 7 inches, baby! Times TWO. And you KNOW what 7 and 7 is...

On April 5th, a pair of established-yet-enigmatic acts are dropping two very distinct singles. On Sea Note, the mysterious Sundowners collective are back,  for the first time in over twenty years! In the mid-1990s, The Sundowners released three infamous 7-inch records: "Goat Songs," "The Girl With the Thing In Her Hair," and "Singing Death Chants to the Stars." Then, they went silent. On "Ancient Cares", their long-overdue fourth entry to the trilogy,  they bring their trademark lo-fi ingenuity, forging a set of minimal yet hooky pop tunes, tweaking on old tropes and recycling psych-synth oddments from the history of sweet music. Who are these Sundowners, anyhow? Just like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the world may never know.

Another advocate of sweet, sweet vinyl, Fred Armisen, appears on the Test Pattern 7" - yes, the Talking Heads parody/tribute from season 2 of IFC's Documentary Now! In order to achieve the same feel and sound of Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, Fred and Bill Hader put together a band onstage for a live performance in San Gabriel, California featuring Jon Wurster (drums), Jon Spurney (keys), Maya Rudolph (synth & vocals) and Senon Williams (bass). Rife with angular white-funk beats and bone-dry lyrical ruminations, Test Pattern is beamed in straight from the early '80s.

Ready to digest two new slices of hot-n-ready tunes? Just wait 'til April, when you can plop the tonearm down into the groove and kick back! Pre-order your copies of Sundowners' "Ancient Cares" b/w "Pig Pen Blues" & "Stinkeye" and Test Pattern's "This Is My Street" b/w "Art + Student = Poor" & "Everybody's Moving Around" today!