This week, David Bowie demonstrated his 'work flow diagrams', we learned that Flying Lotus will feature new music in the Jay-Z produced film An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty, Wolfmother will now be referred to as the frontman's moniker Andrew Stockdale, and James Murphy doth protests too much as he told us again that an LCD Soundsystem reunion “isn't happening”. But get excited, as we give you a few of our favorite things from the week in no particular order.
Durham, NC author and producer, Phil Torres is the man behind Baobab, who brings his poetics, and earthbound productions with the assisted talents and visuals from Whitney Trettien. On Baobab's single “Magdalene Street”, the acoustic guitar takes things to the riverside where the video accompaniment provides the images of things going awry to match the loops, and reverbed heavy “heeeeys.” We had chance to catch up with Phil about the blending of acoustic, earthy and ethereal loops, the making of the video, and the intersection of authorial poetics and song.
“Magdalene Street was written after traveling abroad to Cambridge, in the UK. The song is named after an idyllic little street that runs through the city. I've always been very inspired by traveling—by that feeling of being an insignificant member of humanity. I'm finishing up another musical project now that was directly inspired by a recent trip to Paris and London a couple of months ago. As with all the songs on BAYOHBAHB (and the debut album too), I was responsible for all the recording, mixing, mastering and production. It's funny to me that many albums are attributed to a single band, but most are the artistic product of many individuals working in collaboration, each with their own specialty. This makes sense, because mixing, mastering, etc. are skills in their own rights. But there's something I like about a project being the result of just a single individual's vision, from start to finish. There's a kind of control that's absent in most projects — for better or for worse! Also, like all the other songs on BAYOHBAHB, Magdalene Street was recorded in my house. If you were to solo a single track—such as a vocal track—you could probably hear the traffic outside, since the walls to my house are paper-thin. I rely on a lot of careful EQ (basically, sound-shaping) to get songs to sound as if they were recorded in a studio.
Once the album was completed, I started work on a handful of music videos. The video for Magdalene Street is basically a collage of clips from YouTube or archive.org that I found worth watching in and of themselves. A goal of mine has always been to make art—from the music videos to the album cover for BAYOOHBAHB (which wasn't photoshopped at all!) — that can stand on its own. Thus, I wanted to make a bunch of music videos that were visually interesting enough for someone to keep watching even if the sound were off. The video for Loh Dalum Bay, for example, which has not yet been released, consists of timelapse videos made by the incredible night photographer Christoph Malin. As for Magdalene Street, it includes videos of a non-Newtonian fluid on a speaker, someone sky-diving from the Burj Khalifa, a cat floating in microgravity, and of course the opening clip of the Golden Eagle dragging a goat of a precipice.”
Torres will release his second LP, BAYOHBAHB April 30 on digital and vinyl via Hand Eye Records.
Chalk And Numbers have recently released their Parade EP that extols the merits of anachronistic music of the 60s for our modern times. Sable Yong and Andrew Pierce come in technicolor dream chromes of “Pretty Colors”, as well as Northern Soul pepped French new wave haplessness on “Boy”, the shades of b-side-chamber-sister pop of “In the Dark”, and the b-movie surf wave of “Things You Do”. Those moments that occur on “So Much For the Bay” will have you swearing that Gold Star Studios in Hollywood still lives, as a bed-bound Brian Wilson still sulks after getting beat to the opus punch by the Fab Four. We had a chance recently to talk to Andrew and Sable about their thoughts on the merits of anachronistic music of the 60s, what 60s productions means for them, and the importance of channeled musical properties from that aforementioned, post-nuclear era. They explained to us in brief their wall building skills of sound, and how to make teenage symphonies to God in the post-post-modern climate of our current day:
“We love production and sounds from the 1960's and I think there is a lot of merit in using those production techniques and sounds as a tool for creating modern music. Its a color that already exists but one that we can use to paint brand new pictures with our own interpretations. We wanted to capture sounds like the records we love but bring newer aspects to it like in our songwriting, which is formed by our modern experiences, and our performances. Sable's vocals for example are a modern element and a style that is not necessarily of that time but creates something new in conjunction with classic recording techniques. We only record and mix to tape and prefer bouncing down tracks, mistakes, noises, etc to make sure it sounds human and not created by computers. All in all we just wanted to make great sounding music that referenced classic recording sounds without feeling the need to fuzz it out or drench it in reverb like so many of the other bands inspired by similar influences feel the need to do. I don't think sincerity is a bad thing, which is not the impression I get from some other bands in the modern, current day scene”.
Tuning the channel over to Expensive Looks, we get a listen to their new single “Ansel” off the Northern Winds EP available May 7 from Altitude. Frontman Alec Feld's new track is under 9 minutes and moves like the sequencing for log cabin love-ins in the middle of winter or evening outdoor summer gatherings. Having given us the Haçienda release earlier this year, and the 90s digital racer Hard Drivin' single earlier this month; the Winds EP points to Feld's merits of hermitage in order to construct the smoothest melding of abstract elements into synthesized gold that effects and soothes the mind in unexpected ways. After you follow the Balearic sailing rhythms, listen to those places where the echoed keyboards and voices travel.
Polytype dropped the rural eeriness in the Kyle Gibby video for “Cyclone”. The song is placed in a surreal environment where trees and debris get caught up in reversed cyclones. Polytype released their album Basic//Complex a few months back and have a tour in the works this Summer/Fall. We had the chance to talk to Jared Price about recording an evocative synth and soul vignette, the making of the video, and the faceless dark clad character that appears throughout:
“When we began recording the album, we wanted to create something that was evocative, but not demonstrative. The aim was to create something that people could build their own experiences with and not have our thoughts and feelings thrown upon them—an album that opened the gate as opposed to giving the tour. Each song was intended to mean something different to everyone that listened and to create an atmosphere in which they could construct their own meanings. When we were discussing video possibilities, we knew video whiz-kid and longtime friend Kyle Gibby could offer a compelling visual spin to the sounds of Cyclone. In line with the open-ended nature of the album, we let Kyle run with images that were conjured in his head to offer up his interpretation of the song.”
Draw the red velvet curtains for your own personal screening of Soft Riot's “Cinema Eyes”. The strobing vintage goth video for “Eyes” is captured by MM Lyle, that fades into scenes to carry you away into the dystopian worlds of technocratic realities. If the seizures don't take you first, the flashes will have you pondering Jack Duckworth's night time cinema brooding of, “those scenes you see are cut to carry you away, those scenes you see have cracks that stop you, pause and wonder about them, what's behind that mirror?” This is the Philip K. Dick school of future pop reflections on film perspectives. Soft Riot's album Fiction Prediction comes out June 2013 on Other Voices Records in Europe and Volar Records in the States.
Michigan maker of electro-music-machines, RxGibbs' Contact LP is available now on Cascine, and fellow techno-tonic visionaries Glenn Jackson and Kid Smpl step up with their own remixes. Glenn takes on “Macro” with falling key waves on start and stop while Jackson sends vocals in hushed button pushed impulses. Smpl's reworking of “Contact” presents a space shuttle hangar's worth of atmosphere that opens up into a cinematic soundscape that makes the perfect back drop for new, outer galactic species making their first encounter with our own.
Edinburgh trio Young Fathers share further tales of experience and hardships with the video for “I Heard”, where the past-tense sensory of 'heard' works in the phonetic present tense similarity of “hurt.” The pain is expressed in the chorus of, “Inside I feel dirty, it's only 'cause I'm hurting”, and explained in the lullabye like delivery of; “Science is eerie when you're still around, killing ya body 'cause they found you out, calling the shots and I'm falling down, look at the dust explode on the ground”. This signals the second installment from the wise Fathers of Alloysious, Kayus and G with Tape Two coming out June 11 from Anticon as they currently tour the UK and EU with CHVRCHES on dates that run through May 18.
Quilt / MMOSS dropped their collaborative split, New Hampshire Freaks this week from Beyond Beyond is Beyond Records. We present to you their two singles, but you got to get the whole split to heart the two choral psych pop enchanters/seekers 14-minute plus collaborative jam-a-thon. Hear Quilt's “Open Eyes”, that will make you think that these New Englanders are the second coming of your parent's pastoral trad psych LPs, next to their Fairport Convention stash. My, my, hey, hey; the East Coast ren-faire rock renaissance is here to stay.
Also on the split, MMOSS's “Nothing Left” presents the best use of woodwinds in current era music that makes those aforementioned ren fairs feel all right again, pantaloons optional.
Full |REBEL| Jacket drops some diametrically opposed landscape settings with the arid mountainous landscapes of “Winter [Vignette1]” and metro-urban-man-made-sprawl of “Winter [Vignette2]”, both off the duo's debut the REBEL EP. First up is the cold cliffs and ambient echoed ledges of “[Vignette1]” that present the sparseness of the flagless, lyrical stream.
For Full |REBEL| Jacket's “Winter [Vignette2]”, things get grimy on the streets where the Rebel Collective drops their slowed down, woodwind breathed sound, sampled like the crew's art of perfection brags.
We received the above digital flyer transmission from the Office of Analogue and Digital, where tonight GANGI will be on the ambient decks and presenting a semi-secret show at Towne (799 Towne Ave, LA) in conjunction with KXLU with Athens, Georgia's Bubbly Mommy Gun, The Dream Scene along with San Francisco's Black Hole Oscillators, and Buzzmutt. GANGI's Matt and Eric also present their new video for, “It Really Shines”, giving you perfect day frequencies that take you through the oceanic waters, riding aboard ships with hurricane radars, forecasting weather, and the thrill of getting away from it all. From what begins like traditional cantations turns into a holistic, ambient journey through the natural realms, warning of severe temperatures, and as Matt tells us; “odd weather patterns.”
“For the video, we were thinking of radar systems, troops sailing home from war, odd weather patterns, and Babylonian writer Seb Doubinsky's Potemkin Crew (a hacktavist collective) in his book “Song of Synth” which was just published in the States.”
“We're also about to release our album gesture is on vinyl. Folks we know who have done a lot of tagging formally known in LA as 7 Lightning Bolts are now called Level Press and are helping us hand screen on one side of a double LP (it will be 3 sides of music and we're screening the 4th blank side). We're going to hand number 250, which is how many are being made this way in this first (and maybe only) pressing of gesture is from the Office of Analogue and Digital, which you can pre-order at OOAAD. The records should be shipping in a couple weeks!”
GANGI's full-length gesture is will be released in limited batches of 250 hand screen printed double LPs available through OOAAD.
Speaking of shows, Drone Activity In Progress is the latest offering from the Red Bull Music Academy, hosted at the derelict glass factory, aka the Knockdown Center, May 2. Located on the Brooklyn and Queens border, this multimedia fest is said to feature multi-media visuals from Nuit Blanche, pizza from Roberta's, and performances from Purient, Pharmakon, Sun O)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Kim Gordon and a dozen more. Following that, Downtown Events is putting on the Downtown NYC Festival May 10-11 on the Lower East Side. with the revealed lineup that includes Black Hippy, Purity Ring, Earl Sweatshirt, Sky Ferreira, DIIV, Palma Violets, Trash Talk, Miike Snow's Andrew Wyatt, Autre Ne Veut, Kilo Kish, Ratking, Kingdom feat. Kelela, Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire, Vashtie, Fat Tony, Nguzunguzu, TEEN, and still more. Plan your post-spring break accordingly, tickets available here.
So Girls Against Boys are back as the DC boys never officially disbanded, and have been recording again since last January where the band has said they have been up to, “some noodling and knob twiddling” and gave us “It's a Diamond Life”.
G&D is Georgia Anne Muldrow with her husband Dudley Perkins, and they dropped the video for “PopStopper” off their album The Lighthouse coming May 21 on their SomeOthaShip Connect label. Georgia Anne warns that “loneliness can grow into something you can't control”, kicking it streetside with her hubby Dudley/aka Declaime, making their case to “realign the mind”. Release parties for the debut G&D release will be in NYC at Brooklyn Bowl on May 21, and LA's Low End Theory May 22.
City Society drops the music video for “Riot Bloom”, in preparation for their self-titled album's release May 15. On the b/w visuals for “Bloom”, a private eye investigates some implied scandlous film of boudouir entanglements of a low lit whodunnit.
Rush Midnight dolls you up for a journey into Chinatown in the Xander Robin video for the single “Don't Give Me Your Love”. The night shade synthesizers get the visual treatment you may have imagined from the audio alone, as a girl gang operation cons Russ out of his Mongoose BMX as they take his club lit lamentations to their own thieves' den congregation of eager hearts and wild eyes. Rush Midnight's Don't Give Me Your Love single is available now from Cascine.
We have been buzzing about Gene The Southern Child & Parallel Thought's upcoming Artillery Splurgin' album dropping May 7, but until then the Southern Child and Parallel gave the complimentary extended spin of Higher Caliber. The collection of b-sides and non-album cuts have you riding shotgun on the dusted “Snatchin”, the block boasting chill timing “Step To”, lo-fi taunts on “Carry On”, 80s sound clasher “Hell Raisin”, and 90s throwback “Four Rounds feat. Bentley, G-Mane & Shocc“. Available for free download, a Southern-vibed Summer arrives early for the hip-hop world while the full-length Artillery Splurgin’ will be available May 7 from Parallel Thought Ltd.
Cowboy Indian Bear's new album, Live Old, Die Young dropped this week on The Record Machine as they tour the Midwest, Chicago, NYC and more through May 10. Join the Lawrence, Kansas quartet as they transform the “hope I die before I get old” and “live forever” mantras into the anthemic, revival ready and rhythmic tent raiser, “Let It Down”.
Bust out some boards and take on suburbia in the Aoife McArdle video for Jon Hopkins' “Open Eye Signal”, from the upcoming album of the same name dropping June 3 from Domino. The pensive and tense electro gives both momentum and a pulse for skater Chris Chann as he skates past perfect lawns, palm tree canopies and takes the high road through the desert while hitching a ride, Marty McFly style.
Check out the Jess Hundley video for the drive thrasher from LA's Zig Zags' new single, “Runaway” from their split 7″ with The Shrine, available now as part of Volcom Entertainment's vinyl club. This should be included on every mixtape for speedy getaways in the name of running away from all semblance of a problem.
And from the their split with Zig Zags, fellow Los Angeleans The Shrine lend a listen to their angst kicking “Spit In My Life” on Volcom Entertainment Vinyl Club. Railing against the everybody who has stabbed them in a back, raised their rent, and with an epic opening rant, this single is the best cure for any bad day.
Keeping the Volcolm 7″ splits and high spirits sailing, check out BMSR front dude Tom Fec as Tobacco, rocking the fuzz and zapped out electrics of “Lipstick Destroyer”. Keyboards get weird, and voices meld together into new effects laden tongues.
On the flipside from the Tobacco single, you get Jennifer Herrema's Black Bananas rockin' out with “Hey Rockin”. Like Rad Times Express adventures, this is Jennifer and the former-RTX-ers in full rock mode that confronts your favorite cool former rock heroes and accuses their jeans of not being ripped enough. All of these four aforementioned singles are available now through Volcolm Entertainment's Vinyl Club.
Jensen Sportag remixed Kisses' single “The Hardest Part” that kits out the heart to heart emotions with new synths. The Sportag Nashville duo of Austin and Elvis re-tricks Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson's independent LA romanticism with sounds like guitar-keyboard combinations that emanate from old school clock radio speakers. One imagines that Jensen Sportag reviewed hours of classic 'on-hold' telephone sounds and post-new age cassettes found in forgotten shoe boxes left in your parents closets. They key to this art is the craft of making a statement through understated sounds, where guitars melt into the tranquil synthesized indoor swimming pools, encased within a greenhouse's style of roof and walls. Kisses's new album Kids in LA comes out May 14 on Cascine in the States and on Splendour in the UK/EU. Also check out Jesse and Zinzi's handmade Aloha shirt and more on their revamped online store, in conjunction with Arrowhead Clothing.
Baltimore's Substantial dropped his Oddisee exec-produced Home is Where the Art Art Is last year on Mello Music Group, and dropped the instrumentals for free download here. With Oddisee at the controls, other beats and productions from Eric Lau, M-Phazes, Algorythm and more are also featured.
Austin four piece Gorgeous Hands gave a mudslinger for the lamestream set with “Desperate Mainstream”. The brothers Chris and Rusty Galis, Charlie Magnone, and Cullen Faulk bring out their biggest rock guns to take on the world, built as a progression from their previous incarnation as Magnificent Snails. Gorgeous Hands' debut album Tender will be available later in 2013.
Stripmall Architecture, aka the husband and wife duo team of Rebecca and Ryan Coseboom, give you the video for their single “Commuter” off their Suburban Reverb album, available June 18. FeatherFilm Production presents suburban day-to-day wildlife of taking a computer tube monitor for a walk to the business parks, by the freeway, before returning home and getting all done up in drag.
Ahead of the June 4 release of his full length debut Empire on Carpark Records, GRMLN's Yoodoo Park brings the bang-bang shoot-shoot polished garage of “Hand Pistol”. Because the noughties were spent pining after the lesser-appreciated 80s alt-underground; GRMLN's mastermind Yoodoo Park signals to take his Pacific Coast dreaming into the amplified definitions from grungier pop scenes that wore their hair down and long.
Rollin Hunt's album may be titled The Phony, but is in fact the genuine article. Slated for release April 30 from Moniker Records, the multimedia artist presents worlds of a plastic “Beautiful Park” and the haunting majesties of emptiness's must beautiful of hollows, “Castles of Nothing”. In short, this is nothing you want to miss. Listen closely.
Brooklyn's Dead Stars dropped their power pop single “Waste Away” ahead of their upcoming EP, available June 4 on the Radical Dads' established imprint, Uninhabitable Mansions. With the critics lauding every alt-90s band they can dream up on these dudes; the Stars use every big power chord available to match the vocal harmonics and dude attitudes that you would expect from a pop song with 'waste' in the title.
Also, Dandy Teru released his album Adventures this week on Ubiquity Records, and you can stream it here to enjoy the guest visits from friends like Count Bass D, Rita J, Moka Only, Tall Black Guy, Ty and more.
Check out the Intothewoods.tv video for Radiation City's “Foreign Bodies” with the Astoria-Megler Bridge in the background. This is a third in a series of videos to herald Fort George Brewery's Tender Loving Empire Northwest Pale Ale, and to raise a toast to Radiation City's forthcoming Animals In The Median, available May 21 from Tender Loving Empire.
Torches keep the beautiful women and cults vibe going in their video for “When You Gonna” off their EP, If The People Stare dropping May 6 via Bandcamp.
TEEN takes you to “Paradise”, on their new single from their upcoming Carpark Records EP Carolina. Ahead of the extend player's release on May 28, listen to the more psyched out sound from the group that asks the million dollar-Eddy Money question amid the organ sweeps; “is this your ticket to paradise?”
Hooded Fang's album Gravez comes out May 28 from Full Time Hobby / Daps Records, and we got the seizure inducing, “why you looking at me” call and response analogue-VHS-looking video from Andrew Olivares. Perfect for when you find yourself in a crowd, on the bus, or on the subway and wondering, “so many faces and they're all the same…”
Brooklyn, NY's Gracie gave the world the piano electronics of the Bleeder EP, available now from Small Plates Records. Lose yourself in the meaningful sentiments of “My Pet”, as the frontman army of one, Andrew Theodore Balasia follows up the For Summer EP with more feelings of endless warm afternoons, and even longer evenings.
We got the Four Tet Refix-remix of RocketNumberNine's “Rotunda” that keeps the drums steady while dropping any and every percussive element to get you and keep you on your toes and on the floor. RocketNumberNine's debut full-length, MeYouWeYou, will be available May 21 from Smalltown Supersound.
HoZac has signed Italian synth purveyors Schonwald, who give us some of the finest dark scanning Euro pop with their Mercurial single. As described in the a-side's apt title, listen as the song and the synths move in and out with sequences of liquid metallic motion as the distant noises stir strange feelings of industrial isolation (but in a good way).
Also listen to the Schonwald b-side, “Gemini” where you will find yourself responding to the calls of “no, no, no” with yes, yes, and a few more affirmations.
Watch The Creators Project video for Prism House's “Need You (Part 1)”, live with visuals that might give the faint of head future-flashbacks while being hurdled into the space-time continuum. Working from raw shots from Daniel Naman, Prism House visualist Matt O'Hare throws them into flashing, sliding and psyche transforming arrangements that further the global discussion on the coalescing of sound and vision in contemporary music arts. Prism House's Reflections EP is available now on Ceremony Recordings.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra covers Lindstrøm's “Rà-àkõ-st”, originally from the Norway artist's SmalHans album from Smalltown Supersound. As you enjoy UMO's organic and analogue treatment of the electro number, look for the Aussies coming to a town near you on a massive number of dates running through Fall.
Mister Lies album/pop-experiment Mowgli is out now on Lefse, and frontman Nick Zanca is about to embark on a tour with Giraffage in June through July on the above dates. Enter the dense jungle of new dances, patrolled by the wildest pack of wolves, too cool for the Kipling characters.
Mount Kimbie's album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth comes out May 28 from Warp and we have the warped digital color psychotropic visuals for the “Made To Stray” single from Leif Podhajsky.
Spill dead, dried rose petals along your apartment's corridors with the synth and syrup of “Soliloquy”, from Zomby's new album With Love available June 17 from 4AD.
Introduce yourself to Olympia, Washington’s Braxton/Palmer, who are dropping their Creeper single May 14 on Ceremony Recordings, but you can catch the “Creeper, Pt. II” single now. The track moves with electric organ mellow tones along with what may be sampled ghost audio captures from creatures that lurk the amid the Northwest rain and winds in alluring, but benign fashions.
Bondax presents the music video from their title track off their fresh Gold EP, an 'all gold everything' video of surreal, Goldfinger-esque absorptions. Bondax's full-length LP will be available this fall from Ultra Music.
Young Galaxy proudly presents the Luke McCutcheon video for “Pretty Boy” off the group's album Ultramarine available now from Paper Bag Records. Watch as the video plays with the song's concerns of the image conscious as disparate characters spin the semiotics around to reach out to each other both in a bar and at a church dance.
Smokey Robotic is made up of Seer, Father Dude, !llmind, and Konrad OldMoney who recently released the album MUSIUM and dropped their video for “Unlike Anyone” directed by Clara Aranovich. What you have here is almost like if you and your bros wrote a love note to your gal as a collective series of verses over some dope dance beat leanings.
Check out the Ossie remix of Little Boots' “Broken Record” for all your weekend techno needs.
OOFJ, the duo of Jenno Bjørnkjær and Katherine Mills Rymer (soundtrackers from Lars Von Trier's Meloncholia) bring their self-directed theater of the absurd video for “Pinstripe Suit”. Watch and get down with their weirdness, dabbed with beeping bass beats as their album Disco To Die To comes out April 30 from Clapyouclapme and Fake Diamond.
Keeping up with the controversy clothed Funk Volume mischief-makers, we got the rude ass, probably NSFW video from Jarren Benton for his track “Razor Blades and Steak Knives feat. Hemi” produced by Kato. In something that is sure to offend anyone and everyone with glee, you will find this and more shit disturbers off Jarren's upcoming album, My Grandmas Basement, dropping June 11 from the Funk Volume.
Phaseone drops the singles “Bianca” and “Arsenal Magnolia” ahead of the Brooklyn artist Andrew Jernigan's If I Tell U album from Williams Street dropping May 7. We begin with the early morning awakening qualities of “Bianca” that melt like the snow capped mountains in summer with the bleariness of sleepers crusted up in the eyes.
Phaseone's “Arsenal Magnolia” is the sound of a hippy-peacenik's dream where synthesizers play out what a war of floral arms might sound like.
Melbourne, Australia's Coloured Clocks is the project of James Wallace, who gives a listen to his band's special sort of psychedelia that is built out of the UK's long-documented history of rock hedonism. Taken from Wallace's recent album Nectarine, “Maze” starts with that guitar+electric+organ+maracas+lo-fi vocals that builds up with back up harmonizes and gets bigger until it crashes and burns upon itself. Stay tuned for word on Coloured Clocks' forthcoming album All Is Round, to be announced soon with further details.
Homeboy Sandman's album Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent is out now on Stones Throw, along with the Chris Antonelli sidewalk-tripping visuals for “Peace & Love”. Sandman drops the wisdom of geniuses like “Nefertiti and Tut” while the Eastern samples from producer EL RNTC steal the show.
From the Tokyo-based label flau ran by aus, aka Yasuhiko Fukuzono, dropped the single “I Love You” from experimental electronic artist Cuushe. The world over is engaged in an arms race to create the newest digital sensation, and Cuushe and fellow flau co-conspirators seem to be on the higher apex of the curve.
Paper Diamond's “In My Right Mind feat. Gavin Turek” lets a light ray of pop excess shine directly through your cerebellum from the digitally refined production off the Paragon EP available now from Elm and Oak Records.
Get sappy with Gold Fields' “You're Still Gone”, full of super sensi-beat tracks from their Black Sun album available on Astralwerks.
Grant Olney dropped his soul aching single, “Not From Body” from his second solo album, Hypnosis For Happiness, available July 2. From the artist who started Substandard and The Record Time, here are some of the most honest reflections that sound like they could only come from that brutal reckoning that can only occur in the early AM hours. Cry it out to yourself, reach inward, then outward as you lose yourself in Onley's refrain; “You can't plan every piece, but you can plan to make peace with that”.
Dutch Uncles dropped the Isaac Eastgate video for “Bellio,” off Out of Touch In The Wild available now on Memphis Industries. Get down to the Uncles' dance pop while gazing at Eastgate's visuals from the ocean floor.
With an upcoming Residency at Rockwood Music Hall every Wednesday in June, Yellowbirds bring you the Kara Smith stop-action animation video for “Young Men of Promise” off Songs From The Vanished Frontier, out May 28 from Royal Potato Family.
Mick Harvey's “I Wish That I Were A Stone” imagines being a gargoyle on a cathedral, mixes some heartbreak and a chorus refrain that has a little more subtlety and restraint than even Dylan's “Everybody Must Get Stoned” classic. Harvey's upcoming album, FOUR (Acts of Love) will be available June 11 from Mute.
Gather round and listen to the acoustic “tear this shit down” destroyer, “Brick X Brick”, the first single from Christopher Paul Stelling's forthcoming full-length False Cities. Dropping May 21 from Mecca Lecca/Dollartone, Stelling follows up his debut release Songs of Praise and Scorn with an aggressive energy rarely found within the stripped down folk stylings that sometimes confuse shit-kickers for porch chair rockers.
Keeping the earth grown vibes going, San Francisco painter, and all around do-gooder Joshua Coffy just released his album See You Again that features some of the folkiest ukulele you will hear all week or all weekend.
André Obin drops the title track video from his new LP The Arsonist, available from Sky Council Recordings. Directed by Aaron Eskeets, the rumbling beats are met with visuals that oscillate between digital enhanced overlays, analogue distortions and flashes of color.
Generationals' album Heza is out now on Polyvinyl Records, and their single “Put A Light On” gets the math-electro remix treatment from Teen Daze. Generationals are on tour now through June 28.
Wild Nothing are preparing their Empty Estate EP for release May 14 from Captured Tracks / Bella Union and dropped the Haley Atkins video for “A Dancing Shell” to get you out of yours.
And as you may or may not know, this is the Summer of Glasgow's o.g. heroes returning to the scene. First is the buzz surrounding The Pastel's return after over a decade's absence with the release of Slow Summits May 28 through Domino. Enjoy the feeling of spring in Glasgow, Scotland here with Blair Young's 16mm shot video for “Check My Heart”.
Also fellow Glaswegians Primal Scream return to the scene with the upcoming album More Light, dropping June 18 from INgrooves/Fontana. The notorious frontman Bobby Gillespie returns with Andrew Innes, producer David Holmes and rumors of a guest list that includes Kevin Shields, The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart, Robert Plant, and Jason Faulkner. Catch the video for “2013” that presents rope bondage, and anything to unsettle or remind you what year we're in, as you almost forget that these dudes have been doing this since long before 1983.
Watch the vague and illuminous Hana Tajima video for Port St. Willow’s beautiful “Soft Light Rush” from their album Holiday available from Downtown Records.
Chicago bros Twin Peaks brought some sunshine and keefy indica grass with their single “Stand in the Sand” off their debut Sunken, available July 9 from Autumn Tone Records. From the opening reverberated laughter, and the “oh yeah” echoplexed outbursts; “Stand in the Sand” and Sunken might be the deep-sea-treasure you want on your iPod-stereo all summer long.
Splashh's Errol 'Bonzo' Rainey video for “All I Wanna Do” brings you a bit of early summer and another early listen to a taste of the forthcoming Comfort album available June 4 from Kanine.
Bay Area's Creative Adult play Oakland tonight, Friday, April 26 at Eli's and May 4 at The Parkside in San Francisco. Hear what Ceremony and Trash Talk have been talking mad praise about with Adult's chug and shout, “Rushing Toward the Cemetary” from their Bulls In The Yard EP, dropping May 7 on Run For Cover Records.
Sonny & the Sunsets get weird, add a few more electronic background things to the mix and lend a listen to their new single “Green Blood”. From their forthcoming Antenna To The Afterworld, available June 11 from Polyvinyl, you get the weirdness of falling in love on unknown planets, strange beings, cyborgs, and space ship rides in search of “normal love”. The reflective qualities present on the Sunsets' previous album Longtime Companion show earthly traces here, as Sonny Smith, Kelley Stoltz, Ryan Browne, and Tahlia Harbour set forth to take on the Afterworlds of possibilities.
Farewell Republic's new album Young Effete Titans of Industry signals the group's new directions and new sounds for a new era, and is out now. Sivan and friends survey what happens and what remains through life's evolutions of entities and legacies listed in the one word titles of, “Bloomberg”, “Madison”, “What”, “Young”, “Oceans”, “Souls”, “Troy”, and “Lines”, that are presented and challenged with the group's non-linear approach. From the establishment of political bodies to the music industry; Farewell Republic takes on these titans with an attitude that never says good-bye or compromises, but embraces their own creative growths-always.
