Week in Pop
The I.L.Y’s presented the world with the single “I Love You Man” featured off their upcoming Bodyguard album available June 8 from Castle Face. From the talents of your heroes & ours Zach Hill & Andy Morin; the classic expression of exhibiting some old fashioned brotherly love is turned into a hyper electric ballad of psych pop savagery.
Maine’s Alexa Joan Rae makes music under the moniker of PLEXXAGLASS that tackles reflections of the past with piano chords that careen toward an imminent future. Recording with Kevin Billingslea at The Halo Studio in Portland, Maine; Alexa breaks through the plexiglass barriers with a raw voice full of purpose & passion that pours through in a blend of percussive keys that allude to a catharsis that comes out of the reckoning & re-commitment to the self & the possibility of a beautiful new tomorrow.
Sharkmuffin just released the new album Tsuki today from Little Dickman Records & we have the ultra-crunchy motorbike rallying single “Leather Gloves”. Our champions fuse their righteous heavy-chords with the dreamier side of sounds where the mean attitudes is met with an ethereal atmosphere that forever makes Sharkmuffin one of our favorite fascinations for all time.
Akron, OH emcee Floco Torres dropped the new single “You!” that features some instant enlightenment to wake up your world featured off the upcoming July 7 slated again EP. Stories & instances showcase real-life paradigms about all the ways we play ourselves where the moral & lesson of the sunny & enlightened track all comes around again to you. 2017 artist to watch.
Swoon Lake brought the evocative blossoming essences heard on the moving single “Bloom” that floats gently along the sky-dye cast seas. Found off the forthcoming self-titled EP available May 26 from Spirit House, Brooklyn’s Melodie Stancato, Lucinda Hearn& Paul Weintrob connect through a knowing sense of musical bonds that shines in a sound that levitates in airs.
Julian Jasper’s debut EP is available today from the good folks at Misra Records & we have a listen to the flower-field dreaming jam “In the Lilacs”. This is an electric-groover for anyone that desires to rest in the comforts of nature surrounded by beds of floral compansionship beneath the sun, moon & a sky full of planets & shining stars.
Philly’s Minka dropped the single “Gravity” that finds the quartet entertaining an art-pop anthem dedicated to the laws of inertia that would possibly get a nod of approval from David Byrne. The song deals with the various laws of physics & other earth science marvels that exist all around us, within us & have an impact on our everyday lives.
Pattern Language announced the mini-album Total Squaresville available June 16 from Happy Robots Records & we have the first single “By Time We Get There” that works in motorik & mysterious ways & electronic patterns. Textures of auto-bahn exhiliration are made by Frain from The Giranimals where the feelings of that Boulder, Colorado mile-high-club life are expressed in the altitudes & stratospheres that are embarked upon.
Take in the Georgio Barber video for “Californian Light” featured on the forthcoming new Childhood album Universal High available July 28 from Marathon Artists. The feeling of perpetual light from the western shores of the pacific glows in the super snazzy style of presence delivery rocked by the super cool Ben Romans-Hopcraft who turns that California dreaming aesthetic into a full on lifestyle.
B BOYS gifted the world with the new sparky & spunky single “Walking” from the forthcoming album Dada from Captured Tracks available June 16. The Brooklyn group reclaims the efficient aesthetics of succinctly employed functions of minimalism to make some of the most entertaining DIY tunes to be replayed ad infinitum.
Lando Chill announced the new album The Boy Who Spoke To The Wind available June 23 from Mello Music & delivered the liberating single of assertion & self-actualization on “Break Them Shackles”. Lando brings relaxing eastward leaning production courtesy of Triceratop & The Lasso that illustrates an artist finding his voice, style & presence that comes at the listener with a determination that is not pandering to anyone or anything but anything Lando Chill desires to be.
Take in the real identity dysphoria with Monogold’s “Naked” video from the band & Dana Gerolimatos featured off the Yolk EP from Chill Mega Chill. This is the look/visage of the day to day identity clash where obfuscation becomes a cause for pursued genuine interaction along with other events.
Lea Porcelain provided the memory trades heard on the nostalgia thought trail streams of “Remember” featured off the forthcoming debut album Hymns To The Night available June 16. The feeling of being flood with a thousand-plus feels can be found here where the remembrances of intimate expressions are conveyed through synths that stir up a cause for a momentary, reflective pause.
Monogem shared the title track single from the forthcoming 100% EP available May 19 that questions a loved one’s invested loyalty over a blanket of sparkling keys & chords. The atmospheres feel like those instances when time as a concept sort of disappears as something that seems outside of you & abstract like an out of body experience.
Playing San Francisco’s Thee Parkside May 20, we bring you Wilding’s “Ghost Deer” video that mixes space-craft takeoffs & the band’s own arty performance footage that mixes well with the ethereal & effects layers of welcomed noise. Find this and other gems on their Secular Music EP.
The Stevenson Ranch Davidians dropped the psych-stock film video montage visuals for their single “Holy Life” featured off their upcoming album Amerikana from Picture in My Ear Records. Trips through dance instructional videos from yesterday’s square-dance parties and other related items are presented as the wholesome view of the down-home vintage Americana good life as through a flanging channel of an old radio.
The Foreign Resort offered up fans the opportunity to make a video for their single “She is Lost” featured in the following visualized request. Available now via bandcamp, the Copenhagen group revels in all those moody electro-chords & synths that simulate the sensation of an ideal evening with the shades discreetly drawn to last for all time.
NEIL. presented the Michele Scarpulla & Gian Paolo Serna video for “Blank Sheet” featured off the Black Flowers album that deals with tabula rasa notions & more through a poetic form of emotive dissonance. New beginnings & fresh minds are tested with a kind of romantic passion that will strike with a relentless fury.
Art Feynman presented us with a listen to the super psych-party of “Feeling Good About Feeling Good” featured off the upcoming album Blast Off Through the Wicker available July 14 from Western Vinyl. Feynman invites all the good feels to flow together in a congress of adulation & elated sentiments that are certain to heighten your stratosphere.
Originally recorded in 1980 at Longview Farms Studio loated at N. Brookfield, Massachusetts; we give you a listen to Billy Stoner’s songs “Lookout Mountain” (written about his Tennessee hometown) & “River Gang” off the forthcoming self-titled available June 16 from Team Love Records. Recorded with Jemima James & Arlo Guthrie Band (Shenandoah); Billy’s The Outlaw Sessions offer up a view & listen about a life spent out on the rough roads of life’s highways & crossroads.
Milwaukee-based No No Yeah Okay brought the big bouncing single “What Can I Say” featured off their upcoming Cabal EP. Hyper electric tones & elements collect together to make something for midnight dance parties & clandestine soirees everywhere.
Billy Stoner’s song “River Gang” strums along with chain-gang tales about law, order & anecdotes from all kinds of ill-fated border crossings. Stories of saints, pushers, adventurers, chancers & more collect in a song about outlaws & the good times enjoyed.
Introducing PANXING via the ambient work “Reveal” that offers up synth revelations that create a feel of both imagined & real spaces for pensive dwelling. Featured off the forthcoming Anti gone release available June 1, PANXING creates a soundtrack to create some new moods to add to the thought zone of your inner sanctum/home sanctuary.
MXMS delivered the single “I Revenge” that offers up what happens when you realize your ex was a cheater all along. Through earnest & electronic expressions of resonating fervence & fist-clenched truths, Ariel Levitan & Jeremy Dawson (fka Shiny Toy Guns) shared the following introduction to the single with the following:
This is our interpretation of a simple caught your partner cheating moment. Imagine the exact second when you find the emails, the DMs…the lies and the months and years unfold into a numbing scream and you react.
