Week in Pop
Dream pop shoegaze heroes The Veldt just released their new EP The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur through Schoolkids Records and celebrate with the art house video from neoillusionist NiiLartey De Osu for nocturnal daydreaming “One Day Out of Life”. Raleigh, NC heroes Daniel & twin brother Danny Chavis continue a narrative they helped found decades back where the lesser sung champs continue to create the most mind-moving & spirit freeing sounds. NiiLartey’s visuals connects the sound visually to scenes of kinetic motion where the transcendental nature of The Veldt’s aesthetic is met with b/w visuals of subway train sprints that ground the dream realms to the cold aspalt calling of reality.
Chastity Belt present the Carley Solether video for “Used to Spend” from their just released album I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone available now from Hardly Art. Our Seattle heroes rally together and head over to the racetrack while rocking northwest by southwest styles to feel like a real champ & have a really good time. The subdued delivery contrasts the jovial togetherness vibe with hints & allusions toward those times where we all sequester ourselves to our own respective self-imposed isolation & exile.
Currently touring with Tuxedo, Boulevards presented a look at the Dan Buyanovsky video for “Steady” where Jamil Rashad takes it back to prom night memories where the merits of exclusive partnerships are extolled via electrified nu-funk dishes. Shot in one incredible take, Rashad’s new single boomerangs back to the snazzy days where everything felt new & going steady was the bee’s knees.
Akron, Ohio’s Floco Torres just released the Shawty Slim video for “You!” featured off the forthcoming July 7 EP again. Torres talks about real life inspirations while offering up some good life advice that encourages you to get involved in real life motivation & contributions to make each day feel as flighty as this track.
Bookworms, oka Nicholas Dawson shared the cryptic menagerie of “Walled Garden” featured off the forthcoming Appropriation Loops (A Love Story) available June 16 from Break World Records. A secret garden appears like a world of strange & alluring wonders that beckon like a mysterious cavern of many, many spiraling corridors.
Kim Free offered up a listen to the title flagship song off the upcoming EP Goth Blues and Other Hues. The mix of keys & strings highlights Kim’s voice that sings out like a piece of musical theater set to the pop arrangements demanded by today’s audience. Kim Free entertains modern & classical entertainment fusions while composing captivating music that folks from all sections of the world will respond to according to their own emotional/personal/spiritual compositions.
Dubai by NYC’s Julian Lamadrid offers up sentiments of new found sensations & more on “New Found Love”. Coming of age notions & renewed realizations of feeling are illustrated as fresh as the morning’s dew.
Philly’s own RFA dropped the jam “Suzie Lee” to keep your DIY evening pop party raging. This is the song to enjoy after everyone else has left the venue as RFA takes the headline center stage & drops a rage for the people to rock to (way past the hours of a reasonable bedtime).
Ladi6 shared the title track off her just released Royal Blue 3000 EP available June 2 from Question Music that offers up lush & restrained production elements for lazy afternoons. “Royal Blue” features Ladi6 presenting reflections of regal reckoning & desires that are expressed in an understated electronic blues & rhythms.
Hollow Everdaze dropped the Alex McLaren animated & edited video for the fresh new single “Cartoons”. Found off the upcoming album of the same name available June 23 from Deaf Ambitions; the Aussie band celebrates the eye-catching everything that exists in our everyday environments that sometimes seemed straight out of a Saturday morning special.
Queens’ own You Bred Raptors? dropped some dramatic instrumentals with the track “Smithereens” that blooms into some dramatic proportions featured off their upcoming album International Genetics available June 23.
Nashville’s *repeat repeat just signed with Dangerbird Records delivering a view of the Jason Lee Denton & Steve Voss of Solar Cabin Studios video for “Plugged In”. Performance video art is combined with colorful images of bubbly spheres that adds to the pop art motif at work.
With word of summer tour dates with Mt. Joy, Trevor Sensor delivered a listen to the passionate title track featured off the upcoming album debut Andy Warhol’s Dream available June 16 from Jagjaguwar. Sensor sets sights sailing for the grandest sorts of pop music arrangements that blends rough & rugged vocal executions with a taste of the grandiose.
Berlin duo 2 by bukowski followed up 2005’s Yzordderex with a listen to the singles “Hot Summer” & “Beast’s Breath” that are just the beginning of a productive year for the twosome. Available now from Inner Ear, “Hot Summer” features vocals from Greek actress/pop star Kid Moxie that exudes the exuberance, emotions & anticipation that revolves around the heat of a summer to remember. “Beast’s Breath” finds Achilles Charmpilas & George Malamidis distilling the atmospheres of flame, smoke & soot that captures the concept of containing the exhalation from a dragon in a musical jar.
Bobby Love welcomes you to bask in the stillness & subtle silence of the evening on the evocative single “Still” ft. Ben Stevenson that offers up some understated emotions & essences for your weekend dance parties.
Dan Croll shared some sentiments about coming of age & the continuum of behaving good & not-so-good with the energetic & effervescent “Bad Boy” featured off the Emerging Adulthood album available July 21 from Kobalt Music Recordings / Communion Records.
Sarah Chernoff of Superhumanoids is readying the album Warm Nights for August 15 & provided a look & listen with the performance video for “Markings On You” that features Chernoff in her creative & inspired element. Studio views of vocal takes in between the progressions of the keys & vibes collect together to make for an all around evocative occasion.
Aquaserge, featuring personnel from Stereolab, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Acid Mothers Temple & Tame Impala recently dropped their album Laisse ça être via Crammed Discs & offered us up a visual look at the Amanda Robles et Mathieu Salabura video for “Tour du monde”. Get ready to tour all the places in the world that you have always wanted to explore while the group busts out some smart & timeless arrangements to soundtrack your next jet-setting/world tour excursion.
Daktyl has made the jump from Mad Decent to Ninja Tune’s Counter Records for the upcoming EP The Act of Hesitation available June 20 & shared the title track that features Krrum. The London by way of Los Angeles artist has found the artist reinventing his own approaches to the composition craft that offers up ambient song textures that mixes emotions of reluctances with a whole lotta atmosphere.
Venice beach duo EXES followded up last year’s The Art of Saying Goodbye EP with a listen to “Cain” that deals with chances missed & passed in evocative & expressive manners.
