Night-People label head Shawn Reed put together a mix of burnt and toasted melodies for a Valentine's mixtape farm we posted for the Hallmark gods. The haunted, under-stated tunes of Terror Bird didn't appear alongside the likes of 70s Italo-new wavers Krisma (Chrisma), nor were they sidled up to the blushing guitar arpeggios of 70s rock balladry by the Go-Betweens, or even next to the not-70s neo-psych perfection of Broadcast. But they could have, with music that sounds like it was lifted from a deep-sixed vinyl vault with the dust barely brushed off.
Vancouver-based husband-wife duo Nikki Never and Jeremiah Haywood crafted their debut album Human Culture in the outsider pop tradition but their album's 14 tunes also fit into a contemporary conversation about carefully wrought keyboard tunes that includes Beach House and Zola Jesus. (Though this material is 85% more rockin' than the former and 850% less goth than Ms. Nika Jesus.)
A piano drives much of the album's melodic heft, and the two leaked tracks are no exception:
