The Walkmen released another song off their upcoming Heaven today. Off the heels of their title track , "We Can't Be Beat" is all about the necessity of the other side of perfection, and danger in not planning for and accommodating failure along the way (" Golden dreams all lose their glow") . It starts off like a lullaby, with Hamilton Leithause's recognizable warble over leisurely-picked strings before reaching a Western dirt-kicked gallop into the sunset, like a man who's lived through his convictions. Their follow-up to Lisbon is out May 29.
There's a captivating hypocrisy to the culture of youth that we can't escape from, and often indulge in. We speak in extremes, of the best nights and the worst days; of great hopes and of bad dreams. We drink in excess, and love in fragments. We denounce ignorance, and devour kindness, like a sickness, like a plague. We stargaze and we legitimize, we get stuck and we leave behind. We encounter new faces but fall into old habits. We're exhausted by possibility, and get restless in the hustle. We fuck it all up, and then make our peace. We grow, and we slide. [...]
If you don’t connect with the Beastie Boy’s albums, you fall under one of two categories: 1. You are one of those people who proclaims loudly that you are in search of “high art,” while secretly you crank the volume when “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” comes on the radio. 2. You have no sense of rhythm whatsoever and words such as “inappropriate” escape your mouth on a regular basis. The Beastie’s music doesn’t need to sacrifice fun to make art and doesn’t need to sacrifice art to make fun. Now that this seemingly lighthearted, simple notion comes [...]
Originally hailing from Chicago, Kathryn Bint is the woman behind One Little Plane, who's now based in London. She's got some heavy-hitters on her side, as her album was produced by Four Tet, with Colin Greenwood of Radiohead supporting on multiple tracks. Greenwood's resonant bass line on "Hold You Down" is the stable grounding force beneath Bint's brittle vocals that meander about in slow circles, waiting for the still-fresh emotions to settle into focus, like falling petals to the ground. Look for her debut Into The Trees out on Four Tet's label, Text, early next week.
Kindness's debut World, You Need A Change Of Mind is out next week and features a cover of The Replacements' "Swingin' Party," off their 1985 album Tim. The Replacements' original is unfiltered reflection, a self-critical confession of shortcomings lazily lost in afternoon thought. Paul Westerberg's strained vocals are resigned to incurred pain, and warm guitar lines only highlight the apathetic opening line " Bring your own lampshade, somewhere there's a party " that's bereft of solutions to a life he relentlessly wakes to. Its bit of [...]
As a music writer, the first instinct is to compare a surfacing artist to a band with an already established sound. When listening to Bear Attack’s EP Shine , I am faced with the difficulty of trying to find any kind of accurate comparison. The synths and drumbeat on opening track “Mother” are reminiscent of post- OK Computer Radiohead; “Exit Hymn,” with the LA rain caught on tape and way it grows and swells to an expansive peak could be compared to Sigur Ros; and one can say the powerful, lonely love song “August” has its roots in the sounds of [...]
If you missed the Boss last week, here’s a taste of what Bruce Springsteen might sound like if he’d grown up with a modular synth instead of a fender six-string. Josh Eustis, still operating under the Telefon Tel Aviv sobriquet, just dropped an old cover of “I’m On Fire.” No stranger to the remix realm, Eustis’ recording comes from the summer of 2009, mere months after the death of his longtime bandmate and collaborator Charles Cooper. With a reputation for dynamic album-to-album changes, the duo’s three full-length releases colored the early 2000s electronica scene with gentle breakbeat thunder and lavish ambient skies. Cooper’s [...]
INGRID , new record label formed out of Swedish pop giants recently put out a compilation vinyl for Record Store Day. Among the crew is Lykke Li, whose contribution "Come Near" is a maze of a song, furiously turning corner after corner in a darkened funhouse lined with mirrors and mirages. Her distinct vocals are piercing as ever, an echo through the dark that keeps you searching for the source of the chants, leaving you to wonder if you're starting to lose it, like the Cheshire Cat you keep coming back for, burn after burn. Check out her track below, and [...]
Raised in small-town Pennsylvania, Daughn Gibson grew up as a self-proclaimed fan of loud music before piquing an interest in the kind of storytelling found in country music during his many days on the open road while he worked as a truck driver, with radio as his only companion. Country music, a genre that gets mostly ignored in the world of music blogs for its purported simpleness and decidedly uncool suburban air actually has its share of virtues - for one, songwriting often built upon character sketches and the details in the ordinary to tell its story. It may not [...]
Twin Shadow is the alter-ego of George Lewis Jr., who channels his inner Prince on the cover of his upcoming release, Confess . The first track off the album arrives in the dusty spotlight of fog-bombed, euphoric New Wave glory. Distorted guitars and glowing synths foster an exhilarating breeze beneath the anticipatory fireworks skyline that bed even-keeled vocals through the resistant repetition of " I can't get to your heart, " which reaches its tipping point in the final arc. Kicked off by the assertion " I'm not trying to make you cry ," the chest-baring final minute finds [...]
Metal is alive and well. A culture of heavy riffs blasted through huge stacks has become the stuff of legend and cultish fandom. Adult Swim’s joyful lampooning and a new exhibit at the Grammy Museum featuring metal icons serve as proof to the genre’s enduring magneticism. Nevert heless, for a generation weaned into music on the lukewarm breast milk of indie rock, Metal is the stuff of school shooters and goths. Growling vox, headbanging and too-fast licks are so un-hip for those “in the know.” But the metalheads have a secret. Beyond the mainstream rock and overused synths, there’s a beast lurking, waiting [...]
Usher released another track off his upcoming Looking For Myself , and nearly fifteen years after "Nice & Slow," the falsetto of Bieber's mentor still melts like creamy, salted European butter. The man who had us crooning things we didn't know about as overzealous tweens (" It's 7 o'clock on the dot, I'm in my drop top cruisin' the streets " after your mom picked you up from baseball practice with Chicken McNuggets - the seasonal Monopoly variety, no less) can pull off vunlerable desire and control with the seamless practice of seasoned R&B royalty. With an assist from Rick Ross [...]
Happy Birthday John Tejada! The L.A.-based deep house producer, DJ and tumultuous Taurus celebrated last Saturday with a special appearance at underground house series Bottomfloor. Because not every fan of Tejada’s long unfolding forays into ambient and abyssal rhythms could fit into the red-lit loft, the prolific producer dropped a new mixtape, Beacons . Custom cut with visuals by UK graphic engineer Coco Reel, Beacons is an hour of strobing electronica. Broad and winding, Tejada lines up favorite tracks in a panoply of sound. Lush tracks like The Orb’s “Out Of Body Experience” merge with pulsing minimalist numbers from Ony Ayhun and Biosphere. [...]
This morning, wake up to the warm space waves of Mr. Beck Hanson. Never an artist to stick to any certain genre, Beck's latest work "I Only Have Eyes For You", a cover of The Flamingos, finds the artist giving one of his best crooner performances to date. Dainty pianos provide the sparse back drop to Beck's heart breaking and velvet vocals that ebb and flow as they travel through the warm atmosphere. Spacey "she-bop she-bops" add an incredibly charming element to the tune that all lead into the sky-rocketing falsetto chorus. Enjoy your Sunday.
The music of St. Vincent always seems to find a way to walk the line between enchanted and menacing. However, on her newest Record Store Day track, "Krokodil" St. Vincent forgoes that whole "enchanted" thing and sets her sites towards straight-up ferocious sludge. And of course, the inundation of grime suits her (hell, what wouldn't suit her!?). From the get go, "Krokodil" is drums full steam ahead with twisted guitar lines that warp right around Clark's stretched out, whiplash vocals. The track is unforgiving, leaving you with no time to catch your breath. However, amidst the [...]
When I was a kid, I always hated mornings. I don't envy my mother, who went through the same routine of dragging me out of bed for the better part of my former years, or my brothers, who took to watering me like a dying plant (I once remember a Super Soaker) in the days we were shuffled off to school together, dependent on me, the weakest morning link. It reached a point, a phase I guess you could call it, when I'd go to bed in my clothes for the following day, hoping to catch all the zzz's I [...]
Ghostly choruses, snap beats, subdued and seductive vocals with low-pitch monster backing tracks? You guessed it, The Great White North ’s finest “Future Pop” duo Purity Ring has come-a-callin’ again with the lead single off their full length debut Shrines . “Obedear” is the first offering from the July 24 release. If you enjoyed the Purity Ring of summer past this slinky little ditty is more of the same. Take a peek at the future with this auto-tuned peep show of Canadian synthetic delight. If Purity Ring is good to their word and this future pop is a portent of things to [...]
Ghostly choruses, snap beats, subdued and seductive vocals with low-pitch monster backing tracks? You guessed it, The Great White North ’s finest “Future Pop” duo Purity Ring has come-a-callin’ again with the lead single off their full length debut Shrines . “Obedear” is the first offering from the July 24 release. If you enjoyed the Purity Ring of summer past this slinky little ditty is more of the same. Take a peek at the future with this auto-tuned peep show of Canadian synthetic delight. If Purity Ring is good to their word and this future pop is a portent of things to [...]
Blackbird Blackbird is back with more of his trop-pop (that's right) that's pretty upfront with its intentions with a title like "Waikiki." It's glassy and warm, and over before you know it (there's a joke here...), a modern-day sun dance that's needed with the return of this rain here in Los Angeles. He'll be out with a new EP later this year, Boracay Planet , but check out the track below.
Beach House put out colored vinyl "Lazuli" for Record Store Day last week, and the b-side is non-album track "Equal Mind" that won't be included with the release of Bloom next month. You can kind of hear how it doesn't quite fit with the others , but it's still Beach House, and it still transports you out of the moment. The verses build on Victoria Legrand's familiar vocals, but heads towards a repetitive chorus that doesn't feel fully fleshed out, despite warm guitar lines and an emotional core that cuts through words like "silhouette" and "accident." [...]
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