Can Joann didn't actually break up, as previously reported here, when I posted their oldish track "Indecision's Way." The Chapel Hill-based band has reemerged on Bandcamp, where you can buy their new release for any price. It's only a 6-tracker, but it's promising stuff. Here's "Weapon." Can Joann - "Weapon" Buy Second Language on Bandcamp Can Joann on MySpace
It's easily the best track on her forthcoming album, and now "Dancing On My Own" gets a sweet video, set in a dance club, interspersed with appropriately solo shots of Robyn at the mic and the dude in question making out with his new "friend." For some reason it reminds me of an Enrique Iglesias video, but that's cool! Body Talk Pt. 1 comes out on June 15, and Pts. 2 and 3 will also be released this year. Preorder Body Talk Pt. 1 from Amazon Robyn on [...]
That's "Alive!," people, not "Alive," as indicated by this serious but energetic new video where Ms. Goldfrapp plays a kind of cult leader/exercise class instructor while performing one of her most nostalgic and danceable tracks to date from an album of same–– Head First , which came out in March. Buy Head First on Goldfrapp on MySpace
Photo by Laurent Mellet This song comes from Katell Keineg's fourth album, At the Mermaid Parade , but this Brittany-born, Welsh-raised, Ireland- and New York-dwelling songwriter is news to my ears. This song is groovy and has some pretty hilarious lyrics, and really stands out on the album. While the rest of the songs are witty and intriguing, none really packs the punch of this one, partly thanks to the bass. Katell Keineg - "World Of Sex" Buy [...]
I usually leave the remixes up to RCRD LBL and Sheena Beaston , but this is a great one, and reminds me of Modeselektor's "Hasir." Gold Panda is a Ghostly act from the UK that will soon be embarking on a US tour with HEALTH and Indian Jewelry. Their You EP, featuring remixes and originals, will be released on June 15. Seams is also from the U.K. and has a pretty song called "Nightcycles" that you can listen to here , on Bandcamp, along with its remixes. Gold [...]
The Sight Below's MySpace tagline is "lonely is the new dance party," but if lonely is the way this act describes his minimal electronic tunes, it sounds good to me. The Sight Below is a solo outfit based in Seattle by a guy who is OK with having his picture taken but not with revealing his given name. He's released two 2008 EPs on Ghostly and has a new full-length on the label, released on April 6, called It All Falls Apart . This track also appears on the double CD Ghostly comp Horizon Line/Ghostly By [...]
A fun video from Los Angeles duo the Bitters, whom Gorilla vs. Bear rightly calls underrated (or perhaps just underknown?) I introduced The Bitters here a few weeks ago with the track "No Anchor," which is still on loop in my head. Check it out if you haven't already. Buy East General from Mexican Summer The Bitters on MySpace [ Via Gorilla vs. Bear]
The first single off Solvent's fifth album (third new-material, non-remix release) employs Jason Amm's soothing, fuzzy vocals and his typical questing, outerspatial analog synths. Amm is the resident analog maestro at Ghostly International, and now works exclusively for the label (he started on Morr Music). Subject to Shift might confuse fans; it's his greatest departure from the old school analog sounds of his early work, which had more in common with Kraftwerk than Jarre. But his production sounds so modern and fresh on this record that it's easy to get over your nostalgia for nostalgia and just dig [...]
This lovely song and video is a pretty fine introduction to Le Loup, a dizzying, big-is-beautiful rock band from Washington, D.C. If the video looks familiar that's because it's directed by Matthew Lessner of " Stillness is the Move ." (Lessner's also done videos for Local Natives, Foreign Born and others.) Le Loup's Family came out in September 2009 on Hardly Art . Le Loup on MySpace Buy Family on
More white/black costumery and flashing lights for Florence's latest video for the most bombastic and arguably best track off Lungs . There's a sea anemone of a dress, lots of flailing tall-girl arms and, as befalls many of her videos, not enough action or story. Good thing the track still stands up. [ Via ] Florence and the Machine on MySpace Buy Lungs on
This lovely and strange video, directed by Tracemaker , comes from Quadron, a Hovedstaden, Denmark-based electronic duo consisting of Coco (vocals) and Robin (boards). Their album Quadron came out on March 23 in the US on Plug Research ( Flying Lotus , Daedalus ) after the 2009 release Quadron in Denmark caught the attention of Stateside DJs. For fans of Lykke Li. Quadron on MySpace Buy Quadron on
The Acorn was a surprising find and a welcome one. My ear-world has been dominated by electronica lately, so it was really exciting to come around this folk rock group that verily knows how to rock. The band is a fivesome from Ottawa, Canada, and has toured with the likes of Great Lake Swimmers, Ohbijou and Timbre Timbre, among others. They recorded the album from which "I Made the Law" comes at a remote cottage in Northern Quebec (see perhaps: Margaret Atwood's second novel "Surfacing.") The album, the band's third (they've been growing, evolving, recording and touring for several years), [...]
Team Ghost flits between heavy shoe-gazing rock and twinkling electronics-driven tracks. "Echoes" falls in the latter category, and it's sticky and pointed despite being only 2:49 in length. The Paris-based group have an EP called You Never Did Anything Wrong to Me, which was released on April 26 on Sonic Cathedral . Team Ghost - "Echoes" Team Ghost on MySpace Buy You Never Did Anything Wrong to Me on
Yeah, I know, I might as well just rename this blog Lissieville, but I just learned it's six months since my first Lissie post , back when only a couple of music blogs were paying undivided attention to her. Her moment has come! After watching an inspiring interview with the L.A.-based acoustic-turned-electric guitarist, I came across several breathtaking live video performances of "When I'm Alone," her strongest and most refreshing song to date, and couldn't help but post it. Lissie will be touring Europe for much of the summer, and will make two appearances at Lilith [...]
In celebration of the revival of all things early '60s, Beyoncé's "Why Don't You Love Me?" is packaged in this period piece of a video with B. as a hotpants-clad, car-fixing, slick (then downward-streaming) eyeliner-sporting housewife named B.B. Homemaker. Could the narrative be based on reality? Nah. It's another manifesto for the ladies. Directed by Melina and Bee Z.
This New Jersey garage-meets-surf duo is off to a good start with their self-titled EP, featuring this slow-building but melodic and brutish song "Sitting Here." There's more searching than finding in this song, and it feels more serious than the other three tracks in the set––a little more content to just drop hints, which the other three tracks might flesh out further, and in the process sound like first-album Wolf Parade. There's nothing wrong with that! Slow Animal - "Sitting Here" Slow Animal on MySpace
Photo by Victor Castro Brooklyn's Twin Sister, a fivesome, make a holy organized mess of music: this one song contains enough remnants to make several songs, but instead the band makes a beautifully cohesive single song out of all its elements. It's highly expressive rock that, thanks in part to Andrea Estella's lead vocals, recalls other contemporaries like My Brightest Diamond and Electrelane. The band releases an EP, Color Your Life , on May 28, and is touring with Bear in Heaven this summer. [...]
Montreal duo Washed Hands have an absurdly hard-to-find Internet presence and a very good debut album called Where the Sun Rains , which is available on the label Lebanon, Mass. at a nice price of name-your-price. Like Studio, but with a far more expansive atmosphere and more emotional, delicate vocal details, Washed Hands throw in Prince samples, balearic patterns, the odd phlanged guitar and joyous drum machines to create an album of sprawling, chilled-out summer electronica. Washed Hands - "Lachine Canal (I'm On My Way)" [...]
Bethany Cosentino's familiar-looking man friend is the punchline of this video, directed by Pete Ohs , not only for prancing around Southern California beaches with the Best Coast frontwoman as the "you" in the song's title, but for choosing In N Out Burger over another, more obvious fast-food choice. Best Coast on MySpace [ Via Best Coast's blog]
Toronto's the Bitters, Gorilla vs. Bear tells me, were one of the standouts at SXSW, and it's all clear from this track "No Anchor," from the band's debut, East General , which comes out in May on the estimable label Mexican Summer , because the song has this murky, brooding slow verse and suddenly key-shifting and bumping chorus (a few other tracks have a similar composition trick going for them). I'm really excited that bands like the Bitters, Mr. Dream , the Dum Dum Girls and U.S. Girls around. There are more, for [...]
Lizzyville
Sleigh Bells - Demons (Official Music Video)
The Rains of Castamere by The National
A-Trak & Dillon Francis - "Money Makin'" (Official Video)
DIIV "How Long Have You Known?" (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
Nas - Daughters
Monday Music – 28 May 2012
Bison - Quill
