It is the seasick nostalgia of our childhoods that make these memories both faded and brilliant. Echoing in us like a burned Polaroid, these vignettes still call us to higher purpose, a memory of a self that both does and doesn't still exist. Brooklyn's Tiny Victories bridge easily this type of gap between the muddied reverb of their arrangements and the top-of-the-room choruses that build the
Playful drums and friscalating backing vocals lay the groundwork for Mike O'Neill's latest single, "Henry". The chorus is empty and full at once, layers upon layers of woozy "doos" acting as the hook in place of the hook that isn't totally there. Replay, given "Henry" is only two-and-half minutes long, proves a satisfying ride, lolling down the back of a simple piano progression and the
Perhaps being forced by your housemate to listen to Enya unironically for the past three months makes a person susceptible to the voice and melodies of Burning Hearts singer, Jessika Rapo. A Finnish duo turned four-piece, Rapo merges her dulcet voice with the arrhythmiatic key signature changes from drummer, Henry Ojala. "Burn Burn Burn" opens with haunting scarcity, a sparse arrangement and
LA's electricity and groundwater must have trace elements of neon in it. For anyone who enjoyed M83's most recent (or, hell, any) effort, Superhumanoids' "Geri" has some of the same DNA. The synths hum and the male-female vocal interplay sounds like a slow motion dribble hand-off between two sleek, languid guards. The forecast calls for something permanently dark, rife with glowing electronics
This review runs live, first and in color at the Bowery Presents' House List blog. The first time I saw John Roderick was with his full band, the Long Winters, at a now-defunct East L.A. venue back in 2008. He was in rock-star mode with long hair and a loud maroon jacket, and he never took off his sunglasses. But on Saturday night, a mellower version, perhaps a more authentic Roderick,
We need vanishing points. Those dots on the horizon, the end of a long and tragic orthogonal, represent some better bit of accomplishment, some better vision of the future. Of course, all things being relative, we never arrive there exactly. We move forward, a halting and bizarre procession, but we never capture those lost black dots at the edge of what we can see. There emerge new ones. We
Loney Dear mastermind Emil Svanagen seems to get a lot of mileage out of his project's name almost sounding like the word "lonely". This was particularly problematic in 2006 when the band's first LP broke into the hearts and minds of listeners with an ear for well-crafted bedroom pop, occasionally mistaking his name in confluence with his sound as "Lonely Dear". On latest promotional single, "
For a second the glittering electronics offer a vivid flashback to Animal Collective's "My Girls". It's a dream, Kishi Bashi stuttering a bit to turn over the engine on the bizarre, colliding pop arrangement of stunning single, "It All Began With A Burst". But what begins with fits and starts - at first, synth loops and hand claps, vocal yelps and melody all tuning against each other like a
It's important to build part of your first single around a falsehood, an adolescent insult. Harriet and slamming first single, "I Slept With All Your Mothers" is neither as graphic nor as illicit as the title and central lyric let on. The song pitches either a tragic brand of anti-heroism ("I'm sorry I let the gas run out") or the weirdest love song in history ("I slept with all your mothers/ I
A suburban ethos proves appropriate for Capybara's "Neighbor Crimes", a certain intimacy mixed with a critical distance. Sounding like a UB40 demo taken out to the garage and then shot up in the sky, ripping guitars erupt over a lullabye, upstroke melody. The song focuses on three big guitar chords, alternately setting them against a glittering arrangement of reverbated pop and pulling them out
There are a few Bradley Oberhofers on the cusp of the release of his debut full length album. There was the college student and label intern, so absurdly precocious that his demo songs demanded attention. The cuts were organized cacophony, colliding time signatures and arrangement shifts all thrown against Oberhofer's trademark, tweaking caterwaul. He had just moved from Tacoma, Washington and
Calls for help have never sounded so good or so insincere. Australia's Jagwar Ma recently released "Come Save Me", an effervescent and crushing treatise on unrequited love, yet managing to never sound totally bent or broken. If the heartbreak remains on-going, "Come Save Me" sounds more like an invitation than a document of surrender. The sound is thrown back in that way that made Cults so
Paying only cursory attention to the Los Angeles music scene has its benefits. The murky resplendence (see what happened there) of Cillie Barnes came to our attention due to her being sandwiched between LESANDS and PAPA, two bands we like a lot who don't care much for lower-case letters, on a bill at the Satellite in Silverlake next Saturday. Barnes is a face that faux-vintage photographs were
Porcelain Raft is sneaking up on everyone and no one with his upcoming album, Strange Weekend. The tiny arrangements and demos released by the band in late 2010, evolved into more spacious, wistful, organ-driven creations. The sonic territory flecks the edges of the reverb-heavy drowned pop of the past few years, but cuts like "Unless You Speak From The Heart" rely on slicing sharp craft and
Tiny Victories self-actualize in the second verse of "Lost Weekend". The arrangement whirrs around them and the snapping rhyme whips, "I know you, you got a stereo heart. You got an ache in your mind, and that's a bad way to start." It's a dreadfully simple way to get kicked in the teeth. The loops and structural architecture call on the recent work of Clock Opera, a simple chiming melody
It is easy to forget at this advanced cultural moment in 2012 that the Garden State soundtrack meant a great deal in 2004. It proved as divisive as it was exciting, an argument for or against its existence boiling down to whether or not you already owned the first Shins LP. It didn't change anyone's life, we hope, but it did change the landscape for independent music. Buried Beds' latest
Riding a year on the heels of La Sera's (nee Katy Goodman) first LP and fun, beachy singles, the part-time member of Vivian Girls is back with "Please Be My Third Eye" from her forthcoming sophomore record. This, considerably scuzzier than previous college radio sway, "Devil's Hearts Grow Gold" and "Never Come Around", features insistent guitars and attention-deficient drums. Goodman finds
Music for a doom-and-gloom 1950s high school dance that you never attended, The Denzels craft a brand of rock that represents an odd mixture of thrown-back influences and post-punk updates. On "Rae Rae", the chorus breaks on the laissez-faire, "I like you/I want to keep it that way", as an angular guitars rip towards the ceiling and the drums do a Box Step in the center of the dance floor. A
Opening with a group of siren synthesizers, Dozens appear to raise the alarm from the very outset on "Forget Me". What follows listens like one of those emotionally sordid tales full of "too much wine", words that can't be taken back and, of course, mix CDs. The title lyric betrays some of the initial thrust of the chorus, a trampoline trip to the top of the room as synths erupt around the
She's in your ear, you think, or is it your head? Close enough to make you pleasantly claustrophobic, 17-year old sensation, Ottilia and her perfect first single, "Forty Million Light Years" whisper an instantly memorable melody and a vocal so charming you'll struggle against your vocabulary to say anything besides, "precocious" and "phenomenal". A flecking guitar line that recalls the work of
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My Funny Valentines
