Tweet Not the housecat or for that matter what said furball ate, it's not even the 'Don't You Want Me' '902s version, instead Felix is just Lucinda Chua and Chris Summerlin. And for that we should be thankful for the British duo have an eclectic bent that is very much to our liking. We've only heard this but going on the presented evidence we're thinking their 2009 'You Are the One I Pick' could be something to be behold. This is classy, [...]
Tweet Worlds away from the boardwalk ballyhoo of the Jersey Shore, some fine music is being made in the Garden State by Ridgewood's own Family Portrait. Their track 'Other Side' is a peach of a pop song, layering a drone of fuzzy, swirling guitars over a hypnotic beat that canters like a well-bred show horse. It's really a simple song without much variation from the main progression, but the group's presentation makes 'Other Side' seem regal and somehow greater [...]
Tweet I still maintain that Ride were impossibly beautiful. They may have spotted and converted ideas being flouted with great success elsewhere but the noise they produced was all of their own making. What appealed most to young men leaving their teens for the big bad world of adulthood was the sense that their melodies were cosseted so deeply inside the maelstrom of noise it would keep those casual music fans at bay. But then nobody reckoned on 'Going Blank Again' rewriting [...]
Tweet Winter Villains are everything I liked about Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and nothing like the bits I didn't. In essence there are in the upper echelons of the new bands that have stolen my heart this year. Chances are this state of affairs will be repeated in the years that supersede the current one, for 5 songs into their output I can't for the life of me find a weakness in their hushed pop formula. The latest batch of tunes were recorded [...]
Tweet Winter Villains are everything I liked about Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and nothing like the bits I didn't. In essence there are in the upper echelons of the new bands that have stolen my heart this year. Chances are this state of affairs will be repeated in the years that supersede the current one, for 5 songs into their output I can't for the life of me find a weakness in their hushed pop formula. The latest batch of tunes were recorded [...]
Tweet In the annals of independent music, the 2010's may come to be known as the decade of the bedroom artist. It seems anybody with a four-track and three chords has an equal opportunity to set the blogosphere on fire with a worthy tune, though few have chosen a better nom de plume than Timothy Hines has for his project Tropical Popsicle. On 'The Age of Attraction', Tropical Popsicle takes the black turtleneck and dark sunglasses vibe of the Velvet [...]
Tweet They were from Kilkenny which was a novelty in itself but what set Engine Alley apart was the fact that they appeared from Ireland's loins in 1991. Under grey skies, in the grip of mass unemployment and youth emigration Engine Alley's rosy cheeks and terrific tunes made living here all the more bearable. Their debut album 'A Sonic Holiday' remains one of the best by any Irish band by virtue of the fact that it was fuelled by brilliant tunes and [...]
Tweet Summer is the season for feel-good pop candy, and San Francisco's Dominant Legs deliver the goods with their new track 'Hoop of Love'. Upbeat and catchy, the song captures the essence of summer; full of windows-down road-trips, bonfires on the beach, and water ballon fights. With strummy guitar lines reminiscent of early-80's Haircut 100 singles, pounding drums and plenty of synths, 'Hoop of Love' is a simple pleasure. Highlights include the harmonized boy-girl chorus, and a well-written bridge that [...]
Tweet There seems to be some sort of mad scientist thing going on with Body Parts' infectious new track 'Comfortable, Happy, Satisfied'. The California four-piece creates an art-pop Frankenstein of sorts, stitching the avant-garde vocal textures and phrasings of the Dirty Projectors to the raucous and unrestrained exuberance of Brooklyn's Suckers. This is not intended to be background music, and the band makes that very clear from the start, virtually interrogating the listener in three-part-harmony over throbbing toms and some [...]
![[Interview] The Feelies](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/3584862_lg.jpg)
Tweet By Conor Devlin I first heard The Feelies sometime in 1988 when their version of the Velvet Underground's 'What Goes On' came on Irish radio on a summer afternoon. There was a sense of fun there that didn't exist on the original and, true to form, I went to the record store that weekend and bought three albums, one new and two used: 'Crazy Rhythms' (Stiff, 1980), 'The Good Earth' (Coyote, 1986) and 'Only Life' [...]
Tweet Hooray for something different. Hooray for Dubliner Cian Nugent and new his album, 'Doubles', which boasts a mere 2 tracks. And before you start feeling a bit short-changed it is worth noting that 'Peaks and Troughts' and 'Sixes and Sevens' are both over 20 minutes long . Must say I was taken a bit by surprise by this fella, had imagined something of a balladeer but Nugent relies entirely on his chord plucking skills to make his grandiose instrumentals. [...]
Tweet I read somewhere recently that the average person goes through life having swallowed circa 42 winged objects. We've all had that experience of cycling in the sunshine when the peace is broken by a bluebottle down the throat. Not nice, but in the case of Galway's the Depravations it seems they've swallowed an entirely different species, the fluttering Brian Wilson from what I can make out. 'Summer Rain' is delightfully twee and will probably be gone from our heads by the [...]
Tweet We're not ones for exclusives, mainly because we don't get offered that many – ones that pass our strict taste-o-meter anyroad. But today we're feeling as proud as punch to premier the new song from Waterford band Percolator . We've featured them before (3 years have passed in the interim) but their second coming goes beyond that of an audio treat and into the realm of physical joy. 'Yellow Fire' is one side of a 7-inch single the [...]
![[LP Review] The Middle East – I Want That You Are Always Happy](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/3581231_lg.jpg)
Tweet Call me old fashioned but I love lyrics as much as I love melody and one gripe I have with 'I Want That You Are Always Happy' by The Middle East is that I can hardly make out a single word. I'm ashamed that I'm echoing a former elocution teacher when I say "diction people!" Nonetheless I don't feel it's an unnecessary criticism. That being said this album is a pleasant if melancholy listen, which is hardly surprising considering the opening [...]
Tweet I would have posted this sooner owing to its pure brilliance but held back because I needed to work out what it sounded like. I knew there was a forerunner but for several days the gears in my head were just not turning up with the correct source. Then, after a particularly ragged football game the clouds cleared and out popped Julian Koster and his Singing Saw who together created one of the oddest Christmas albums ever. You may [...]
Tweet It might not have the same wow factor of ' Hearts ' but 'Winter Beats' is still a fine follow-up. Maria Lindén is always likely to be compulsive listening but much of the appeal of Stockholm's I Break Horses is the surrounding noise created by Fredrik Balck. You'll hear ethereal, you'll hear shoegaze and a rumbustious brand of dreampop which amounts to an altogether heady brew. At the very least it should swell the hearts of early '902s aficionados. The duo [...]
Tweet I knew Joseph D'Agostino pretty well (in as much as you can know someone through the internet) before his band Cymbals Eat Guitars made it big (in as much as these things get big for bands of Cymbals Eats Guitars ilk). Once Pitchfork et al came a knocking our gmail chat exchanges became less frequent but that was totally understandable. Joe is a sweet fellow with a genuine gift for songwriting. I remember one pleasant exchange where we played his band's [...]
Tweet We released the 3rd Burning Codes album 'Rivers of Hope' under our sister label Indiecater last month and it marked the culmination of 3 years (and 3 albums) in the company of Paul Archer and his collaborators. This time, rather than just giving it a digital release we went the whole hog and made a CD. How very 19902s of us I hear you say, but some works just feel more natural when coming from a hard media format. [...]
Tweet It may start life sounding a bit like an Atari football game but once the 8-bit shenanigans are dispensed with 'Blue Steel' should comfortably paddle your boat. Bot'Ox are the Paris pair of Cosmo Vitelli and Julien Briffaz, who also record under [T]ékël, who were joined on this languid ditty from 2009 by Anna Jean. It's a scatty number, with techno parts that could turn some off but Jean's vocals add a quotient of soft antidote. Bot'Ox are for hearts as [...]
Tweet The blogs don't tell you much, at least the ones that scroll through the Hype Machine , yet with Exitmusic signed to (the rarely gets it wrong) Secretly Canadian we're in no doubt something good is going to happen. The husband and wife team of Aleksa Palladino and Devon Church (NewYorker/Winnipegian) have signalled as much on their first recording with SC called 'The Sea' which opines a bloody menace, like the glimmer from sharpened blades waved in the [...]
mp3hugger
Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
Beck - 'I Just Started Hating Some People Today' [Listen]
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
New Remix: Jonquil - Run (RxGibbs Remix)
