Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

20 Feb 2010 17:16

tags

Music: Saturday Mixtape: Adam Green makes a pretty good Lou Reed

  • 1. Expect Local Natives to become like catnip like blogs like ours for the next twelve months or so. They have all the elements of every big indie act here – the multi-voice harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the scale and trauma of The Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend’s ability to ride a groove, and the garage swagger of just about everybody else. And that’s all in one song, “Camera Talk.”
  • 2. Adam Green has a lot to atone for, what with the calling card of the Moldy Peaches (and all the good and bad that entails) on his resume. But “What Makes Him Act So Bad?,” along with the Velvet Underground sparkle of new album “Minor Love,” goes a long way.
  • 3. Speaking of Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons may be the first band to be directly inspired by them, if “Sigh No More” is any indication. That’s a lot of vocal harmony.
  • 4. Phantogram has more than a little trip-hop influence in their sound, as the big fat beat at the beginning of “Running From the Cops” emphasizes. The calm female “Ooh…” in the mix has the effect of making the blunt effect of the rough beat seem a lot less blunt.
  • 5. A pretty awesome compilation that came out this week, “The Minimal Wave Tapes: Vol. 1,” focuses on very minimal electronic from post-punk movement, as curated by Minimal Wave label-runner Veronica Vasicka and released on Stone’s Throw records. From the comp, Crash Course in Science’s “Flying Turns” has a lot of edge, a lot of simplicity and a dark groove.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Aug 2009 17:08

tags

Music: Saturday Mixtape: Who rules more, YACHT or The Dodos?

  • 1. We needed some euphoria, and Dananananaykroyd (what an annoying name!) provides it in spades on their latest album, “Hey Everyone.” “Pink Sabbath” makes us want to leap in the air like the coolest six-year-olds ever.
    2. The Dodos are awesome. Hewing a little more closely to the “Sung Tongs” sound than Animal Collective does now, 2008’s “Visiter” was an underrated gem. And new album “Time to Die,” which we ganked “Longform” from, keeps the quality high, avoiding the fate of fellow blog buzz bands.
    3. We’re suckers for sensitive white guys singing in unison. And you don’t get more sensitive than Kings of Convenience (featuring unsung indie hero Erelend Oye), whose “Winning a Battle, Losing the War” always wins our hearts.
    4. YACHT’s killer “See Mystery Lights,” which looks like a huge breakthrough for the duo, has a lot of highlights, but the highest is “Ring the Bell,” a slow-building calling card for DFA’s newest act.
    5. Like Grizzly Bear, Nurses plays in the space between electronic and natural sound, and while their victories on “Technicolor” split evenly between the percussive, the vocal and the digital, they do it with a little more flair than Grizzly Bear. Pure engagement.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 21:56

tags

Music: Saturday Mixtape: Rising indie stars and old indie pros

  • 1. It’s good to hear when a band you kinda like starts getting attention. Shoegaze + NES band The Depreciation Guild is kinda like that – after a killer free album in 2007, “In Her Gentle Jaws,” one of the members made a name for himself with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and the rest is history. “Dream About Me” is a solid starting points.
    2. Much like The Flaming Lips or The Apples in Stereo, Wheat is a band that works best in full technicolor. The longstanding band’s just-out “White Ink, Black Ink,” especially “Changes Is,” shows that they haven’t lost their spark with time.
    3. Wye Oak’s first album was awesome because it didn’t try to fit into trends. It was just solid. The just-out second album tries a little too hard, but “I Want for Nothing” proves that that isn’t always a bad thing.
    4. This band changes its name more often than any band should – Memory Tapes? Weird Tapes? They’ve been called both, along with Memory Cassette – but either way, “Asleep At a Party,” a fractured, time-worn tune, lives up to both the song’s – and the band’s – name.
    5. Slow-buiding has always been the best way to describe indie icons Low, and “Sunflower” is one of those songs that nails their appeal. A high point for a lengthy career.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Jun 2009 18:39

tags

Music: Saturday Mixtape: Bizarre WTF covers of Michael Jackson songs

  • Michael Jackson is the most pervasive artist of our generation, and to prove it, we looked to see what sort of crazy covers of his songs we could find. And boy, we weren’t disappointed.

    1. Our first interpretation is “Beat It” by Inactive Messiah, a Greek melodic death metal band. The intro is very graceful, but our favorite part is when singer Xristos starts growling.

    2. It’s too easy for us to put Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal” here. So we put this loose electronica-by-way-of-jazz interpretation by J.Viewz (remixed by S.T.Louder) here instead.

    3. Willie Nelson has a history of bizarre cover choices, unrivaled by any country crooner except Johnny Cash. But did Cash ever cover Michael Jackson’s “She’s Out of My Life”? We think not. (Nelson’s version still makes us cry. :( )

    4. Only Michael Jackson could be covered sensibly in both death metal and Bossanova-leaning smooth jazz styles. The guy guilty of this “Man in the Mirror” cover is Brazilian crooner Paulinho Loureiro.

    5. We totally saved the best/worst for last. Five words: “Black or White,” polka-style. Blame Texingtal Musikanten. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink

13 Jun 2009 17:50

tags

Music: Our Saturday mixtape: From Kraftwerk to projectors that are dirty

  • 1. It’s weird how much influence Kraftwerk wields, and how few people talk about it. They literally wrote the template for electronic music but don’t get constant adoration. “Pocket Calculator” is early synthpop perfected.

    2. Chiptune music is clearly influenced by Kraftwerk, and 8 Bit Weapon, led by Seth Sternberger and represented here by “Bit ‘n’ Run,” is a strong example of the form.

    3. Wow, “Bitte Orca” by the Dirty Projectors sure lived up to the hype, didn’t it? And they did it while making it look easy. “Useful Chamber” is – in our opinion – the album’s high point. It’s like Of Montreal’s “Skeletal Lamping” with asides that actually make sense.

    4. We’re convinced that whereever Gang Gang Dance’s “House Jam” is playing, there’s a massive party going on. And of course, someone forgot to invite us.

    5. There’s a lot of versions of Os Mutantes’ “Baby” floating around, but this one, with its garagey edges, is our favorite. Rita Lee’s 1971 acoustic version is also worth your time.source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Apr 2009 09:19

tags

Music: ShortFormBlog’s Saturday mixtape: Five songs we recommend

  • The L.A. band noise-rock HEALTH has managed to slowly expand its experimental roots into something palatable, as on stellar new single “Die Slow.”
  • Jay Reatard stinks live – he doesn’t really have stage presence – but he has solid individual songs, such as “See Saw” from last year’s “Matador Singles ’08.”
  • We really dig the noisy lo-fi electronica of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, especially when he covers Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.”
  • Rough-’round-the-edges Psych-folkie Rodriguez, a Detroit native, became big without knowing it in South Africa thanks to “Sugar Man” and his 1970 album “Cold Fact.”
  • We’re big Dan Deacon fans here, and “Bromst” has yet to go off our musical radar. With songs like “Padding Ghost,” with its euphoric melodies, why would it?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
top tags