I stumbled into this a few days ago at Cream Team, heard it at a friend's birthday Saturday night, and all of a sudden it's everywhere like microwaved spaghetti sauce. I'm upset by the rate that we pick up music and spit it in different places for people to see, but this track is electric. Thank you hype, I'll get off the roller coaster now.
It recently came to my attention that lo-fi-chillwave-one-man-band Chaz Bundwick recorded a cover of my favorite Beach House song. By adding multiple synth layers, Bundwick increased the sonic depth of the original composition, taking the emphasis away from the melody and putting it toward the timbre. It's a great interpretation of the song, adding to my appreciation for the original in a way that most remixes and covers fail to do. Unfortunately coming out of the bridge Bundwick is a little too quick, and he damages the most important transition of the original.
She had wet hair / Say what you will / I don't care / I couldn't resist it
Teen Daze has taken the raw, reverb-fuzz of the Japanadroids and made it cleaner, wetter, and somehow even more urgent. The intense wall of synths blasting on quick arpeggios rests only briefly to explain his aim, without leaving behind the happy "I don't care what you think" attitude. Japandroids used to feel like lo-fi's answer to high school emo rock; they used to.
The first time I saw Wildbirds and Peacedrums was opening for Lykke Li at The Varsity Theater Minneapolis. Their novelty felt more developed than their melodies at the time, but their ability to create music defined primarily by its rhythms was immediately impressive. Hearing Tune-Yards it would be possible to not realize the similarity, but seeing both groups is eerily similar. The complexity of their rhythms combined with a lead woman singing/yelling/chanting is plainly alike.
"The Drop" is a step toward deeper melodic development, and a great one for Wildbirds. The sparse arrangement of steel drum and drums allows for Mariam Wallentin's gentle voice to fill spaces as desired. It is an interesting juxtaposition of steel drum and melody because the beachy timbre usually only exists in lively Caribbean rhythms, and yet "The Drop" is far from celebratory. There is no climax and no rising tension, just a gentle and sentimental vocal line.
Coopenhagen-based Teige is a part of the Danish group Efterklang, and "What is New?" comes from his debut LP Body God. The racing guitar line and its pop-punk vocal sound like caffeine in your ears. It's steroid pop for the impatient. Try to imagine how it would sound with bigger guitars in the final crescendo.
I asked you to go to the Cut Copy concert, you said you never heard of them, how cool is that? So I went to your room and read your diary: "Watching grunge leg drop new jack through a press table" and then my heart stopped: "listening to Cio Cio San."
At midnight on Thursday I walked out of Madison Square Garden with my fingers punching a message to a friend who was driving to see them play outside of Baltimore in less than 24 hours. I had to go again. I was in disbelief for most of the 90 minutes that Arcade Fire played the sprawling basketball arena that I expected to hate. Not even fifteen feet from the stage, the rapture was palpable like the sweat on our arms. The two instant favorites from The Suburbs, "Used to Wait" and "Sprawl II" were awesome live. Win walked the hand railing like a balance beam into the crowd for the former, and when they screwed up "Sprawl II" in the middle of the encore Win said they'd start it again, and then walked down from the piano to kiss Regine before her first verse. Before the encore the arena echoed with the chorus of "Wake Up."
Not even 12 hours later I hitched a ride with three friends from the most urban arena to the suburban hills of Merriweather Post Pavilion. My friend was opportunistic enough to snatch a pair of pit tickets being sold at the gate for half their price (thank you desperate fan). Spoon covered Wolf Parade's "Modern World" and we finally got to hear Arcade Fire's "Modern Man." Spoon was great both nights; "I Turn My Camera On" was my highlight, and Britt Daniel played "I Summon You" on electric one night and acoustic the other. The Arcade Fire's set was different enough to feel new again, including a block of four Suburbs songs in a row. Girls took off their shirts and threw their bras but the night was punctuated by Win crowdsurfing into us before returning to stage so that "Wake Up"'s beat could drop.
(all photos from Merriweather Post Pavilion, more below)
St. Vincent closed an afternoon at Central Park that was on the brink of rain for most of its three hours. Although any of us would have gladly traded rain for a competent sound booth.
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