I don’t remember the exact point when I realized that I was listening to the Brooklyn band Hopewell, and I don’t remember the exact moment when I realized that I liked it. I do, however, know the song that made me aware of their existence. That song was “Monolith” off of their “Beautiful Targets” album. There was a folky intensity about the structure of the song and the delivery of the hook “He stood tall and stiff, he was an ATHEIST!” sounds like a manic evangelist delivering a sermon about an unlikely protagonist. The rest of the album swirls and chimes with a garage rock meets psychedelic folk focus that’s perfect for a long drive or a Sunday morning.
MP3 – Monolith – Hopewell
MP3 – Trees – Hopewell
November 11, 2007
Hopewell Springs Eternal
Love For October In November
Ah, the changing of the leaves, the sweet smell of the harvest on the air, who doesn’t love the fall? Well, people who prefer t-shirt and shorts weather I suppose. But anyway, even though October is over, Love in October is not. By “Love In October”, I mean the Minneapolis indie band of the same name. Their debut album “Pontus, the Devil and Me” is chock full of straight forward indie/punk with catchy choruses. Think, things you hear on the radio, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, now take one standard deviation away from the vomit inducing sound in your mind, add in some minimal keyboard electronics and you’ve got the surprisingly satisfying sound of “Love in October”.
MP3 – Circa 1989 – Love In October
November 7, 2007
Crazy Wednesday
The Octopus Project is a band from Austin, Texas that play strangely saccharine pop music that often features a theremin. They have a new video out for their song “Truck”.
MP3 – I Saw The Bright Shinies – The Octopus Project
While we’re on the topic of strangely addictive pop bands, Black Moth Super Rainbow, whose psychedelic electronic pop songs have been traveling with the Flaming Lips this fall also have a new video for their song “Sun Lips”, Featuring overweight men and trash bags… Take a look!
MP3 – Roller Disco – Black Moth Super Rainbow
Last but not least is Dan Bejar’s new project with his sweetheart Sydney Vermont entitled “Hello, Blue Roses”. The music is sparse and melodious and while Dan Bejars voice serves as an anchor for the vocals, it’s when Sydney Vermont’s vocals take off accompanied by sweeping synths that the songs really soar. Don’t take my word for it.
November 6, 2007
These Cobras are Tight! Airtight!
The London Synth-Rock band returns with a new single “Airtight”, and that’s exactly what the track is. It swaggers along with an authentic 80′s bounce and one of those choruses that wraps itself around the beat thereby jackhammering itself into your frontal lobes where it will stay.
MP3 – Airtight – Cobra Dukes
MP3 – Airtight (JD Twitch Optimo Remix) – Cobra Dukes
November 5, 2007
Kimono Kops Remix Bloc Party
Kimono Kops once again drop a killer remix of an indie song. This time it’s Bloc Party’s “I still Remember” the U2 sustained notes are replaced with vintage synth in this incarnation and they create a delirious spinning dance number.
November 4, 2007
Time to Pretend
MGMT is a band that has been picking up a lot of attention these last few months, with their psychedelic sampling style and dance inclinations. Their full length debut “Oracular Spectacular” is a journey through college coffee shops, pagan rituals, and synth tinged nostalgic folk freak outs. Like Hall and Oates shaking hands with Echo and the Bunnymen through a Pink Floyd Filter. Trippy stuff.
The album opens with one of the strongest tracks on the record, “Time To Pretend”, which has a deliriously violent bounce and narrates the cycles of modern life through eyes envious of the old playground. Another highpoint deserving of radio play is the smooth “Electric Feel”. The track grinds on a galloping beat and ascends into the category of “Baby-Making Music” on the flute loops and satisfying falsetto. The woozy style and ethereal delivery of the music makes “Oracular Spectacular” the 2am album of the year. Bring on the all-nighters.
November 2, 2007
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!!!
When we last heard from Treasure Mammal, he was making pleasing lo-fi electro tracks and then throwing up all over them. Awkward sound changes, unneeded spoken word fillers, and a brain melting absence of logic yielded an album that was at once exciting and frustrating. He was trying to be funny, we got that, but who was the butt of the joke? Him? Or Us?
These new tracks are more cohesive and clever, and now we can all laugh together instead of feeling like the author of the music is laughing at us for giving our time to listen. “Best Friends Forever” and “On The Computer” are chalk full of pop culture and internet culture references. Treasure Mammal’s position as an educator certainly places him in the middle of how serious and childish internet culture can be (especially around children). Like a gossipy preteen crossed with Patrick Swayze’s character from Donnie Darko with a pinch of Xiu Xiu, Treasure Mammal is back on the scene. He might be insane, but he’s hilarious.
MP3 – Best Friends Forever – Treasure Mammal
MP3 – On The Computer – Treasure Mammal
I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About
In the past, I’ve tried to get into Radiohead. Because I’m into a lot of digital sounds, Kid A has been suggested to me a bunch of times, because I like Muse The Bends has been recommended to me a bunch of times, but I just couldn’t get into them. I realize they are influential, but I just never really got into them. This must seem like blasphemy coming from a music blogger, but it’s true. Frankly, I didn’t even know they had an album coming out until all of the hubbub about the “pay what you want” price tag. Even then someone sent me a copy of the album before I could contemplate taking a free copy (heh heh). This is where my story changes from uninterested spectator to engaged listener.
Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ springs to life with an urgency I haven’t heard previously in their work. Seemingly devoid of the walls of intellectual bullshit that many holier than thou hipsters desperately cling to to establish their musical superiority. The song “Bodysnatchers” features the lyrics “I have no idea what I’m talking about”, and that upfront honesty is the best thing they could have done to win me over. Though the remainder of the album doesn’t quite live up to the Klaxons channeled through lite-jazz that is B-Snatch, but it’s not a total snooze-fest. “All I Need” distills the urgency and bombastic drama that Radiohead wants to evoke so much, but actually pulls it off. There’s also something about “House of Cards”, I think it’s the production of Thom Yorke’s ghostly wail behind the boring guitar loop. It keeps you just interested enough to not skip the track until the line “I don’t want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover” drops, and seriously who has not been there? Another ambiguously engaging statement that will pull you through until the track ends.
An album that Radiohead actually made me want to listen to, a surprising feat. The price alone should make you all want to go listen to it as well.
MP3 – Bodysnatchers – Radiohead
MP3 – House of Cards – Radiohead
November 1, 2007
I Need A Short Sharp Shock!!!
I remember when Performance was receiving a fanatical amount of hype from NME 2 years ago along with Editors and another band that has since faded into obscurity. All cited as being the next big thing in England. Editors had “Bullets” and Performance had “Love Life”. Honestly I was more impressed with Performance. Throbbing synth, manic almost Robert Smith vocals, and a black and white video featuring children as the audience won me over almost instantly. I think the Editors just stood in a club somewhere preaching about vaccines(heh).Soon after, Editors released their debut album and emerged as a contemporaries of Interpol and later morphed into a New Order/Coldplay Hybrid to gain attention as a Snow Patrol knock-off, but what of Performance?
(We Are) Performance, as they are now known, experienced some difficult relations with record labels and funding, but they finally released their eponymous debut this year. I actually found out about it by scrolling through a friends music and saw it in his library. I then immediately demanded that he send me a copy. Upon listening to the album in full I wasn’t disappointed.
The Manchester four-piece serves up delicious slices of electro-pop-rock that will feed the hungriest of indie consumers. Their Human League meets the Klaxons sound soars; utilizing fist pumping anthem choruses. The relentless fervor of each song is seemingly frozen in mid-air with the crystalline backing vocals of the Marsden sisters. They compare relationship difficulties to living in a post nuclear disaster world, and I couldn’t think of a more over the top or appropriate hook to draw you into their perfectly orchestrated world.
Mp3 – Short Sharp Shock – (We Are Performance)
Mp3 – (In Your Own Words) Chernobyl – (We Are Performance)
You Know, aside from the nuclear disaster, Chernobyl would’ve been a lovely girls’ name.
