Chris Carson is a musician from Brooklyn who goes by the name of Throcke. His music is a collection of strange electronic sounds and fuzzed out vocals. For a limited time you can download his album “Sometimes Not Unpointful” for free at his official site. The album is something like a lo-fi combo of James Figurine and The Berg Sans Nipple. Act now before it’s too late!
Jimmy Tamborello of DNTEL a.k.a. James Figurine has released a new song for the holiday season entitled “Can’t be Sure”. The track is full of synthetic pop goodness, from Tamborello’s almost spoken word vocals filtered through a high pitched vocoder and his trademarked bendy sinebass grooves to some full on feel good 80′s new wave synths and minimalist German ticks. This is the kind of electro that sticks to your ribs in the cold months of winter.
You can also get the song here under DNTEL
Jimmytamborello.com
The Age of Rockets are a small unsigned band with a huge signable sound. Vocalist, programmer, keyboardist and guitarist, Andrew Futral, drummer and trumpet player Saul Simon Mcwilliams and bass, synth, glockenspiel and flute player Bess Rogers hail from New York Ciry. The three of them love making music together and have just recently released their sophomore album “Hanna”.
Their sound inhabits the space between orchestral pop and glitch heavy ballads. The album begins with sweeping synthesizers that give way to glorious harmonies and eventually gentle guitar and glockenspiel. Andrew Futral recently posted that he wanted to take the band in a more organic direction from their previously heavy electronic sounds. If the sound of the first few tracks is any indication, they have accomplished their mission. The soft melodies, harmonies, and understated glitch beats work together to create an album that is the most comprehensive successor to the Postal Service’s “Give Up”.
While the melodies, harmonies and rich lyrical content are the primary draws to their sophomore album “Hanna” there are some great pure rock moments here as well. Like the eruptions of guitar riffs on “H. Soft Escape”. Or the towering strings and ultra glitchy breaks on “Ship to Shore.”
The biggest pitfall The Age of Rockets could fall into is sounding to the passing ear as “Too Alike” to The Postal Service with Futral’s soft voice not sounding terribly different to Ben Gibbards saccharine croon. If anyone takes the time to listen to more than 10 seconds of a song, it should be readily apparent that their songs have greater cohesion and depth than that of the groundbreaking 2003 subpop collaboration between James Tamborello and Ben Gibbard. There’s not an unpleasant sound to be heard on “Hanna” and that’s sure to make them on many short lists for album of the year.
I became obsessed with Figurine over the summer. I heard that there was a more Gary Numan-esque project of James Tamborello, more song focused but with 100% less Ben Gibbard and 100% more David Figurine and Meredith Figurine. I heard songs like “IMpossible” and “Heartfelt” and I was hooked. The sounds were more lo-fi and the lyrics were so earnest and spot on. I loved these two tracks so much that I actually bought the real cd’s (Off of half.com, but c’mon I’m Poor). Their first release Transportation + Communication = Love is a cute expedition into the world of early Depeche Mode sounds and gimmicky lyrics. Not to say it’s not enjoyable, it certainly is. But their second release is more fully realized. If you’re a fan of the Postal Service you can hear the nuts and bolts of the contemporary cutesy synth pop forming. Particularly in the call and response of “IMpossible” in regards to the Gibbard/Lewis joint “Nothing Better”. Basically, Figurine is like a more raw Postal Service with a more deprecating lyrical style similar to Stephen Merrit of The Magnetic Fields’ morose poetry but more earnest, maybe even more honest.
The temperature dropped today, by 20 degrees. I also received some things in the mail that I was anticipating. One of them the Young Shields EP from CTFPA that features the addictive Prince cover of “When You Were Mine”. Somehow I lost that song when I switched over to my lap top. I’ve been aching for it for a while as it’s no longer available on the hype machine. When I put the CD in my drive and heard those first few happy plunky notes my day was made.
Also, I listened to the first Figurine album, “Transportation + Communication = Love” and it is a fantastic self aware adventure through synthpop sounds and endearingly simple pop songs. Like a loose blueprint for Postal Service songs.
Last, but not least is the Broken Spindles remix of the Good Charlotte song “Get Your Hands Off of My Girl”. The sinister synth and beefed up beats make this track enjoyable. Although the concept of me posting a Good Charlotte track kind of makes me kind of question my ethics, but trust me, the pop-punk has been removed and electronic dancy-ness has been placed in its stead.
MP3 – New Mate – Figurine
MP3 – When You Were Mine – Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (Prince Cover)
MP3 – Keep Your Hands off of My Girl (Broken Spindles Remix) – Good Charlotte
1. MP3 – Bang Theory – World Leader Pretend
2. MP3 – Anything You Want – Spoon
3. MP3 – Somewhere Across Forever – stellastarr*
4. MP3 – Kick Out The Chairs – Munk & James Murphy
5. MP3 – Everybody’s Leaving – Elkland
6. MP3 – Emily Kane – Art Brute
9. MP3 – Love Astronaut – Murder Mystery
10. MP3 – 55566688833 – James Figurine
11. MP3 – Misread – Kings of Convenience
12. MP3 – Grey – New Young Pony Club
14. MP3 – B.U.R.M.A. – Dirty Pretty Things
I made a mix for a curly haired collegiate cohort that I am meeting soon for coffee, I hope, and I thought to myself, this would be a good thing to post too. So I did. I hope you enjoy it.
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