I get pretty Scandinavian in the summer, as well as most other seasons, I guess, but those tow-heads just keep delivering the goods. The video for the beautiful song (movement?) "Longevity Suite," by Dane Jakob Skøtt, tiptoes along inside the dream of a little girl, before diving headfirst into full blown sexual Rorschach psychedelia. Take the title to heart, this is a journey. Also, fullscreen and headphones are recommended.
Teases! Teasing me! Fucking teaser vid. I can't not watch this. Lonerism is the sophmore LP from Perth's Tame Impala and will be out this fall sometime on Modular.
Powerful, exciting stuff from Norwegian gazers, Dråpe. They are channeling some serious '90s Sunny Day Real Estate/Dinosaur Jr./Yo La Tengo jams with "By Heart." Gotta love those drums! This stuff just makes you want to play hooky and drive around in the mountains in your Toyota Tercel smoking weed out of a beer can, and getting a sunburn on one arm.
"By Heart" is off Dråpe's self titled EP, which was released in Norway last year, and is about to get reprinted on Danish label Pad & Pen Records. Look for it August 27th or so.
Darn, this is very rad. I'm guessing due to the emerging popularity of doing weird things with remote control helicopters, Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) hired a troupe of quadrotor (I think that means "four rotors") robots to dance--and I think manipulate or react to sound somehow--to his new number, "Meet Your Creator." The whole thing really gets off the ground, so to speak, around the 2 minute mark. This performance should go down in history. Stream the song below, in case you just want to listen while doing dishes.
In other OPN news, Lopatin is currently in the studio with the ambiosoundscape game-changer--and SL favorite--Tim Hecker, recording the kick-off to a new series on Lopatin's Software label, titled SSTUDIOS, which emphasizes breaking new ground in the comboing of free jazz and electronic music, and also heavily involves sax drone maestro--and SL favorite--C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core). Neato!
Internet Club engage that present-and-past-internet-culture-as-neoretro-kitsch phenomenon head on: he/they(?) have an Angelfire website (see above link), fully embrace Twitteristic and Facebookian relations of the high-schooliest kinds, and are called Internet Club, for cryin' out loud.
Check out "WWW CRUISE" and "DREAMS 3D" below. These songs bring back an important memory in my life, of when I was in high school, or right after, on mushrooms at a party in some mansion, and stumbled into this weird sunroom, with tons of plants and a little radio, lightly playing some amazing slow-disco jams, like a little waiting room to who-knows-where, and I grinned and danced. Thanks, Internet Club, for resurrecting this for me.
Both of these cuts are from Internet Club's new LP, Dreams 3D, which is out now, for free, on their bandcamp. Check it and who knows what crazy memories will emerge from your drug-filled past!
Since I've poked fun at Brian Wilson previously--in two separate posts so far, it's only fair that I give him his due as a birthday celebration. A friend turned me on to this clip from the 1967 doc, Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, hosted by an emphatic Leonard Bernstein. "Surf's Up"--especially in this bare, voyeuristic piano recording--is a great look into the heartbreaking psychomeanderings of a chaotic, yet brilliant, musical mind. Bernstein was a little right and a little wrong; Wilson was blazing trails, but at the same time, he was--and remains--a total island of pop genius, rarely to see an equal. So much can be pulled from this song: the collapse of the Beach Boys as a band, Holocaust stuff, "Frere Jacque," general '60s cultural anxiety, the descent of Wilson himself, etc.
Below is the remastered, and famously unreleased version of the original '67 recording. Below that is the 2004 recording from the final cut of SMiLE. And below that is a YouTube comment from one of those videos.
If only Brian Wilson hadn't done a shitload of drugs and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1967, we'd have had SMiLE come out in 1967 to challenge Pepper and who knows how many more classic BB albums in the 68-72 period would have been?
"Five Seconds" has been out for a minute and a half, but the new video really sheds some light on the concept of Twin Shadow's upcoming album, Confess, as does George Lewis Jr. himself (via 4AD):
"One winter I crashed my motorcycle, with a friend on the back. I shouldn't have been riding that day, but I was young and fearless of the black roads, fast and easy in my ways. As the bike slipped from under us my head filled with words. The slow motion moments of calm just after surprise and just before regret are bliss. I remember in that moment I wanted to say everything to him. How could I say everything in a split second? How could I bury my words in his heart?"
"I got a new bike and went to LA to record what is now called Confess. I took the bike out at 6AM one morning after not having done much riding in the couple years between Forget and Confess. I noticed my head clearing as I came slowly down a hill where the road around a reservoir began. I pulled back slowly on the throttle with my right hand, and felt the bike start to come to life. My head was still crystal clear...nothing. As I kicked the bike into 3rd, I pulled almost all the way back and jumped forward leaning in towards the gas tank, fighting the wind. I got up to 75 and saw that no one was out but the runners and their four legged friends, the sidewalks became a blur of barking dogs and heads all turning. My mind was empty. I put the bike in 4th and hit 90. The engine jackhammered under my legs. My mind was clear. I inched toward 100 on the speedometer and punch the last five. TON UP! My mind is filled with words. My heart is full of love. This is where i want to be. I want to stay here, and I want to tell you everything."
So there's that stuff. Confess is out July 9th on 4AD.
Halasan Bazar are a Danish band, really reacting to those long summer days with some jangly, proclamatory, pop psychadelia. "Tin Foiled" is in your face, telling you how it is, and maybe even knows something about you that you don't know. You can d-load the track here, but I would watch the brilliantly animated, Brakhage-inspired (?) video first, if I were you.
"Tin Foiled" is the first taste of Halasan Bazar's upcoming LP, How To Be Ever Happy, out this fall on Moon Glyph.
Lovely little new tune here from SD's (not South Dakota, but that would be neat) Jeans Wilder, from his new Totally LP. "Spanish Tile" is what I would call an "anytime" song: bleary-eyed morning egg-scrambling, midday cat-petting, evening lawn-watering, post-shower midnight toenail-clipping, plug it right in there.
Very excellent music video by Brit, Nick Rutter. More videos like this, please. Very exceptional. The song helps too. Slightly NSFW, but SFW for the most part.
Jeez Louise. How did I just hear about this amazing lady? Polish/British songstress, Ela Orleans, is some heavenly cross between Nico and Ann Steel, but she's making music! Now! And making music videos! Now! I'm gonna go bananas on this stuff once I get the time.
"Elegy" is off of Ela's new tape, High Moon Low Sun, which has just been re-released on Clan Destine Records.
Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffitis have NOT broken up, as rumored by the Pink himself on his Facebook. They HAVE collab'd with fellow LA outsider, Dam-Funk, on a cover of Donnie & Joe Emerson's "Baby", which is to be the first single from APHG's upcoming LP, Mature Themes. Ariel on the new album: "Sonically, it's comparable (to Before Today)...There are definitely not any links to my lo-fi origins. It's so diverse but so different from anything I've done before. In a sense, it's really the record I wanted to make back when I made Before Today, but couldn't due to pressures and different factors. We had time to let our hair down and try new things." (Literally, he and Dam are ready for Locks of Love, and I wanna see the little girls that get to reap the benefits.)
As if that weren't enough, these two will be touring together this fall. Check 4AD for dates. Salt Lakers can catch them at Urban Lounge on Sep. 25th with none other than the great James Ferraro. This will be a must see, so be sure to get all your homework done the night before. Mature Themes is out Aug. 21st on 4AD.
My favorite psych dubsmith, Cameron Stallones (Sun Araw), and his buddy, slow-mo space captain ambiengineer, M. Geddes Gengras, went to Jamaica last year to record with reggae vets, The Congos, and the results are st-st-stellar. The albumis called Icon Give Thank and has been out a couple months on RVNG Intl. The documentary (!) about this affair is called Icon Eye and is just seeing release. The little trailer below is very exciting to me; I'm so glad they did this.
Bear with me on this one, please. Iowa City's Wet Hair have a new jam which took a few listens to sink in, but is now on a steady loop in my earhole. Night People figure man/Raccoo-oo-oon front boy Shawn Reed's vocals are a slippery bar of soap, hovering long on supposed off-notes like a Calvin Johnson or (even better) a Malkmus until those notes start to sound dead on and turn those poppy bass and keys into some jilted, frowning bird of paradise.
Shawn Reed also happened to put together the artwork for the band's new album, Spill Into Atmosphere, as well as basically all the Night People releases and tapes. And Night People, by the way, have a load of upcoming greatness, including a Peak Twins/Scott and Charlene's Wedding split, a wild new cut from BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE, and a future Featureless Ghost LP.
Ok, Dent May is straight up transforming into Brian Wilson before our very eyes here. He's gotten up from his chaise lounge, feet planted deep in the sand, one hand feeding a goat, the other reaching for a floaty. "Fun" is fun. Dry-eye the video for "Best Friend"...at your own risk.
Do Things comes out next week on Paw Tracks. Stream it over at SPIN, of all places...christ. He's from Mississippi.
Tinariwen bridge the gap. The desert to the city, Saharan blues to Western guitars, sand to streets. Malian in heritage, they lead a transitory existence and have always been built of refugees and Tuareg rebels (or descendants of). They are led by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who, after witnessing the execution of his father in the Tuareg rebellion in 1963, fashioned a guitar out of a stick, a tin can, and the wire from a bicycle brake, and started teaching himself Arabic pop songs. He later joined other Tuareg youngsters in answering to our old favorite dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi's call to arm all fit Tuareg men living illegally in Libya to fight in his Saharan army in 1980, aiming to expand into Chad and Niger. Ag Alhabib would meet the future members of Tinariwen ("Deserts") in these engagements. Gaddafi would be unsuccessful. Tinariwen, on the other hand...
^In the desert, lefties are forced to learn bass upside down.
^Ag Alhabib.
These guys know what they're doing. Good article on what Tinariwen means to Mali and the world in general.
This one's got me heading to the Google currency converter. Japanese popsmiths Faron Square (don't fully get the pun there, but really it's all good) are a project fronted by Yokke, founder of Tokyo's Cuz Me Pain Records (Atlas Young, Jesse Ruins). "Echoes of Love" is that kind of sunny dreamgaze gauze-pop which begs you to live out your deepest, heartfeltest, self-indulgent superfantasy.
Their album, Willys Heartbeat, is out now on various Japanese imprints. It costs 1800 Yen.
Freaked with some sweet home hip hop cookin' at MJQ in Atlanta over the weekend and it got me back here craving more ugly, dirty, weird, sexy, stinky, outrageous beats, you know? Luckily, Clams Casino just tweeted his new mixtape and it's doing the trick for now. Mostly instrumentals of A$AP, Green Ova, and Lil B stuff he did last year, but you know what?
A little cool science about one of my favorite jazz tunes via Wikipedia:
What makes the original recording(s) so interesting is the fact that Ellington has taken the traditional front-line of trumpet, trombone and clarinet, and turned them "upside down." At the time of these first three recordings in 1930, the usual voicing of the horns would be clarinet at the top (highest pitch), trumpet in the middle, and the trombone at the bottom (lowest pitch). In "Mood Indigo," Ellington voices the trombone right at the top of the instrument's register, and the clarinet at the very lowest. This was unheard of at the time, and also created (in the studio) a so-called "mike-tone"—an effect generated by the overtones of the clarinet and trombone (which was tightly muted as well). The "mike-tone" gives the audio-illusion of the presence of a fourth "voice," or instrument.
I like to call these "ghost-tones," like the harmonic effects of a train whistle or a church bell, best heard in the original recording, but still recognizable in other arrangement swaps (sax for clarinet, trombone for trumpet, etc.). Originally, two trumpets were used, as it was seen as too difficult to sustain the trombone that high for long enough (until Tricky Sam came along). Below are some other live variations, Duke blazing up the keys with an almost smug effortlessness.
And the Mingus version has to be heard. Doesn't get the overtones so much, but the video really tackles the oscillation and science-of-hearing concepts head on. Beyond blue.
