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General Update!

Posted by George on June 5th, 2010

Apologeeeez

all around for the long break in posts. I guess it proves how reliant I am on my sister’s incredible and tasteful prolificity.

Anyway, because I’m really busy with finals and truthfully not too good at this, here’s a post to keep things going and to keep us rolling: Let’s Go!

I hope you’ve been enjoying “Power” by Kanye. It’s pretty hot. However, there’s a new band that P4k’s picked up on, giving them the prestigious “Best New Music” title a week ago. The band is Tame Impala and I’ll be damned if you don’t think they sound like the Beatles. (Zach Kelly at P4k says, “Frontman Kevin Parker shares an eerie vocal similarity with John Lennon, both in tone and in the way he allows his voice to soar with each melodic turn or rhythmic surge.” Quite true.) I’ve added their track “It’s Not Meant to Be” to the player so check it out. (Wait that’s not Lennon!?) They’re not a ripoff but just as my friend Tom said, “It’s like the Beatles kept making songs, but didn’t age.”

Next, I’d like to show you this kickass video for the Jaydiohead mashup that was made not long ago (Radiohead + Jay Z = Jaydiohead… derp). The mashup is brilliant and if nothing else, be impressed by this CLASS-A dancing in this video.

Also, Radiohead’s Phil Selway released information and cover art for his new solo album, titled Familial, which is set to come out August 30. Yay? (I don’t think it’ll upset.)

Phil's album cover. Looks promising!

Thanks guys for bearing with us.

George

Music Overload: I can’t get past Phantogram!

Posted by Larissa on May 26th, 2010

I can’t even bring myself to read p4k and PMA, or comb through my twitter feed for music updates. I can’t even dare myself to begin on the 3 gigs of new music I just added to my library.

Phantogram – uhhh I’m at a complete standstill right now. I’ve listened to the album probably 50 times over and it’s still playing.

I had it on in the car the other day when driving my friend to an appointment. She commented, “What is this? It sounds kind of new age-y.”

Yeah it does, or something like that. It’s really hard to put your finger on it. Is it dance music or emotionally wrenching indie music? Is it traditional or super weird? You listen to a song like, “Futuristic Casket” and you think, hmm sounds like an R&B sampling or something. You think you have the song figured out until the vocals come in all glo-fi – all of the sudden the genre seems to change completely. But to what? I don’t know. If I had to compare them to someone, it would probably be TV on the Radio – but even that’s not quite right.

I don’t feel like describing anything in more detail because the music is still washing over me. I don’t want to figure it out yet, but just mindlessly enjoy it. Hey, it’s still senior week.

But, who knows how long this is going to last! Phantogram is a puzzle or a riddle I’m just really stuck on. Seriously, I was once on the subway from Columbia to Soho with my best friend and my boyfriend at the time. To entertain ourselves, my boyfriend told us a riddle. We spent the whole hour ride on it and were so consumed we barely realized that we finally made it to our destination, this jazz club called Fat Cat. We continued to annoy him with theories until out of frustration he finally just gave away the answer. But to the Phantogram riddle, the answer will not be given away by someone. I’m going to be all consumed until I figure it out. Until then, goodluck Aphera.

80’s breaks and silly synths

Posted by George on May 17th, 2010

Well it’s actually mostly sampling,

The Samps

The Samps: They don't really sound as weird as they look. And so what!?

but the Samps create classic 80’s sounds that hold their own even when disregarding nostalgia; they successfully steer clear of kitsch. They’re gonna drop a pretty bangin’ EP sometime this month on Mexican Summer and I’d suggest you check it out.

I added a song of theirs called “Magnetic Thys” to the playlist (link in sidebar) for you to check out but I also suggest you check out their myspace page to get a better idea of their musical madness (check out their single, “F.X.N.C.”).

Music from Monday’s GG episode

Posted by Larissa on April 30th, 2010

click on player to the right to play

White Rabbits – Percussion Gun 2009

Telegraph Canyon – Into the Woods 2009

Holly Miranda – No One Just Is 2010

Discovery – Slang Tang 2009

Enjoy these gems. Gossip Girl gave us a great musical line-up this past episode. I had never heard of Telegraph Canyon and they are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. The annoying thing is, a completely different song called “Lost Faith” was played on the show and I cannot find it anywhere. Artists probably send Josh Schwartz tons of new work that doesn’t yet exist for the rest of us to enjoy. So frustrating! Dear, Josh Schwartz, if you are going to wet our appetite with new stuff please provide some way for us to access it. By the time the songs do come out, I will probably have forgotten about them and they will forever be lost in the infinite blogosphere of music.

“Into the Woods” is off of Telegraph Canyon’s 2009 album The Tide and The Current. They are currently in Eindhoven, Netherlands playing at the Effenaar Queensday Festival.

A Must Listen: best tracks of 2010 so far

Posted by Larissa on April 29th, 2010

“The High Road” – Broken Bells

As much as I rip on Broken Bells, I have to admit that this track is a diamond in the rough. It’s the only track that captures both Danger Mouse’s production talent as well as whatever substance he and Mercer could muster up. But what places it in the “best of 2010 so far” is its intro – that lost sounding synth can’t be found anywhere but here.

“And the World Laughs With You” – Flying Lotus Featuring Thom Yorke

Having streamed flying lotus’s album off my space, I’ve decided this is the strongest track on his album and one of the strongest tracks of 2010 so far. George and I were biased getting into this track because of Thom, naturally. We were thinking, “oh Thom must just be so excited to be part of this stuff. This is like the music he’s been trying to create solo since the Eraser. It probably makes him feel good.” The great thing about this song is its entire buildup to Thom’s voice. The beginning is this canon of melodies each piling on top of each other. Like a more kickass version of Canon in D. Then finally, Thoms voice comes in at a serious tonal change. FlyLo used it as both instrumentation and vocals. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

“Super Fast Jellyfish” – Gorillaz

I can go on and on about how this song is perfection. It’s relevant, original, carefully crafted, catchy and it starts with the words “Yo, pretty packages of frosted delights, enjoy the gritty crunch that tastes just like chicken.” I’ve had a recent appreciation for the use of vocal sounds as instrumentation. What this song does is use the line “Don’t Waste Time!” as an instrumental quirk by making it sound cartoonish and placing it in a specific beat or moment. It’s similar to how Oos and Ahhs work in music. But this is done with vocals that contain lyrics, and through the use of caricature voices and pitch modulation. Finally, as mentioned in George’s review, this piece is made to sound like an old television advertisement for fast food (how appropriate these days!).

“Excuses” – Morning Benders

For this song, I will exonerate the Morning Benders of their plagiarism. It’s an incredible opener to an album, and, it’s probably one of the least Grizzly Bear sounding songs on Big Echo. There is a lot of movement created with percussion (including piano) that supports the slow vocal melody. And the vocal harmony in the middle is adorable – bringing a little bop into indie music. I always love the addition of new influences.

“Truth” – Chiddy Bang

Passion Pit + Chiddy Bang enough said?

“Sun Hands” – Local Natives

Not gonna lie, I did not understand the hype circulating this song back in December when it was appearing all over the blogosphere. Once Gorilla Manor came out though, hearing “Sun Hands” in context of the rest of the Fleet Fox resembling songs made it stand out. Not because it sounds different from Fleet Foxes, but because it’s Fleet Foxes at their never attained best. This is what makes Local Natives so amazing – they surpassed the Fleet Foxes with “Sun Hands” – that’s tough stuff. And, if you’ve never seen them live, go to p4k and watch immediately. Here’s a particularly mind blowing performance – is that one guy playing like 3 instruments at once and the washboard?!

“Madder Red” – Yeasayer

Yeasayer is all about the feeling that accompanies their music. It’s joyous, easy, smooth and liquid. Madder Red is my favorite off their new album even more so than “O.N.E.” (although ONE is the best break up song ever). I think it’s the bursts of guitar over the drum bass interplay. I know I said it’s about the feeling, so forget the specifics and just go with it.

Record Store Day La la la

Posted by George on April 18th, 2010

Some metal band playing at Reckless Records. Note the 7-Eleven across the street where I got a Slurpee.

Yesterday was Record Store Day and in honor of it I biked to Reckless Records, a cool record shop in the loop, to check out the scene. I was surprised to see a live metal band playing in the tiny store. It was great fun but I didn’t end up buying anything. Anyway, two new Record Store Day releases that stuck out to me as prominent were a 12″ from Beach House and a new new new new song from Blur! Wow, how many years has it been? Anyway, here’s what I have to say about the releases: the Blur song is excellent and it almost seems like a part of a bigger picture and I would die to get a Blur release this year. Graham Coxon’s guitar throughout, and especially at the end, reminds me of why I care.

:)

The Beach House track, meh… It sounds like a Teen Dream outtake, which it probably is but if you haven’t had enough Beach House then go for it but I wouldn’t have spent money on the footlong (12″ release) if had been able to find it in any of the record stores I went to yesterday. I went to two by the way. The second one was this cute store closer to campus that I walked into on my way to dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs. Dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs was great though. I had a “Bronco Burger” with fries and slaw for three dollars. What a steal!

Beach House – The Arrangementbysubpop

Oh, by the way, download the Blur song here and you can listen to a high quality version on our player.

Thom Yorke Solo Concert Review + The Incredible Flying Lotus

Posted by George on April 13th, 2010

The only thing

Thom Yorke has ever wanted to do was make dance music.

If you’ve listened to The Eraser though, you’d hardly ever guess this was the case but if you look closely, Thom has left us some subtle clues. Most obviously, a lot of his stage presence is centered around his awkward squirmish dancing (perhaps his inability to dance normally stems from his inability to make traditional dance music/or vice versa). However on Sunday when I saw Atoms For Peace, Thom’s solo band, play at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, I thought to myself, “by George, he’s done it!” What I meant is that Thom finally was playing really groovy dance tunes he had been going for since his college days as a DJ. The live band he assembled perfectly transformed The Eraser into an album of dance music. The entire floor was dancing more erratically and consistently than I’ve ever seen at a Radiohead concert. Even Thom’s onstage dancing was a bit more like normal. It was a powerful performance.

The Full Band at the Aragon playing Black Swan

Flea, Thom’s bassist, was an even more incredible dancer than Thom and commanded the focus on stage almost as much as Thom did. I think at one point they were trying to out-dance each other. Flea not only made the concert more visually appealing (a beautiful light show really fit the mood of the performance) but I think he is the reason that the songs turned out so well. His bass playing was infectiously sick and without him I doubt the concert would have been half as good. The bass line on “Black Swan” was especially milky and made me wanna go “Oh YEAH!!!!!”

The main part of the concert was them playing straight through The Eraser and without a doubt, every song sounded far better live than recorded with the exception of “Analyze”, which just sounded muddy and confusing live.

Thom Yorke playing "Airbag" on his acoustic. Note the Lighters.

The band played a seven song encore with the first half of it being Thom solo. Highlights from the second act were Thom playing “Like Spinning Plates” (a sublime performance) and “Airbag” which surprisingly sounded like a Neil Young tune and had people waving their lighters at the end.

It was a fast paced, visually pleasing, and very, very danceable concert. The crowd was fun and I’d give a lot to be able to go back to it. Wow.

Anyway…

Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma

Lastly, I want to say something about Thom Yorke’s opening act, Flying Lotus. This guy is like the next DJ Shadow. His beats is ILL and he’s not bringing it next level, he’s making a whole new level for himself. He’s already got the production credits, the incredible mastery of splicing, looping, and layering, and most importantly, he’s got Thom Yorke behind him. I can’t believe that after that entire concert, the only piece of audio I can offer you guys is a leak from FlyLo’s next album. I mean it’s the best new song I’ve heard all year but I stood there at the concert thinking I was recording the entire concert binaurally (which would have been a trip to listen to) but alas the recording sounds like robotic vomit as a result of super hard clipping. But don’t be sad, cuz this track kicks serious ass; it’s sure to make your head spin.

LISTEN

EDIT:
I found these videos of “Black Swan” and “Harrowdown Hill” from the concert I saw. Good example of Flea’s awesome playing and personality on stage. The quality of the audio is not such that you can really tell how incredible the bass playing was but at least it’s better than what I came out with.

Weekend Aphterglow – busy, so mass update

Posted by Larissa on April 12th, 2010

Thom Yorke and homecoming make for a great weekend. Combine George’s weekend and my weekend and that’s what you get. Get psyched for George’s post about the Thom Yorke, Flying Lotus concert. As for me, here are some things to get to know

BreakBot

because you can’t say no to disco

Snowden

because this is the best lyric I’ve heard recently, “Valium, in volumes. I thought I found the cure for my, I thought I found the cure for my problems.”

The XX

will be at The Main Stage at Sonar on Friday April 23, Baltimore. I have a ticket to go but will be in San Francisco. Fortunately, our guest writer, Tom, will be there to document the event.

Weekends

I know one of these guys! He went to Hopkins and they just got a write up on P4k! Cheers Baltimore and Hopkins. Click here for P4K debut

Upcoming: a new photo section to our blog, MGMT review…

Summer Aphair

Posted by Larissa on April 9th, 2010

The heat makes us stagnant – people lounge on “the beach” and discuss mustering up enough motivation to walk 20 feet to the library. Empty plastic cups with smoothie and iced-coffee remains litter the muddy grass. No one walks around to pick them up and throw them out. Instead of hiding inside to busily study, people fill the outdoor seats of coffee shops and ice-cream places.  We move a little slower to get from place to place, maximizing our time to absorb the sun’s heat before we enter the cool indoors.

These next two songs are repetitious enough to

let your mind wander,

yet active enough to move you if you feel uninspired.

Snowden ‘No One in Control’ http://bostontuned.com/?p=428


Tegan and Sara (Toro Y Moi remix) ‘Alligator’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awTm5bRUnf4

I realize the inconsistency of posting toro y moi after my last article. We make exceptions for good music.

Why Glo-Fi? We are not endorsing this

Posted by Larissa on April 6th, 2010

Maybe it’s because we grew up in the nineties, whatever the case, George and I think glo-fi eighties nostalgia is whack. We cringe when big names such as Pitchfork eat this stuff up.

Eighties revival is no stranger to any art scene. The fashion world has been pushing neons, scunchies, and pink leggings on us for years now. I’ll let Ray-Bans slide because I like them way too much. The Rubik’s cube is okay as well.

Glo-Fi

Neon Indian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlJ27Dcv4fc

What we think is more satisfyingly relevant than 80s nostalgia is a 90s comeback. It’s about that time that us 90s children are entering the work force and creative scene, so it’s likely that rather than seeing a serious endorsement of glo-fi stuff we’ll begin to see a support of artists like Die Antwoord – a disturbing but excellent musing of Eminem with ‘a post-modern Ali G factor.’

‘Look at me now, all up in the interweb’

raps Waddy Jones.

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