It’s Friday afternoon and time for some relaxing sounds to welcome the weekend. Toro Y Moi is Chaz Bundick, a 23-year-old from South Carolina who has just signed to Carpark records and is set to release two very different sounding albums next year. The aim is to represent how bands such as Daft Punk and Sonic Youth have impacted on the range of his long-running bedroom recordings. This track is set to be released as a single on October 6th. Continue Reading »
Originally recorded when George Harrison passed away in 2001, this beautiful take on the All Things Must Pass track is part of a six-song EP covering the work of the former Beatle. Just as the My Morning Jacket frontman revitalised Bob Dylan’s Going to Acapulco for the I’m Not There soundtrack, these renditions are paired back but powerful. You can listen, download and pre-order Tribute To over yimyames.com, with a portion of the proceeds going to Woodstock Animal Farm Sanctuary. Continue Reading »
The Bowerbirds in Vienna with the wind blowing through the trees and water trickling from a fountain, performing the second song off their new album Upper Air for They Shoot Music.
When I first heard this song about a month ago over the PA system in Pure Groove, it was one of the moments where you run over and ask the DJ: “what is this?” Well, That Ghost is 18-year-old Ryan Schmale from Sonoma County, California who has recorded four full-length releases of lo-fi garage pop worth checking out. All of them are sold out except for the most recent, Young Fridays, which is available through iTunes, but he has just released a 7-song EP entitled Get It and Get Out which is limited to 100 copies - just send him a message on MySpace! Continue Reading »
If you could do with a trip to Whiskeytown, check out Motel Motel: a twanging rock band from New York with all the sounds of the south. They recently recorded a Daytrotter session and are on their way to the UK in September for the End of the Road festival. Continue Reading »
A rare acoustic take recorded in Paris with Brooklyn’s Scary Mansion. Singer Leah Hayes’ was suffering from a sore throat but I think it works, with a sound as soothing as those lozenges being passed around. Warning: it takes about two minutes to get going, so you might want to skip forward.
The Happies are a little-known indie act from Utah. They began as a home-recording project influenced by Grandaddy and Yo La Tengo which grew unexpectedly into a band with two releases to their name by 2007 but haven’t been heard of since. Still, this track’s lightly chugging string ensemble is the perfect sound for building some momentum towards Friday evening. Continue Reading »
Clock Opera’s “pocket symphonies with a mechanical feel” are assembled by Guy Connelly and friends using the cut-up technique, layering found sounds, improvised percussion, distorted instruments and Connelly’s own singing. According to the Guardian, this track is about a time when he was walking down Whitechapel Road as a motorbike came careening towards him without a driver; a yarn possibly as fabricated as the arrangements. As an unsigned act, there is no release to date but an album is being recorded with Radiohead engineer Graham Stewart and there is an appearance at Latitude on the way too. Continue Reading »
The scratchy, reverb-heavy quality of the guitar on this track has led to it appearing on several seasonal mixes already this summer, but the band’s own vision for the song is somewhat darker. Their debut album Columbus’d the Whim will be released August 4th.. Continue Reading »
With a promising EP recorded by Wolf Parade’s Arlen Thompson, The Witchies seem poised to win over fans sounds to attract fans of not-so-distantly connected bands Sunset Rubdown and the Handsome Furs. But as unsigned act the release is limited to CD-R that you can only buy at shows or stores in their hometown of Montreal. If you like what you hear, head over to their MySpace and badger them to set up a PayPal account! Continue Reading »
Just like friend and label-mate Bullion, The Strange Dreams Of Paul White lifts samples from obscurity, fragments them into hallucinatory moments and pairs them with hip-hop beats to form an erratic, loosely themed mix in the style of J Dilla. You can stream tne entire album over at White’s website, where you can also download the first track for free or pay him to make beats from your own samples. There was an option to buy a biscuit and beat-making session but it had to be retracted when someone took him up on the offer. Continue Reading »
Vincent Moon took his Fiume Nights series to New Zealand recently, meeting Jess Chambers by chance at a party and then overhearing Justin Firefly singing on skype at another party. This video brings them together with a choir of friends late at night, performing one last time before the guests are allowed to tuck in to the food and drink.
In January a group of friends decided to cancel everything in their schedules and convened for a week in Amsterdam’s Lloyd Hotel to see if they could make an album together. The result is We’ll Make It Right, nine tracks of experimental pop songs channeling the spontaneous ideas and energy of half a dozen people. You can download the album for free via In A Cabin. Continue Reading »
Chapi Chapo et Les Pitites Musiques de Pluie uses a range of toy instruments that sound as colourful as they look (see the beautiful shots here), but this solo project from Saint-Eloy, France employs them to create the sort of compositions that could soundtrack a segue into a dark dreamworld. This instrumental piece in particular will set a scene perfectly in your head worthy of Guillermo del Toro, leaving you to expect the voice of Tom Waits to come whispering in with a bedtime story… Continue Reading »
London folkies Fanfarlo decide to take on a Will Oldham cover while rehearsing in band member Cath’s living room. You can still buy their new album Reservoir for just $1 on their official site - but only until July 4th!
Phoenix are possibly the breakthrough act of 2009 so far and yesterday they recorded an eight-track session at KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic (they also did one in 2006, if you’re interested in hearing what they were like back then). But this set is a good opportunity to hear a good quality recording of their much vaulted new material without the production sheen of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, out now on v2. Below you can watch a video of the band covering Air’s ‘Playground Love’, which lead singer Thomas Mars provided the vocals for on the original. Continue Reading »
The resemblence is not accidental. Crocodiles are serious about their influences, revitalising them and paving forward with a melodic presence that will charm no matter how familiar the sound is. This is the new video for the San Diego duo’s debut album, Summer of Hate, out now through lo-fi champions Fat Possum. Continue Reading »
There have been a lot of hazy, lo-fi songs about the summertime recently but you would be hard-pressed to find better song to brighten your Monday afternoon than this effort from Piper and Skyler of Pearl Harbour, two young blondes from L.A. who are riding the wave of dreamy, washed-out pop flooding the web at the moment. You can buy a handmade CD-R of their recordings for $8 by emailing them directly or hold out for their first official release, a 12″ EP on Mexican Summer in October. Continue Reading »
Some musicians would never dream of admitting their influences; others gladly offer them up in the hope that they’ll attract a shared audience. Is one more credible than the other? Do they have different motivations for creating music? Alan Wilkis is another artist who mailed me music recently, in this case his self-released EP of retro electro-pop Pink and Purple, which he recorded with the help of “hired hands” for TV On the Radio, Dirty Projectors and Asobi Seksu. It also came with some honest comparisons from Wilkis himself (Prince, Scissor Sisters) but listening to this track, I hear even more specific elements to name check: George Clinton, The Delfonics and Rockwell. If that gets you in the mood for similar fun tests for music geeks, you can listen to Wilkis’ back catalogue, cover versions and even a remix of ‘1901′ by Phoenix here. Continue Reading »
Earlier this year tUne-YaRds (Merrill Garbus) sent me an mp3 of one of her lo-fi experimental folk compositions, recorded on a hand-held digital voice recorder and edited using free mixing software, but I never took to it enough to post - until I saw this beautifully shot live performance, which animates the material in a way that does it justice. In the months since that email, her album BiRd-BrAiNs (which took two years to put together) is no longer offered through a pay-what-you-feel option but can be bought through Marriage records. Continue Reading »
This is not a Beach Boys cover, but an extreme case of lo-fi with a similar sentiment expressed in even fewer words. This a demo by Pocahaunted’s Bethany Cosentino, who has moved back to California to record a set of songs that people can make out to on a beach blanket this summer when she releases a 7″ on Art Fag records. Continue Reading »
Nobunny is a nameless man with a mask, a wig and a pair of pink panties who rocks out until he splits his lip with the microphone. He’s also heavily inspired by the Ramones, as if you couldn’t tell. The album, Love Visions, is a collection of slipshod punk-rock jams that Jay Reatard describes as an “instant classic” and the ideal record for jumping around in your underwear. I suggest you listen to this (or the video below) and try to do the same… Continue Reading »
The latest installment of La Blogotheque’s pocket party series is a half-hour private Beirut peformance filmed in Paris last month. Given the size of the crowds they’re playing to these days, this may be as intimate as it gets.
I can’t get over how much Bibio has changed. It has only been a few months since his last release, Vignetting the Compost, which was in keeping with his other albums since 2004’s Fi: a nostalgic blend of folk and electronica that amounted to an acoustic Boards of Canada. While there are still moments like that on Ambivalence Avenue, the album is varied enough to include hip-hop beats and 8-bit samples. This track, Jealous of Roses (video below), resembles Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti more than it does the Bibio of old, but it’s a great record nonetheless and is likely to thrust him closer to the mainstream. Continue Reading »
Dreamy pop from Brooklyn’s Dustin Payseur, about whom not a lot is known. But this is exactly the kind of song your Saturday afternoon needs: warm, nostalgic and wet. Continue Reading »
’80s-inspired electro-pop and summertime are a perfect combination, particularly when set to scenes like these (skateboard movie Thrashin’ from 1986). Until now, I never made the connection between “the big brother in the Goonies” and Josh Brolin of No Country For Old Men, Milk and W. But they are one and the same.The sounds are the work of Alan Palomo, otherwise known as one half of Neon Indian, who demonstrates the difference between simply being retro and updating a genre. Continue Reading »
From the lof-fi stable that is Woodsist (Vivian Girls, Wavves, Crystal Stilts), Monster Head Room is an album of trashy acid pop that follows up the 12″ debut by Sacramento’s Ganglians within the space of a month! Well worth checking out if you like your fuzz. Continue Reading »
A Jens Lekman-style cocktail pop song about being stuck in a desert army base and longing for the coolness of your lover back home. A great tune for when the drill sergent is on your back or, y’know, just whenever you could do with a laidback, infectious melody.A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars isout now on Twins of Evil. Continue Reading »
I’ve been working on this mix on and off for about five months; tweaking, cutting, shuffling and waiting until I got the balance just right. There is a loose conceptual theme and it all blends together to fit neatly on a blank CD. Because it has been so long since my last mix (hence the presence of a few older songs), I thought I’d go all out and package it in a handmade sleeve with a tracklist invitation. Hope you give it a try… Continue Reading »
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@muzzleofbees Have to agree with Trans. of Vincent. Haven't liked his stuff for 2 years. Saw him last week & a set of old songs won me back
about 1 day ago from web
