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“Palace Garden, 4am” - Beat Connection
If you like optimism in your music, then you can’t miss beat connection. Combining the disco revival with a balearic sunshine, “Palace Garden, 4am” becomes an infectious track of their forthcoming debut. Not to mention that any band named after an LCD Soundsystem song has to great in my book.
Palace Garden is out June, 19th.
-Eric Kossina
“Chasing My Mind” - Holograms
The raucous of “Chasing My Mind” isn’t particularly timely or palatable; the track’s harsh punk dissonance clashes with the recent deluge of smooth summer-ready releases, clawing down nerves with the juxtaposition of that fuzzy synth with gratingly acrid vocals. Holograms, Swedes with a taste harsh infection, are bursting out this summer with their eponymous debut via Captured Tracks on July 10th—I’m already (eagerly) anticipating the relentless stream of headaches and occasional flood of dopamine. Feel free to download the brief bite of noise-pop/punk provided by the band, and then go terrorize your local suburbia with it Radio Raheem-style (link).
- Kyle Minton
Review: Eric Kossina [5/22/2012]
It has been very difficult to write this review. Not because of my opinion per se, I know exactly how I feel about this record, but because Beal’s music relies so much on aesthetic that any explanation or rejection based on his aesthetic seems ignorant and distasteful. But that is one of the key reasons why his songs inherently fail. It’s not that he writes weak music (although I don’t believe you will be talking about any of these songs by the end of the year) but the songs are actually weakened by his strict acceptance of genre (he moves from folk music to indie rock with influences of R&B, but by genre, I mean more of an aesthetic sense, which we have more recently used to define music in the past decade).
“What You Won’t Do For Love” - Jessie Ware
Is Jessie releasing a new track every two weeks? Seems like it doesn’t it. Great publicity for a debut album that is only dated for August 20th, she might release the entire album by then. “What You Won’t Do” is another mid-tempo cut, with just as much soul as any of her other tracks, and an arpeggio that will make your spine crawl. Wait another two weeks, you’ll hear from her again.
-Eric Kossina
“Ocean Floor For Everything” - How to Dress Well
Tom Krell, the man behind those hazy R&B vocals of How to Dress Well, will release a new album. Along with the announcement came this soothing first taste. Aptly titled, “Ocean Floor For Everything” swells and recedes in a way that carries the listener adrift. Some of the vocals are muffled, as if sung from underwater, but are endearing all the same. Not much else has been given about the upcoming release. So far, the album will be released on Acephale [link] in the North America and Weird World [link] around the rest of the globe. We can expect to hear more about sophomore album Total Loss as its yet-to-be-determined fall release date surfaces.
- Kevin Tappin
“Idle Hands” - JK Flesh
How many projects does Justin K. Broadrick have now? I’m not complaining - I just really need to make a list. He’s now added another one, the metal/electronic/dubstepish evolution/mutation JK Flesh. The first album, Posthuman, came out April 30th on 3by3 to, as far as I have seen, generally positive reviews from critics. As can be expected, it’s… different, and more than a little weird. As Pitchfork’s Brian Howe said - yes, I am quoting the Fork - “the record’s sequencing feels like post-dubstep training wheels for wary metal heads.”
That sounds like all kinds of awful (especially in this year, when dubstep is associated with some generally terrible and ill-representative acts by the general public), but as a fan of most of many of Broadrick’s projects (namely the divisive, shoegazing Jesu, and now half of you have closed this tab in disgust), I try to look at the brighter spin of such descriptions. All that matters, though, is the music on the record - and most of the things he’s done on Posthuman fall into some twisted Bermuda Triangle where the corners are good, interesting, and weird. It’s not my favorite of his projects - though maybe I don’t have the right appreciation, as I’m sure a number of folks would say - but there are some tremendous moments here. “Idle Hands” was the first track to really strike me; give it a few minutes and decide for yourself what you think of JK Flesh. And you should take a few minutes; one of the best parts of Broadrick’s many projects is his knack for crafting slow-building, tremendous monoliths of sound.
- Tyler Hanan
(Source: Spotify)
“Bodies in the Dunes” - Pop. 1280
Director Jacqueline Castel’s video for the psychedelic gloom-and-doom minded Pop. 1280 is dead on, nailing the atmosphere, the imagery, and, as becomes quickly obvious, specific lyrics from the song. The Horror, the band’s aptly-named full-length debut for stellar label Sacred Bones Records, is an album that I was late to, sadly, but was thrilled to delve into once the wave of hype reached me. If you haven’t gotten to it, you’ll have a pretty clear idea of whether you want to fix that after watching this video. Castel also released a 12-chapter film via SBR,Twelve Dark Noons, which could be worth checking out.
- Tyler Hanan
“Black Sage” - Elijah Behar
Singer-songwriters aren’t my thing - I told Elijah as much after listening to some of his music. Most of them take a tack that is far too easy, over-wrought, and well-trodden, and often take the idea of “earnest, honest, heart-on-sleeve” music to a point that is more nauseating than anything even remotely refreshing. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy a fair number of singer-songwriters with music of varying quality - it’s just a small number relative to the crowd they’re in.
Behar has a good voice, and the tact to utilize volumes between shouting and crooning - at times his voice is quite bluesy and effective, and loose without sounding lazy. What I really enjoy, though, are the moments when he goes beyond guy-and-his-guitar. Especially in “Black Sage,” the measured moments when he inserts a rather simple piano line or a dash of percussion are remarkably effective - a bit chilling, even. It’s simply a well put-together song, especially for one found in a random email that just happened to catch my eye. The EP, Hollow Body, is available for streaming on Spotify [link] and download on Bandcamp [link].
- Tyler Hanan
“Bear With Me” - Dear Deer
We, the self-described blogosphere, are all always chasing after the songs that nobody else has heard. I’m just as guilty of scouring blogs, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, email, and forums for something new. I’d like to think that it’s not in an attempt to be cool, but instead to find something that I can share.
While finally browsing through the tracks sent to us via Soundcloud, I found this. It’s the best track that has been sent to us recently in that manner, but I can’t find much info about this Dear Deer from Denmark. The Facebook (created February 28th) had no likes when I found it, and the song has (as of my writing this) 19 plays. Also, for what it’s worth, the picture is quite nice. But the track is what really interests me. It isn’t perfect or transcendental, but DD does some really cool things that have me not only paying attention throughout, but also remaining invested and analytical for the entire duration. The best parts are actually the ambient bits that grow over the course of the seven minutes - they are simple, but remarkably effective. I hope I find more DD tracks waiting on Soundcloud for me one day, as I’d like to see where the music goes from here.
- Tyler Hanan
“Stuck In Here So Long” - The Widowers
I’m surprised this is The Widowers’ first time gracing our site, as I’ve been a fan of Arabian Safari (band member Matthew Sigur’s project with German Error Message’s Paul Kintzing) for a while now. Their appearance here was inevitable, though, and I’m glad it comes with the release of a whole new EP. Each song is nicely put together, with a vibrant bass groove being the more noticeable part of a number of them, often accompanied by an especially nice guitar riff (“Season’s Change” is especially excellent). The EP is up on their Bandcamp now - definitely check it out. [link]
- Tyler Hanan
