First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining

Here is a surprise: First Aid Kit's new album is beautiful. It's called Stay Gold. Check it out. 

They did it again. Beautiful harmonies and that crazy thing they do with their voices to reach those notes that send shivers down your spine.  I think that crazy wavering voice thing reminds me of the The Cranberries, except First Aid Kit are from Sweden, instead of Ireland.... and The Cranberries were a bit heavier rock, and these chicks are folk, ...but that voice thing.....   ;)

For being such young ladies, there is a surprising amount of wisdom in their lyrics.

Check out these beautiful tracks:

Cedar Lane  - This song has become a recent obsession of mine. It is a melancholy, nostalgic journey into times past. So good.

The Bell

Also check out there previous album, The Lion's Roar, another fantastic album.

Rose Windows - The Sun Dogs

Rose Windows - The Sun Dogs

While at the coffeeshop at which I often find myself working, I was unknowingly grooving to the background music, when I suddenly became aware of how much I was enjoying the tunes. Inquiring into the matter, the barista revealed that the band was Rose Windows, from right here in Seattle.   I added the band to my literal list of bands to check out, and it very soon has become my current top album.

They sound like elements of Jefferson Airplane mingled with occasional hints of The Doors: trippy Jim Morrison-esque lyrical imagery (try Native Dreams), and that background organ (very Doors-like).

The song This Shroud, sounds like Jefferson Airplane covering a song that Jim Morrison co-wrote with Tool. yeah... check that out. 

This band can rock some impressive electric guitar, electronic organ, and let’s not forget the flute, which all go quite well together into their impressive psychedelic rock revival. The vocals ain’t nothing to shake a stick at either.

I also happen to love the band name. I feel it is a great visual representation of their sound. Like some sorta  synesthesia induced image of the music, which sounds hazy like it is transposed through tinted glass.

Walkin’ With a Woman is a hauntingly beautiful song with a sick guitar solo. 

I love the flow of “The Sun Dogs II: Coda” and then those exquisite strings kick in about ½ way through and take it to a whole new level.

… just listen to the whole damn album.  It is impressive. It is solid.

And…Check out their excellent Live on KEXP set, below.

Blue Sky Black Death - Glaciers

Blue Sky Black Death - Glaciers

While at Hilliard’s Brewery one night I was intrigued by the music that the barkeep was playing, so I inquired.  He was playing an album, Glaciers, from the Seattle-based duo Blue Sky Black Death. I have come to love this album, and it has found its way into heavy rotation lately. I highly recommend it. 

It is hard to describe, but I would say it is ambient…electronic-y… instrumental-ly, goodness. I would say they share some musical elements with Disclosure (electronic, repetitive, catchy, etc), so if you like them, then Blue Sky Black Death may interest you. One of the tracks features the interesting collaboration of Lotte Kestner, (also based in Seattle) who I saw at the TimBRRR! Music Festival. 

Their top Last.fm genre tags are: instrumental hip-hop, abstract hip-hop, electronic ..etc.  But whatever it is, I like it! It is good background music if you are working on something that you need to focus on, but want some musical motivation. 

[Their Wikipedia page for further info.]

Beck - Morning Phase

Beck - Morning Phase

Beck has released a new album, Morning Phase, which is supposed to be take off where Sea Change left off.  Beck has dabbled in genres all of the map and has been recreating himself and experimenting on every album, but Sea Change is by far my favorite, so I was very excited when I heard about the follow-up concept of Morning Phase.

Sea Change was a slow-motion flow of emotional and gloomy tracks of lazily-enunciated lyrics over incredibly beautiful orchestral soundscapes, accented with little sprites of treble that chime-in, providing little explosions of auditory hope. It is the perfect soundtrack for wallowing in melancholy and a goddamn masterpiece of depressing music with themes of heartbreak, desolation, solitude, and loneliness. Try Lost Cause, my favorite track from the album.

MorningPhase does well as pairing with Sea Change, starting immediately with the orchestral intro.  The 1^st track, Morning, sounds almost like rehashed replica of a track from Sea Change, with chimes, lazily strummed guitars, and strung-out mumbly lyrics. Even the cover art is similar, like a hazy aged homage reminiscent of Sea Change.

Sea Change

Overall I really like the album, and have been enjoying it. If you are hopeful (as I was) that this album can possibly live up to Sea Change, it will not let you down. As you well know, it couldn’t possibly surpass Sea Change, but it is a very nice addendum and a refreshing emulation, showing that a band can recreate a distinct (and critically acclaimed) sound 12 years later.

If you need a jumping-off-point I recommend :

Blue Moon
    or
Wave, which makes you feel as if you are a piece of flotsam floating alone in the ocean.

 But it’s all good and certainly worth a listen.

Radical Face - The Family Tree: The Roots

In my post about Sasquatch 2013, I mentioned that I was quite taken aback by this band known as Radical Face that I stumbled upon, (and almost purposefully skipped due to (mis)judging the band by its name and bio-picture).

I have since followed up and listened to this band A LOT. The Family Tree: The Roots has become my top album of the last 3 months (at 250 plays!).

The Roots is a storytelling masterpiece. It is a haunting account of the hardship of (someone's) ancestors, (who I picture homesteading in frontier-culture Appalachia). From wikipedia: [This album is about] "the first two generations of the Northcotes' family tree and is narratively based in the 1800s". Although the tales are fictional, they manage to paint such a vivid picture that you feel as if narrator has personally lived through all of these events.

As far as concept albums go, it is pretty consistent throughout, even though the song topics range from purely depressing to just plain creepy. Musically, it is good as well, with songs the build from eerie intros to beautiful piano portions.

It is the first installment of an ongoing concept-trilogy which I have become very excited to see through. After The Family Tree: The Roots, will be The Branches (Oct. 2013), followed by The Relatives. Also throughout the project, they will release volumes of EPs under the heading The Bastards. Radical Face provides better descriptions of the project and the albums here. I think there is amazing potential in this concept and if he can maintain the same quality/consistency, I will be very impressed with this project.

If you are looking for an uplifting album, you are in the wrong place. This is one of those beautifully-hauntingly-depressing (and sometimes creepy) albums, which I cannot take out of heavy-rotation because I am entranced by the stories. Here are some of themes woven into the narrative (as interpreted by me, at an estimated 15 full-listen-throughs of the album):

• His mother dying during his birth.
• Being abused by his alcoholic distant father.
• Watching his twin brother die of some illness.
• The hanging suicide of his father.
• Being haunted by the ghosts of his grandparents.

...among other happy occurrences.

Read the full album lyrics of The Family Tree: The Roots here.

The Roots is up there with The Antlers - Hospice as one of the most depressing modern albums (which is another amazing concept album, albeit a fucking dark and depressing one).

Enjoy, but seriously beware, because these are some real downers.

Random Access Memories has been....(wait for it!) ..... randomly accessed.

Given the hype, and the hype over the hype, I was both excited and terrified for this release. It could have turned out to be a total piece of crap, but luckily ended up being an alright Daft Punk album. They were promoting the album and drumming up hype in a genius fashion by dropping mysterious TV ads and posters in strategic places.

Some very nondescript posters in an area of Seattle that I frequent. 
The genius in this Ad-campaign is that I needed nothing more to fully understand what was being communicated here. 

I was chompin’ at the bit, and regularly checking the web for some leak info. I knew something was up when a quick check of HasItLeaked.com showed the site was down! I think they then released streaming versions of the album a few days ahead of the scheduled release date, in an effort to combat the leak, as they do these days.

As of several listens it sounds kinda, eh. Nothing extraordinarily epic about it, but an alright Daft Punk album nonetheless. It’s got a bunch of filler, and a few terrible songs in standard Daft Punk form, but overall I like it.

My Initial Track-by-Track notes: 

1. Give Life Back to Music    Pretty good kick-off. Catchy. I like it.
2. The Game of Love  An alright slow-jam.
3. Giorgio by Moroder - Giorgio banter which is vaguely interesting, followed by a very catchy synth riff.  Maybe a bit repetitive by the end.
4. Within  - Piano ballad about soul-searching. It’s pretty good.
5. Instant Crush (featuring Julian Casablancas)  - Casablancas is heavily vocoded. I like everything he has done, from The Strokes up to (and including) this song.
6. Lose Yourself to Dance (featuring Pharrell Williams) -  Nothing special about this. I don’t like it. Regardless of the word "Dance" in the title, you will not lose yourself to dance, unless maybe you are doing the electric-slide with excessive clapping.
7. Touch  (featuring Paul Williams) - Starts off creepy, gets creepier with the lyrics. The lyrics are terrible and could easily be plucked from a Disney movie... maybe Beauty and the Beast? Then it picks up with some horns, but overall is it terrible.
8. Get Lucky (featuring Pharrell Williams) - As of now, this is best song I register on the album. It is the one they were using as a teaser “Get Lucky”. It is quite catchy, and consistently good throughout. I like Pharrells vocals.   
9. Beyond  - Symphony intro, then a slow-jam. Its alright. At 3:30 some synth work, but overall unimpressive.
10. Motherboard  - Purely instrumental. A funky bouncy-sound intro, then symphonic sound. Followed by a Philip-Glass-esque bit (which I like). That vibe continues. I like it.  
11. Fragments of Time (featuring Todd Edwards) - Funky beat to start. Catchy. This could grow on me.
12. Doin' It Right (featuring Panda Bear)  - They should re-title this track “Doin’ It Wrong”. I was very excited about Panda Bear’s collaboration, and I am quite disappointed in his song. It is so repetitive (and not in a good way), and annoying.  Really disappointed that I hate this. I don’t like the way he just speaks some words with weird inflections. I expected great things in that mash-up! He says in his behind-the-album video, that he came up with his song in a rushed 5 seconds or sumthin, so what do you expect.
13. Contact  - Starts with some fitting and interesting banter. My take on the banter is: It’s someone (an astronaut?) thinking they are seeing signs of intelligent life, which most likely ended up being the rhythmic flashes of a Pulsar. I really like the sound-byte and would love to know it’s origins and back-story. The banter then kicks off a nice sci-fi-esque (or Clockwork Orange-esque) synthesizer intro, which continues building. It should have ended at the 4:50 timestamp, but drags on with annoying distortion for another ~1.5 minutes!

Here is someone else’s track by track description, which I haven't read, but it may have more useful information than mine.

Mostly what this album does for me is give a little infusion of some new Daft Punk (which I appreciate), and spark my interest to go back and listen to past Daft Punk songs which I absolutely cherish. I doubt there will be many (if any) off the RAM album that make it into heavy rotation for me, or any that I will absolutely need to revisit often.

The Collaborators Series 

Don’t forget to watch The Collaborators series for more information on how this mystical robot rock was created. 

After you watch the Panda Bear one (Episode 5), make sure you see this gem of a parody. haha!

David Bowie - The Next Day

David Bowie - The Next Day

Wow. This is one of THE WORST albums I have ever heard.  I forced myself to persevere through listening to the whole thing (in an effort to give it a chance), and it was painful. I am embarrassed for David Bowie.  I love a lot of Bowie's songs, and he has done one of the most beautiful songs I can think of, Life on Mars, so it makes me sad that he couldn’t just NOT MAKE THIS CRAPPY ALBUM. That is all. 

Foxygen - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

Foxygen - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

I think we can all agree... that this band's name is fantastic. So good, in fact, that they don't even have to make good music to make it big. It's the best band name I have heard in a loong time.

But extra bonus: the music is good! A throwback to 60's-style, simplistic, chill, psychedelic rock. And they emulate it very well.

I often find myself grasping to figure out what other bands a new band sounds like (and not being able to put my finger on it), but not this one! I know exactly what it is that they sound like. The lead singer is a young Mick Jagger fronting an exact replica of what a modern day Velvet Underground would sound like.  When the lead singer is not sounding exactly like a young Mick Jagger, he is sounding like a young Lou Reed !   It uncanny. Maybe Lou Reed and Mick Jagger had a son together, and he started this band....?

Their sound is spot on Velvet Underground. It is like the lost tapes of the Velvet Underground. I love it.

Guards - In Guards We Trust

I saw Guards open for Deer Tick and I immediately liked them. They feature an omnichord, which is awesome!  The main dude's sister is in Cults (a really fantastic band).
I have always loved the original Guards (self-titled) album.

The new one In Guards We Trust is growing on me already!

Mac Demarco (current Discography)

Mac DeMarco

While at first listen there may not be anything incredibly novel about the songs that Mac Demarco puts out, I encourage you to give it a listen, and then revisit it again. Then tell me if that jangly reverb guitar sound doesn’t stick in your head.  That jangly off-pitch guitar sound, sounds like they recorded the guitars on vinyl, and then let it get slightly warped, and then used that as a backdrop to sing over.  And once it gets in your head, it just reverbs around in there, and you can’t get it out! The songs are overall simple, but catchy.  

Rock n Roll Night Club

I saw in an interview that he wrote up the entirety of Rock n Roll Night Club as kind of a joke, and then got a record deal out of it. The album is pretty consistent from start to finish, except it is interspersed with some filler radio-banter, which only serves to add to the weird vibe.

I can’t help but draw comparisons to David Bowie when I listen to this album. The title track sounds just like Bowie.  And Baby’s Wearing Blue Jeans is like Bowie’s Blue Jeans, redux.  

2

This album is where that jangly sound will get ya. Definitely has that bizarre can’t-put-my-finger-on-it throwback weirdness possessed by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Definitely some similarities there.

I like a lot of the tracks on this one:

I was going to list the tracks I like here…..but then I realized I like all of them. Listen to it!  And then listen to  it again!

The Heavy - Glorious Dead

The Heavy - Glorious Dead

Soulful, brassy, good!

This album is pretty damn awesome with a few duds. Overall a great find!

The Lonesome Road has a Tom Waits kind of gritty swagger.

Songs I like:

• Be Mine  [I love this song! damn its good...]
• Curse Me Good
• What Makes a Good Man

Grimes - Visions

Grimes - Visions

I love this album. I didn't originally like it. I originally lumped it in with some other stuff, but after a few listens I can see that there is something different here.

For one thing, I like this description: "Her music is an eclectic mix of styles which she described herself as “ADD music”, because it shifts frequently and dramatically." I think that it is fairly accurate. It is very ADD. 

I also like her voice.

I saw Grimes at the 2012 Capitol Hill Block Party but I hadn’t really listened to her album very much ahead of time. Now that I am into this album and it is in regular rotation, I am ready to see her live again and really see how it translates live.

The songs that I really like are :

Genesis

Oblivion

Local Natives - Hummingbird

I LOVE the previous Local Natives album Gorilla Manor, and the new album Hummingbird seems to be a continuation of the same goodness. I like it.

San Cisco - San Cisco

This is really growing on me!

It sounds like Phoenix at times and also Vampire Weekend (but better) I think at times. and sometimes a blend of the two.

Very catchy. A late find for the year for me (thanks Blake!), but I would say its up there on the list of 2012 albums!

Geograper - Animal Shapes

(indie pop, indie, electronic)

I found this album by accident, and it is fantastic! I mistook Geographer  for Geologist (a member of Animal Collective).... I gotta say, that was an easy mistake to make, but I'm glad I made it!. Haha.

It sounds like a cross of Grizzly Bear and Passion Pit. I arrive at that combo since it has the chill vibe and vocals of Grizzly Bear, but the crisp, catchy synth-work of Passion Pit. Which is a weird, but fantastic combo.

It is an EP so it is short and has no filler so all 6 tracks are solid. Give Paris a listen and tell me that synth riff doesn’t immediately resonate as in your brain as addiction.

…And I just found out that they are playing within 4 miles of my house, in less than a month!!! Damn that was good timing on that accidental find!

Paris 

(No actual video here, just audio for your listening pleasure)

tUnE-yArDs - whokill

(experimental, freak folk, indie)

tUnE-yArDs has been on my Last.fm Recommended Artists list for a long time, but I have been reluctant to venture out of my music bubble to find new tunes. After seeing mentions of this artist in various places and on several best-of-2011 lists, I finally gave it a listen. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to be pleasantly surprised!  whokill is by far the most interesting and unique album that I have encountered from 2011.

Merrill Garbus’ androgynous vocals combined with layering and distortion produces an intriguing ‘sound’. This album may not be for everyone, as it is a bit sporadic, off-beat, and wild at times, but I find its oddity draws me in. It implants these intriguing, catchy little snippets in my brain.  In a way, this album has become an addiction; constantly plaguing my thoughts with cravings for a specific riff.

All the songs are interesting and most are great, but Gansta is a good place to start.

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

There have been several fantastic albums released this year, but the one that I just cannot turn off is Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83. It seems to mesh so well with my brain that it is has become the soundtrack of my synapses. This refreshing and nearly flawless album has almost immediately risen to one of my favorite albums of….life.

M83 rejuvenates 80’s-style synth and produces fresh modern synth rock. This coupled with their mastery of the shoegaze sound creates fluidity and maintains continuity throughout the album, even as the songs ebb and flow. I feel they have delivered a masterpiece: the perfect mixture (and sequence) of upbeat rocking synths and fantastic drumbeats, interlaced with leisurely soundscapes which slowly build anticipation as the song progresses and then…… aaahhhh, aural bliss. 

M83 has made several good albums, but it seems that they have reached new depth with Hurry Up, We're Dreaming; a new depth of sound as well as emotional depth. My only criticism is the fairytale/trip Raconte-Moi Une Histoire, whose purpose is to put you in the youthful, carefree open-mindset of which the album is best listened. It does this well, and is not a bad track, but upon continued listens it is skip-worthy. This minor inconvenience does very little to tarnish such perfection.

So do your auditory cortex a huge favor: gather up a pair of good headphones (not earbuds), lay down, relax, close your eyes, free your mind, listen to it straight through in it’s entirety, and send your imagination on a delightful adventure. Just as the title implies, it is the perfect listen-straight-through on the cusp-of-consciousness album.

Listen to it now on Spotify.

Band of Horses New Video/New Album

Swing on over to the Band of Horses Website to check out their cool new music video, a preview of there upcoming album, Infinite Arms, to be released in May. As I have previously posted, I am fairly excited about this album. Since I first heard them perform the song "Older," I have patiently waited to see if the rest of this new album will be as great, and if letting the other band members take the lead will live up to Ben Bridwell's vocals. I think we will be pleasantly surprised.

Review: Beach House - Teen Dream

While the two previous Beach House albums, Devotion of 2008, and their self-titled debut of 2006, were quite impressive pieces of drone pop, their newest release Teen Dream , steps it up a notch. Their music is seemingly simplistic and "kind of a downer," but this is not to be taken negatively, as their style is an art in itself, and Beach House has mastered their own sound in Teen Dream. Their cover art, on the other hand, doesn't receive such glowing reviews, except maybe under a blacklight...

Review: Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Yeasayer 's -sophomore release, Odd Blood, is a spirit-aural journey. If there is a soundtrack to finding Nirvana (as in bliss, not Grunge), there is no doubt several Yeasayer tracks from both their 2007 mind-blowing debut, All Hour Cymbals , and their soon-be-to-released Odd Blood (2010), make the playlist.

In several interviews they mention that the sort-of "spiritual" essence of their music is just an unintentional by-product of trying to make good, catchy, pop songs, a kind of forthright honesty and down-to-earthness that is apparent in their interviews . If you're like me, you want to believe this album was written specifically to guide you on a pilgrimage to enlightenment, but no, just a coincidence. But then again, that is in the ear of the beholder.

However they arrive at such eerily, enthralling music, they are doing it exactly right. Odd Blood is this years' Merriweather Post Pavilion , an early masterpiece, having unending replay value, and the potential to be a chart topper to propel them into limelight, a place where they certainly deserve to be.