ceo - come with me dir. Marcus Söderlund from Academy Films on Vimeo.
Here’s the official video for ceo’s mesmerizing “Come With Me”. Eric Berglund’s Tough Alliance side project has been everywhere for the past couple of months, and with songs this good it’s clear why.
MP3 :: Come With Me
(from White Magic. Buy here)
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Sweden’s The Radio Dept. released their second record, Clinging to a Scheme, earlier this year. It’s full of slightly out of focus indie-pop that thrives on lush musical settings and gorgeous melodies. Besides the immediacy of the Jackson 5-by-way-of-Slumberland Records first single “Heaven’s On Fire”, Clinging to a Scheme is a record that benefits greatly from repeat listens and louder volumes. The rest of these songs are the sort that burrow into your head gradually – I’ve had this album since last spring and it’s only in the past 2 or 3 weeks that it’s kind of emerged, to me, as one of the year’s easiest albums to go back to over and again. That could be because it works as a great melodic counter-point to the noise and chaos of Public Strain, another new one that I’ve been listening to a lot, but is more likely the result of the obvious care that has gone into the craft of these 10 songs.
There are a handful of nearly-as-great as “Heaven’s On Fire” skewed-pop songs on the decidedly more accessible first half, such as the slow-burning opener “Domestic Scene” or the deceptively grand “This Time Around”. “A Token of Gratitude” later works as a brilliant bridge towards the record’s back half – beginning with what sounds like a ping-pong beat and featuring a few startling lines about love being “easy come, easy go”, it quickly downgrades into a moody, ambient instrumental coda. This sonic shift is reflected by the more melancolic, yet equally beautiful, songs that show up on the flip side. Fans have found some similarities between The Radio Dept. and Wild Nothing, another band that released a similar set of indie-pop this year. I don’t want to slag them – Jack Tatum’s bedroom-pop vehicle showed great promise on his very well-received (if slightly overrated) debut, Gemini – but Clinging to a Scheme is clearly the better record. If you haven’t caught on yet, well, like me, better late than never.
MP3 :: Heaven’s On Fire
MP3 :: David
(from Clinging to a Scheme. Buy here)
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We heard The War on Drugs' promising, if surprisingly straight-forward, “Comin’ Through” a few weeks ago. That track was the first single from their upcoming Future Weather EP, the follow up to 2008's excellent psyche/folk debut, Wagonwheel Blues. Today Secretly Canadian released the second – the trippier, 8 ½ minute album closer “The History of Plastic”. Grab it below. Future Weather drops 10/26.
MP3 :: The History of Plastic
MP3 :: Comin’ Through
(from Future Weather. Info here)
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Women’s enigmatic self-titled 2008 debut was the rarest of jumping off points –a fully-realized artistic statement that came out of nowhere. Drawing on some of post-punk’s usual suspects for inspiration (VU, Wire, This Heat, even British Invasion), and mixing harsh white-noise with soaring pop melodies, Women was unlike any other album released that year. It was the type of record that had some irresistible individual moments – “Shaking Hand” and “Black Rice” spring to mind – but many of the songs were of the kind that took multiple listens to navigate and appreciate. Once that happened though, it was clear you were listening to a young band that was a force to be reckoned with. The record gained the Calgary four-piece considerable attention, and, for the follow up, they once again decided to work with fellow Canadian Chad VanGaalen as producer.
The result doesn’t make any concessions toward accessibility. Public Strain is an even denser recording than its predecessor that further blurs the line between melody and noise. Where Women contained the “pop” songs and the “noise” songs, Public Strain contains the Women songs – equal parts of each throughout. A few weeks ago I said Cotton Jones’ Tall Hours in the Glowstream might have the most fitting title of any album I’ve heard this year, and the same might be said of Public Strain’s cover image. A harsh, white-out blizzard scene captures the near-claustrophobic aesthetic of these eleven songs perfectly. Cold, distant, and challenging (with, perhaps ironically, an opening drone of a song called “Can’t You See” that is among its most opaque), the album lacks a song with the immediacy of a “Black Rice”. What it has instead are eleven dissonant songs full of buzzing feedback and obscured melodies that, after time to sink in, prove to be equally inspired as those on their debut.
MP3 :: Eyesore
MP3 :: Narrow With The Hall
(from Public Strain. Buy here)
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I’m sorry if this is old news to you, but last week a friend of mine posted the above video on his Facebook page and I thought it was kind of hysterical – watched it a bunch of times and laughed my ass off over and over. I remember thinking that Antoine needs to be famous pronto. I mean, there’s reality television, and then there’s something like this that’s more real and better than any of it that sneaks onto some local news broadcast in Huntsville, AL.
Then earlier today my niece had the above “auto-tune” remix on her page, and, well, he might be on his way. Yes, it’s official. Auto-tune makes everything better, and Auto-Tune the News is onto something here. The story of Antoine Dodson has a happy ending – he’s an internet sensation, he has a t-shirt line, a friggin’ ringtone, and he’s back in business school:
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Lovely new song from Perfume Genius, whose debut Learning is available through Matador. By the way, anyone know what the folks at Matador have been up to lately? Seems kind of quiet around there…
MP3 :: Learning
(from Learning. Buy here)
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This past summer David Shane Smith quietly released the follow up to last year’s excellent Cloud Pleaser. That album, in hindsight, seems like a culmination of Smith’s apocalyptic early work – a collection of 3 or 4 increasingly professional sounding recordings that focused on tales of urban and environmental decay. Perfect Forms finds the L.A.-based electro/folk songwriter focusing more attention, in his words, on the “social and spiritual and not so much about the surroundings or the physical.” The change of thematic direction is certainly welcome, as Smith proves to be a more versatile writer than he’s shown in a while (the few who’ve heard his homemade Love Songs collection are already in the know). Sonically, Perfect Forms once again balances avant-garde folk, harsh electro/noise, and stripped-down, programmed beats. “Creatures”, which wouldn’t sound out of place on a mid-90’s Bjork album, might be his most affecting song yet. On it he uses a simple organ riff, a chugging start/stop industrial beat, and one of his finest vocal performances yet to paint an evocative picture of nightlife on the dark L.A. streets. Though overall it’s a longer, denser, more challenging record than Cloud Pleaser, Perfect Forms nonetheless has numerous songs and moments that stand up to his best work. It’s another exciting step along the way from this ever-evolving outsider artist.
MP3 :: Creatures
MP3 :: Perfect Forms
MP3 :: Beach
(from Perfect Forms. Buy here)
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After releasing the gorgeous There Is Love In You last winter and a handful of truly excellent remixes since then, it’s safe to say that Four Tet is having a terrific year. Here he is again expanding The xx’s “VCR” into a blissful, starry-eyed 9-minute jam.
The xx - VCR (Four Tet remix) by Four Tet
Stream :: Love Cry
Stream :: Sing
(from There Is Love In You. Buy here)
MP3 :: Angel Echoes (Caribou Remix)
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Wolf Parade "Yulia" from NORTH on Vimeo.
Wolf Parade’s Expo 86 never quite clicked with me as I’d hoped, but as usual (IMHO), the best songs belonged to Dan Boeckner. “Yulia” is one of them, and now it has a video that brings Boeckner’s evocative tale of a failed space mission to life. From director Scott Coffey – “During the Cold War at the beginning of the Space Age, the Soviet Union was rumored to have two space programs – one a public program, the other a secret ‘black’ one, in which dangerous and sometimes downright suicidal missions were attempted. Cosmonauts would be shot into orbit without the means or resources to get them home, stranded in an expanding orbit around earth, slowly pulling away, frozen in space for eternity.”
MP3 :: Ghost Pressure
(from Expo 86. Buy here)
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I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while but haven’t found the time. The Corin Tucker Band (99% sure there’s no relation to Marshall) will release 1,000 Years this week. This is certainly a welcome return to the scene for the former Sleater-Kinney singer and current stay-at-home mom. Have a listen to the charging “Doubt”, available as a free download through Kill Rock Stars, or go to NPR where you can still stream the whole wonderful thing.
MP3 :: Doubt
(from 1,000 Years. Buy here)
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(photo)
Animal Collective’s Avey Tare will release his solo debut, Down There, on October 26 via Paw Tracks. Grab the first single, “Lucky 1”, below via Pitchfork.
MP3 :: Lucky 1
(from Down There. Info here)
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Since 2007’s abrasive Cryptograms, Deerhunter have spent their time evolving from a noise band with severely obscured melodies into a pop-rock band with the occasional noise fetish. 2008’s brilliant Microcastle was a huge breakthrough for the band, capitolizing not on the promise of its predecessor, but on that of the pop-oriented Flourescent Grey EP, which was recorded as Cryptograms was being mixed and readied for release. Over this time Deerhunter leading man Bradford Cox, through both his primary band and the work of his solo project, Atlas Sound, transformed from a divisive online antagonist into one of indie-rock’s most fascinating figures. His obvious appreciation for the history of popular music, sincere love for creating and sharing his deeply affecting songs, and his very public maturation have positioned him as an artist with whom fans can identify with easily. Never has this been as apparent on Deerhunter’s latest, Halcyon Digest – a record that is at once the band’s most stripped-down, diverse, nostalgic, and personal.
There are a lot of nice things that I could say about the new record, but other sites have been eloquently spewing praise over Halcyon Digest for the past 2 or 3 weeks. I don’t have anything particularly unique to add to the discussion that hasn’t been better put in other places, so I’ll keep this brief. “Helicopter”, which had a video a few weeks back and has attracted a handful of remixes lately, is perhaps the record’s best song, but arguments can be made for a batch of the others as well. “Fountain Stairs” and especially the bristling “Coronado” feature shredding horn sections, the gorgeous guitar work on Lockett Pundt’s “Desire Lines” locks into a mesmerizing groove, and there are strong hints of 50s/ & 60s pop surfacing on “Revival” and “Basement Scene”. Overall, there’s not a weak moment – even the weary, sparse “Sailing” has melodies that stick. As No Age also did last week with Everything In Between, Deerhunter have made an album that shows one of indie-rock’s most inventive, exciting young bands growing up and producing a career high point. Halcyon Digest is another of 2010’s very best.
MP3 :: Revival
MP3 :: Helicopter (Star Slinger remix)
MP3 :: Helicopter (Diplo + Lunice remix)
(original “Helicopter” from Halcyon Digest. Buy here)
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