Last week I wrote about the Chromatics’ track “Looking For Love”, which will be featured on Italians Do It Better’s upcoming 16-song compilation, “After Dark II”. Now there’s a third single for another song, “Tears From Heaven”, by Desire — a band which features Chromatics’ Johnny Jewel, along with two other musicians — singer Megan…
Mesita released a new track, “XYXY”, from an upcoming 2013 record. So far, the youthful Colorado musician has been pumping out exuberant and immensely creative music for a few years now. And he’s done it at quite a pace. There 2008’s “Cherry Blossoms” and a 2009 EP called “No Worries”, which it appears he’s combined…
PitchforkTV.com posted a new documentary in it’s series that looks at a variety of bands. This time around it focuses on Minnesota’s Poliça, and it’s stunning lead singer, Channy Leaneagh. This 9-minute documentary finds the band talking about what it’s like to become progressively more well known, how Channy creates music while raising her daughter,…
U.K. musician Marika Hackman posted a new cover on her soundcloud page, a sparse version of Warpaint’s “Burgundy” (link to original), off the California band’s wonderful debut EP “Exquisite Corpse” (2008). Hackman’s “Burgundy” is haunting and sparse, holding true to the original’s sense of foreboding and slow seduction. It’s a beautiful and lush re-imagining of…
Emily Wells is streaming her track, “Becomes the Color”, a song featured on the soundtrack to the upcoming Park Chan-wook film, “Stoker”, starring Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska. I’m unsure exactly if this song will actually be in the movie, or if it’s simply a part of a soundtrack released in conjunction with it. We’ll…
“I Wanna Go Out” is a sweet piece of straight-forward fuzz-rock from Teen Mom, off the D.C. trio’s debut six-song EP, “Mean Tom”, which you can pre-order at Analog Edition in a 12-inch edition. Each pre-order comes with an immediate digital download. The song features strong, jangly guitar with the occasional thrash-out, backing up a…
Water Graves, a self-described chillwave group from Perth, Australia, posted a new single called, “Creatures”. I’ve been listening to this track for the last couple of days, and it has me hooked. It has a sweet driving bass rhythm, light harmonized lead vocals, and a very cool guitar line that picks up near the halfway…
Berlin transplants, Vasco Cesaretti and Nick Zorn, from Los Angeles, are PVTLVS. The duo have a new video out for their debut track called “Last Calls”, a single that can also be streamed on bandcamp and soundcloud, along with the rest of their music. Everything about the song is light and subtle, with its whispered,…
I posted about City Calm Down’s newest track, “Pleasure and Consequence”, and their retro-sounding lead singer Jack Bourke, earlier this month. Now there’s a new video for the song, courtesy of NOT -A- SHOP and cameraman Tim O’Keefe. The song comes from off an upcoming release called “Movements”, due out November 2. I’ve written in…
The Weeknd posted a new track, “Enemy”, on YouTube. It’s another sexy R&B-laced cut, but what gives this one a little twist is the borrowed lyric from The Smiths’, “Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, the b-side to 1984’s “William, It Was Really Nothing.” In a way, it’s that kind of thing…
The rough-edged Indianapolis band, Learner Dancer, have a video out for their track, “Radiation Chile”, which features video footage from “The Cold Plot”, a documentary film that tries to condense Soviet era images, with the birth of the nuclear age, Cold War escalation, and massive weapons build up. Beyond the wild muddle of geopolitics, here’s…
Ghost Twin duo Karen Asmundson and filmmaker Jaimz Asmundson posted a video for their song “Here We Are In the Night”, which was labeled as “rough demo”. It’s seems anything but rough to me. Sure, maybe a sweet Sennheiser and a number of other gadgetry could get the track exactly where the duo want it,…
Sharon Van Etten is following her Jagjaguwar debut, “Tramp”, with a 2-CD deluxe edition of the record, featuring the entire original album along with demos for each of the 12 songs. The release is scheduled for November 13th and will include a previously unreleased demo, the acoustic “Tell Me”. The record includes an artistic self-portrait…
The Chromatics have whetted the appetite with this five-minute and 20-second re-edit of “Looking For Love”, a 17-minute song set to be released via Italians Do It Better on a record entitled, “After Dark 2”. This is a sexualized groove that hits all the right spots, with its constant thump and grind, reminiscent of that…
A Their Bated Breath favorite, Guerre, is back with another low-fi, moody gem called “Rashad (Loose Pace)”. It’s full of vocal feints. Teasing, laid back clips of honey-dipped high falsetto, dished out in utterances, seasoning the sparse electronics of the song. Soft beats and intermittent keyboard are sprinkled amid the sexy, melodic crooning. I think…
Currently unsigned group, CRIM3S, posted a new video for the song, “Lost”, another track to add to their long list of sinister, creepy sounding adventures into dark atmospheric dub and electronics. The song sounds like part exorcism, part warped seance. The track reminds me of the paradoxical mix I heard in Wise Blood’s “Loud Mouths”,…
It’s been just short of two years since I’d last written about Jenny O. and her delightful five-song EP “Home”, which featured songs mostly centered on her sweet vocal sounds and an acoustic guitar. Now she has a new track out, “Automechanic”, which is also the name of the upcoming release, due out February 5th…
London’s Daughter made its television debut last night on Late Night with David Letterman, singing “Youth” from off the band’s EP, “The Wild Youth”. I feel a bit like a proud papa, since I’ve been writing about this band for a couple of years now on this blog. It’s good to celebrate a success. Sometimes…
Sharon Van Etten has a new video out for one of her prettiest songs, “Magic Chords”, from the album “Tramp”, which was released February 7 via Jagjaguwar. Video was directed by Rick Alverson. This video arrives just after SVE blew away a British audience on Later With Jools Holland. You can follow Sharon Van Etten…
Melbourne’s City Calm Down are a band close to my heart. Music bloggers will know exactly what I’m talking about. Amid all the familiar band names we write about in regard to the quality of a release, there are those bands we quietly champion. In part, because you feel like you have a bit of…
Saskatchewan posted a sexy new track, “Venom”, that shimmers with electro-beats and a kinda of funky groove. The chorus and backing vocals are lush R&B-styled falsetto mixed with whispered words and male-female harmonization. It’s a lush cut that’s one of the better songs the band has created. Follow Chandler Strang and Saskatchewan at facebook, twitter, and…
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