really, vampire weekend? is this where we're at in our relationship? i mean you had a fun album last year and you managed to turn a lot of umbrella into smiles at all points wet this summer (too soon?) but now i'm expected to take valuable time out of my work day to sit by my computer and stare at some nebulous countdown for a tiny crumb from your new album? really???
ah, who am i kidding, the track's embedded after the jump. new album contra is out jan. 12. sounds like more of the same but "funner," i guess...
it may not be besting animal collective or grizzly bear on end of year lists come december, but damn if wolfgang amadeus phoenix still hasn't proven to be one of the more prolific releases of '09. like the aforementioned cut copy's excellent in ghost colours released one year prior, it's a sweetly seductive summer record for all seasons that has inspired remix after remix after remix, none of which have managed to fuck up the source material. yet.
phoenix is currently prepping a full album of nothing but remixes of their songs (shades of sally shapiro's remix romances). it's seeing a digital release on oct. 13 but they've been offering fans a steady stream of teasers via their blog, most being different takes on fabled next single "fences" (good choice btw). the takes by friendly fires and soft pack (which may as well just be a cover) are well and good, but my personal favorite of the bunch so far is animal collective's lovely spin on album instrumental "love like a sunset," which they've even enhanced with their own vocals.
check it out and find out your own favorites right now.
my weekly circuit program airs tonight from 10-midnight and again saturday at the same time. this week, i'm rocking new music from the golden filter, the pains of being pure at heart, a place to bury strangers and more.
this wasn't the playlist i originally set out to run with this week. I actually did a complete overhaul of the first hour upon discovering newer stuff this week. overall, i'm happy with the changes and think everything flows a lot better than it did last week.
full playlist lies beyond...
the golden filter - thunderbird hercules & love affair - i can't wait the pains of being pure at heart - higher than the stars (saint etienne visits lord spank remix) phoenix - fences (friendly fires remix) lake heartbeat - mystery (ydre rymden dansskola remix) the rapture - house of jealous lovers toro y moi - left alone at night (pink skull remix) ghosthustler - only me to trust a place to bury strangers - in your heart (cereal spiller remix) gang gang dance - bebey (dj/rupture and matt shadetek remix) the very best - rain dance (feat. m.i.a.) memory tapes - bicycle (horrors cosmic dub) the xx - basic space (pariah remix) animal collective vs. the beach boys - i'm waiting for my banshee a sunny day in glasgow - passionate introverts caribou - hendrix with ko maps - i dream of crystal the big pink - too young to love (delorean remix) desire - under your spell basement jaxx - feelings gone (feat. sam sparro) the field - the more that i do (foals remix)
if you have any requests or recommendations for next week's playlist, don't be shy. shoot me an email or leave one in the comments below...
another random daily activity, another oddly appropriate soundtrack, this time courtesy of two tracks, old and new, from one of my favorite up and coming blog artists of 2009, the golden filter...
my love affair with this group actually began not with their first single, the epic song-of-the-year contender "solid gold," but with a remix of one of my favorite singles of 2008, cut copy's "far away." the winning disco glide they gave to that track prompted me to check out their own stuff (or what little of it i could find) and from there, i was hooked.
with nary a roller rink in sight where i live, i often find myself shuffling to solid gold while doing the next best thing: walking. i walk to work. i walk home. i walk aimlessly throughout the city, and every time "solid gold" comes on my ipod, my walk hastens into a catwalk-worthy strut, regardless of who's watching. the simple yet insistent beats (both programmed and live), the razor-sharp synth jabs, even singer penelope's languily lilting vocals inspire blissfully linear momentum.
this past weekend, i found myself walking up the avenue of the arts to wxpn in the evening to do some prep work for my radio show (more details on that later) and guess what came on the shuffle? as the song reached its percolating crescendo, something almost magical happened. the lights that dress and caress the upper windows of the buildings on the block of broad street between walnut and locust street began to blink, changing colors in nearly perfect synch with the song's twinkling final chorus like some large-scale, metropolitan mirrorball. i kept waiting for the passers-by on the street to form a soul train.
needless to say, this fanciful occurrence re-piqued my interest in the filter (who've been more or less radio silent throughout the summer) going into the new week. i came into work to do my daily morning blog scroll and came across the most gloriously timed news, they have a new single coming out in november on dummy! it's called "thunderbird" and the label was oh so kind enough to release the track (along with a pretty sick dub version) this week for free download.
they recommended playing the track "somewhere very high just before dawn breaks, somewhere very cold and very bright, or at night anywhere the northern nights can be expected." i couldn't wait to find anywhere like that so i listened to it while walking through the city, just as the sun was setting. daybreak, twilight, this song is all about the sun. the percolating bass in the verse was personified by the dull glimmers of light bouncing off of the building surrounding me. and as the soaring chorus took flight, i passed the buildings and the sun literally blossumed out from behind, bathing and blinding me while penelope's donna summer wail (i dare you not to think of "i feel love" when hearing this) simply went higher and higher until it seemed to be swallowed into its own light. the feeling i was left with was downright ethereal.
i've re-listened to the track at least ten more times in the twenty four hour span since then. no such moment of equal euphoria has happened again yet. but i doubt that will stop me from trying at least another ten times by tomorrow.
get the song here and see if you have your own revelation.
i promised a fuller re-launch this month and technically i'm sticking to that promise. i'm still ironing out some different ideas for what and how to post to make pop that rocks really... well, pop. but in the meantime, you may have noticed that i've posted a little poll for all to see. with summer fading fast from minds and weather, i thought it fitting to reminisce on which songs released during it really summed up or brightened our off seasons. take a look at the options and vote for your favorite. if you select "other," please state your choice in the comments below. enjoy.
in other news...
my radio show has moved to a new night! from now on, pop that rocks is taking over the circuit on y-rock on xpn. i'll be specializing in alternative dance, remixes, mash-ups, and a little of my good ole' fashioned bloggy goodness for consistency's sake. it will air from ten to midnight every tuesday night and re-air at the same time every saturday night. this week's show featured new music from fever ray, HEALTH, memory tapes, and more.
check out the full playlist after the jump...
passion pit - the reeling (calvin harris remix) fever ray - seven (martyn's seventh mix) delorean - deli junior boys - work la roux - bulletproof (fred falke remix) washed out - you'll see it VEGA - no reasons deastro - kurgan wave number one pictureplane - gang signs the xx - shelter (them jeans drum edit) major lazer - keep it goin' louder (tommie sunshine 12" mix) YACHT - we have all we ever wanted au revoir simone - another likely story (neon indian remix) bloc party - letter to my sun (twins remix) HEALTH - before tigers (CFCF remix) cut copy - sands of time sally shapiro - miracle (bogdan irkuk remix) max tundra - parallax error beheads you memory tapes - stop talking telefon tel aviv - stay away from being maybe the big pink - velvet (gang gang dance remix) the notwist - boneless (panda bear remix)
well this is just... neat. victoria bergstram's new album as taken by trees, east of eden, is due out in just over a week on rough trade records. it was produced by dan lissvik of studio fame and it's all kinds of gorgeous from what i've heard, something akin to lykke li backed by an acoustic tough alliance.
a flamenco-flavored track called "watch the waves" is already floating around the interwebs, and a lot of buzz is building for a song featuring noah "panda bear" lennox called "anna." this greedy bastard just has to have his name somewhere on everyawesome album this year doesn't he?
as if his contribution to that song wasn't enough, bergstram is perhaps setting a record for quickest cover turnaround in history and including a beautifully buoyant cover of animal collective's "my girls" on the record. lennox and avey tare rather carelessly left out the boys in their plea for four walls and adobe slabs so bergstram is making sure they get their due, and i for one am totally with her on this.
* this first impression was made possible by the band themselves, who streamed the album for free on their website a few weeks ago.
i meant to get this up earlier in the week but what are you going to do? the album isn't out yet so this still counts as a first impression. full review after the jump...
the uk press has been building this duo up for months as "the band to watch." you know. them and basically everyone else with a british birth certificate to release a single within the last year. but all cynicism aside, there is good reason to pay attention to these guys. robbie furze has played guitar for alec empire and milo cordell fostered the likes of the klaxons and the teenagers among others as founder of merok records.
each member of the big pink brings their respective experience to the table on their debut, a brief history of love, and for the most part, it pays off splendidly. one can assume that cordell's work with his label is at least partially responsible for the commanding sense of melody and pop savvy that permeates the record, while furze's work with empire seems responsible for the harsh electronic undercurrents on several of the songs, not to mention the explosive intensity of their choruses.
"too young to love," an early teaser single that resurfaces here in slightly more polished form, is arguably the most textbook consolidation of these strengths. over stuttering programmed drums and squalling feedback, the song plays like one long extended chorus, tailor-made for maximum volume at shows. the other buzz track (and still the pink's best achievement to date) "velvet" employs all of the same elements in an almost completely different way. the drum loops are more languid, and the guitar squalor more restrained and used to punctuate the gorgeously swooning vocals. one couldn't be blamed for recalling early verve on initial listens, but i don't remember ashcroft ever sounding this sincere or unassuming.
most of the other songs heed to either one side of the pink spectrum or the other, never quite matching these previous heights but still coming pretty damn close at best and deserving admiration for trying at worst. opener "crystal visions" is what stone roses' second coming could and should have sounded like. "dominos" compresses "velvet's" throb into a radio-ready nugget with a delightully dumb sentiment at its core ("these girls fall like dominoooooes!"). the title track and closing "count backwards from ten" scale back the industrial touches, opting instead for hazy, spaceman 3 territory, and provide most welcome changes of pace, particularly the former with its anonymous, hope sandoval-esque vocal accompaniment (anyone else hear the album and know who she is yet? please tell me).
equal parts brit-pop, m83, and my bloody valentine, it's no surprise that the big pink have found and made a home at 4ad. there's an oddly nostalgic quality to this record that fits their aesthetic and history perfectly while also offering glimpses at what till hopefully be a long and fulfilling career for one of the year's more promising upstarts.
a brief history of love is out on 9/8. here is the video for the aforementioned "dominoes." rad stuff it is.
oh sally. i don't know what happened. most people don't seem to be as in love with you the second time around. it's like now that they know you actually are a real person (albeit with a fake name), you've lost your allure.
well fear not, sally. we still love you here at pop that rocks. my guilty pleasure may not pack quite the same dramatic oomph that disco romance did (this is all relative, people), but it still brings nothing but smiles to my face and has proven the perfect complimentary summer pop album to its predecessor's wintry grandeur.
i had the opportunity to say lots more nice things about it and its strengths for mwdwn magazine this past week. find a link to my review and a free track after the jump...
sally said this album was supposed to "make you fall in love with the person sitting next to you on the bus." i don't take public transportation so i can't vouch for that, but i can say that this album bangs in its own adorably winsome way. it may even have some potential pop singles on it hands: the tensnake-tinged "moonlight dance" and freestyling "save your love" come immediately to mind.
but like romance, one of its highlights is a cover, this time of nicolas makelberge's "dying in africa." his alternately morbid and melancholy lyric is spliced over rainfall synths and a house-styled beat evocative of underworld. never has third world stryfe sounded so beautiful.
listen for yourself, courtesy of paper bag, and then get the album. it's out now.
my most recent online radio show aired this past saturday on y-rock on xpn from 1-3. it featured new music from radiohead, the antlers, pictureplane, the xx, and more. full playlist rundown and random observations after the jump...
radiohead - these are my twisted words phoenix - girlfriend st. vincent - laughing with a mouth of blood the pains of being pure at heart - ramona lansing-dreiden - metal on a gun throw me the statue - ancestors xtc - senses working overtime grizzly bear - two weeks deastro - shield whip japandroids - wet hair health - die slow delorean - moonsoon discovery - orange shirt the antlers - sylvia jj - me & dean pictureplane - goth star the knife - heartbeats the big pink - velvet spoon - got nuffin white denim - regina holding hands a sunny day in glasgow - ashes grammar - ashes maths atlas sound - walkabout (feat. noah lennox) passion pit - the reeling washed out - you'll see it yacht - summer song the xx - basic space the streets - fit but you know it simian mobile disco - audacity of huge (feat. chris keating) basement jaxx - raindrops
listenership seemed to be up a great deal this week, with a lot of my song selections getting positive feedback.
this may be my last "regular" playlist for a while. with roughly ten shows to do for the rest of the year, i've decided to shift my focus from showcasing the new to reflecting on the old for a bit. each of this year's remaining shows will be dedicated to one year in music this decade, beginning with 2000 and working my way up.
I will be welcoming interaction with readers and listeners during this time, taking requests and recommendations and hopefully shining some light on music you may have missed the first time around. with each shift, i will blog my playlist and progress, posting the occasional mp3 and noting songs and transitions that move me in one way or another as i incorporate them into what will become my definite ipod playlist for the decade, to be unveiled on decemeber 31st, 2009.
so stay tuned. hopefully we'll all learn something over the next few months and have some fun doing it. it all kicks off this saturday, august 29 at 1pm.
annie's looooooong delayed sophomore album don't stop is finally coming out in november on smalltown supersound.
i have to admit that i wasn't quite as enamoured with the leaked version that surfaced last year as i was with anniemal, but i'm guessing annie wasn't either. she's played around with the sequencing and deleted and added several tracks.
the bad news: no more "sweet" or "i know ur girlfriend hates me" and we still get the wtf-inducing "breakfast song."
the good news: we also still get "bad times" and the gliding, glistening "songs remind me of you," that latter of which is available on itunes as a promo right now and rings truer then any of madonna's latter-day dancefloor confessions.
the rest of the album is out november 17 (knock on wood) and still features some nifty contributions from richard x, timo kaukolampi and alex kapranos from franz ferdinand.
here's the revised tracklist:
hey annie my love is better bad times don't stop i don't like your band songs remind me of you marie cherie take you home the breakfast song loco when the night heaven and hell
i don't know about the new tracks, but the new album cover alone makes me like this version better.
so there's this kind of awesome new song by a band called radiohead. maybe you've heard of them? it leaked last week to much fanfare and speculation but now the band has made it officially available for download with the following statement:
"So here's a new song, called 'These Are My Twisted Words.' We've been recording for a while, and this was one of the first we finished. We're pretty proud of it. There's other stuff in various states of completion, but this is one we've been practicing, and which we'll probably play at this summer's concerts. Hope you like it."
our next new artist is actually a three-piece band out of washington d.c. who call themselves power pirate. formed in 2007, they consist of emily pakulski (guitar/vocals), annika monari (drums) and michael garate (keyboards), and they're a diy group in every sense of the term, designing their own website (very nice), taking their own publicity photos and recording their music in homemade booths made out of mattresses (resourceful!).
speaking of their music, it's a perky yet pummeling mash-up of the heavy guitar melodrama of muse and the squiggly synths of bis. these may sound like strange bedfellows at first but the resulting cocktail is quite fun. it certainly doesn't hurt that the group has a commanding vocalist is pakulski, whose soaring sneer isn't too far removed that of the sounds' maja ivarsson.
their music may not be for everyone, but it has certainly resulted in much involutary head-bobbing at my desk at work. imagine what it could trigger when exploding out of speakers at a club. according to local d.c. press, they positively shred live.
not bad for a group whose members aren't even old enough to drink yet.
check out a couple embedded tunes below. my pick is the techno-tinged "infecting us."
i know i'm trying to stay away from heavily reported stuff, but i can't help it when an artist's shit is this great.
moondagger, the recent debut album from deastro (aka 22 year old randolph chabot) is definitely one of the sleeper hits of the summer for me. the album is bursting with ambition and melody and its intersecting, interlocking electronics and rhythms remind me of early m83. and don't even get me started on the conceptual, rpg-recalling lyrics.
as if this album wasn't incentive enough already to love him, chabot has crafted a brand new, 9 song ep that he's offering for free via his band blog.
the awesomely titled orange swimmer red summer ep offers a sloppier, sunnier take on its album predecessor. it still shimmers and shines like chabot's earlier work, but also has a more organic feel and with it a touch more urgency. in this blogger's opinion, it's just as essential as its older sibling, and will definitely share the glory on my end of year list come december.
don't believe me? grab it at the link below and listen for yourself right now. seriously. "red summer" alone should be enough to sell you.
another new thing i'm trying on here is a recurring column that from here on in, unless someone comes up with something better, will be called "scoring life." for each entry, i will take a newish album at random, listen to it during one of my myriad day to day tasks - some exciting, many mundane - and report back on what i think.
this serves two purposes: one to review music from a unique perspective as i find it interesting how listening to certain songs or artists can color what one is doing at the time and vice versa. two to offer brief, random glimpses into my ever so illusive personal life. aren't i subversive?
we begin here with a look into the new album by the antlers, hospice...
first, some background. i acquired this album just last week. i had casually previewed a couple of tracks ("bears" even found its way onto a recent party playlist at my apartment) but had yet to give the whole the full attention that it required and deserved.
today at work, i was entering the third day of what can safely be called a lull. yes, i have a "real job" beyond this blog and it has its fair share of slow spells, typically at the start of each month. anyway, towards the end of the day, i was selected to undertake the uber-exciting task of scanning imagery and emailing it to myself to sort into folders for future design use. that's right. my work had finally slowed to doing a receptionist's job. this isn't to say i dislike what i do. far from it, actually. but that didn't make the task at hand any less mind-numbing or repetitive. knowing i'd be standing in front of a copier for the remainder of the afternoon, i thought it would be the perfect time to find something to listen to in-depth. guess which album was at the top of my queue?
and so i listened. the first thing i noticed was how the droning ambience of the opening songs, combined with how many of the individual tracks seemed to bleed directly into one another, perfectly matched both the lethargic pace at which the time and task were moving and the way my mind would slip into cruise control as i moved from scanning one image to the next, often losing track of where i was entirely.
this may sound like a bad thing, but things took on a very zen-like quality for me, and when the noise picked up and horns burst to life in songs like the subtly anthemic "sylvia," i even cracked a smile and started to enjoy myself, swaying out of rhythm in front of the copier like an oblivious guy trying to entice an indifferent girl at the prom. by the time the aforementioned (and fantastic) "bears" came tumbling into my ears with it's twinkling verses and rollicking chorus, i could have swayed and scanned for an eternity, even as the lyrics echoed the uneasy feeling that said eternity was a very real possibility:
"and all the while, i'll know we're fucked and not getting unfucked soon."
but eternity never came, or rather it did. whichever. as i neared the end of my pile of crudely colored illustrations, the album followed in kind with sobering comedowns, the hauntingly patient "shiva" and the downbeat, eight-minute epic "wake," the latter of which almost had me convinced i was back floating in space with spiritualized.
the lyric and melody of "bears" resurfaced, this time in acoustic form delivered in a formidable falsetto by head antler peter silberman, for hospice's appropriately titled "epilogue," just as i reached the final folder in the plastic crate. fucked no more.
i hate to say it, but pitchfork is right. with hospice, one can in fact lose the "sense of boundary" between one's self and the world around him or her. there's a simultaneous sense of solitude and togetherness, emptiness and bounty in these songs. would i have gotten this from the album under any other circumstances? possibly. hell, hopefully. but i doubt i would have felt such a personal connection to it.
i promised one new artist a day and i'm sticking to it. my goal with this feature is to provide exposure to artists who don't necessarily get it elsewhere as well as will myself and others to try out new things. should be fun hopefully.
to kick things off, i present a producer/dj from germany by the name of nathan q.
a self-described "making the world a better place kind of guy," nathan currently studies the human intellect (funny, i thought such a thing to be a myth) and also makes some pretty slick dance beats, baring shades of dubstep, trance, drum & bass, and house.
the effect is fairly bangin' if you will, and i'd mostly certainly hit the floor if this came on at a club. you know, if i ever actually went to a club.
have a listen to a couple sample tracks here and then check out the dude's pretty awesomely designed website. i'm partial to "big house" myself. he's also got a few mixes made for your pleasure.
i have to admit. i'm a little bit surprised that there haven't been a lot of high profile remixes of this peter bjorn & john song. sure living thing won't exactly be topping my list at the end of the year, but 'nothing to worry about' qualifies as a hit for them right? come to think of it, were there that many remixes for 'young folks?'
anyway, current paper bag records golden boys woodhands have given it the old college try. they extend the track a bit and pad it out with some menacing synth squiggles and a chilling vocodered voice that seems to stalk the D.A.N.C.E children's choir from the original. there's some interesting marching band percussion towards the end of it as well. i think i like this. i think you may too. have a listen courtesy of paper bag after the jump.
woodhands are wrapping up a mini us tour this week and then play the monolith festival next month.
see:
08/12 - indianapolis, in @ radio radio 08/14 - brooklyn, ny @ Littlefield 08/15 - new York, ny @ tribeca grand (gbh party) 09/12 - morrison, co @ monolith festival @ red rocks
and here we are again. back were it all began. and ended. twice.
i struggle even now to rationalize why this blog has been not only frustratingly sporadic, but nomadic, bouncing to and from numerous host services with barely a post a week on average to keep it current. could be that this summer, like so many before it, has all but swallowed me whole? maybe. could it be that i simply have nothing interesting to say? i certainly hope not.
above all other possible excuses, i choose to believe that pop that rocks has suffered from a lack of focus, resulting in my lack of interest. for a brief time (okay, a month or three), i've been finding myself dissatisfied with where i've been taking things. i've spent a good deal of the last couple of weeks trying to think of how (if?) i want to continue with things on here. until now, i spent so much time catering to what i thought the average reader wanted to see or hear that i neglected what i wanted to say. why i originally began this little adventure in the first place...
music.
i began this blog because of my love for music and how it permeates and brightens my daily life. i began this blog because i wanted to share that love with other like-minded individuals who constantly waste way too much time at work researching and downloading new bands and emptying their bank accounts on records and concerts. it is for that love and that purpose that i am determined to continue with this blog, to make it better and more inviting than others if not exactly the most popular. with that in mind, here are some key decisions i've made with the parallel if not exactly new direction i plan to take pop that rocks.
obviously, i've returned to my original home of blogger to continue with this adventure. we've had our differences in the past but i always felt that wordpress and i were never a good fit. its somewhat more rigid publishing parameters often made me feel as if i was leasing a space rather than owning it.
rather than constantly focusing on news in the music world that you're no doubt already finding elsewhere at least an hour or two before i do, i've elected to start focusing again on what i feel i do best - reviews. you will see more in-depth opinions of the albums and songs that i come to love and despise, and hopefully those opinions will lead you to discover and try new things, which leads to my next point...
new music. i feel like my focus has slanted too far towards established artists, or at least artists that people are already hearing. i still plan to talk about many of those artists here, but i feel i owe it to myself and my future readership to broaden my horizons. i plan on holding myself to a minimum one post a day dedicated to a new artist. my soundcloud drop box is still active and functional, as is the pop that rocks email address. if you're an artist looking for some kind of exposure, send your stuff my way. if you're just a fan of something or someone new that you've happened upon, spill. i'm a little backlogged in my mailbox at the moment, but i am making progress and i promise that your stuff will get listened to and written about in some form or another.
i still like to do the occasional feature post, something a little extra and unique to this blog. my first impression reviews will still be in play, and i have a few other ideas rolling around in my head for other recurring columns that i think people might enjoy reading. if you have any ideas yourself for what would make a cool column on here, don't hesitate to bring it my way. in fact, this leads into my final and maybe most important decision...
i'm taking pop that rocks public, baby! well, not exactly, but i am inviting other friends and music fans on board to contribute basically whatever they want, be it reviews, mp3s, or any other awesome idea. above all else, enjoying music should be a social activity, and i hope this decision will emphasize that point.
and there you have it. will this new incarnation of a fledgling music blog last any longer than the versions that came before it? who knows. all i can do is dive back in, try hard and hope for the best. i have a good feeling about things this time though and hopefully that feeling will become contagious to all who read this. i know that's not that many people, but that can always change, right?
sorry to make this so long. i'm still going through mail and brainstorming with friends on what and how to post here. but my goal is for the quantity of posts to gradually move back up through the rest of this month and then launch in earnest in september. hope you can hold out until then. if you've held out to the end of this post, it shouldn't be too hard :)
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