Nice and easy.

28 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

Today marks the day that our dearest San Francisco dreamkid Nicolas Ng aka Fiveng returns with yet another blissed-out wavey jam. Easy features Fiveng's pretty unique signature that made us fall for Give Me a Taste and Jonah earlier this year, AC-reminiscent experimentalism combined with lush instrumentation and an overall summery feel to it. Nicolas Ng is clearly one of most talented artists around to embrace last year's relevant musical developments.

Easy b/w Skin has been put out by the wonderful little Beachtapes label and is available via Fiveng's bandcamp now. I suggest you head over there and then just drift away from that rainy world outside.

Fiveng - Easy

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Today marks the day that our dearest San Francisco dreamkid Nicolas Ng aka Fiveng returns with yet another blissed-out wavey jam. Easy features Fiveng's pretty unique signature that made us fall for Give Me a Taste and Jonah earlier this year, AC-reminiscent experimentalism combined with lush instrumentation and an overall summery feel to it. Nicolas Ng is clearly one of most talented artists around to embrace last year's relevant musical developments.

Easy b/w Skin has been put out by the wonderful little Beachtapes label and is available via Fiveng's bandcamp now. I suggest you head over there and then just drift away from that rainy world outside.

Fiveng - Easy

Can’t Stand the Love.

28 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

You and Your Pointy Ears is the musical brainchild of Cambridge, Massachusetts resident Spenser Gralla (who has some other bands as well) and some unmentioned pals, and his new Black Magic b/w Can't Stand the Love is some brilliant garage pop - especially the "b side" is a tune full of wonderful hazy, 60s induced melodies, some of the best distinctly lo-fi stuff I've heard all year.

You and Your Pointy Ears - Can't Stand the Love

You and Your Pointy Ears - Black Magic

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You and Your Pointy Ears is the musical brainchild of Cambridge, Massachusetts resident Spenser Gralla (who has some other bands as well) and some unmentioned pals, and his new Black Magic b/w Can't Stand the Love is some brilliant garage pop - especially the "b side" is a tune full of wonderful hazy, 60s induced melodies, some of the best distinctly lo-fi stuff I've heard all year.

You and Your Pointy Ears - Can't Stand the Love

You and Your Pointy Ears - Black Magic

The Werewolf EP.

27 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

Kudos to Fabien from Delicious Scopitone for yesterday's heads up to the solo work of Pensacola, Florida's Jeremy Mullins, who is one half of our madly adored Kiss Kiss Fantastic. Optimist Park is almost classic shoegazey dream pop, echo laden layers of guitars and beautifully distracting melodies drowning in reverb to take you to the warm and sunny place inside yourself. This is pure magic.

Optimist Park's new The Werewolf EP is now available for free via his bandcamp.

Optimist Park - The Kill

Optimist Park - The Static Light

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Kudos to Fabien from Delicious Scopitone for yesterday's heads up to the solo work of Pensacola, Florida's Jeremy Mullins, who is one half of our madly adored Kiss Kiss Fantastic. Optimist Park is almost classic shoegazey dream pop, echo laden layers of guitars and beautifully distracting melodies drowning in reverb to take you to the warm and sunny place inside yourself. This is pure magic.

Optimist Park's new The Werewolf EP is now available for free via his bandcamp.

Optimist Park - The Kill

Optimist Park - The Static Light

The History Of Apple Pie / Sweater Girls

26 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

Now that fall 2010 has introduced itself with a weekend of constant raining, I figure it's about time for some painfully sweet indie pop to put a little smile on your face while you're having your Sunday afternoon tea, melancholically gazing out of the window into the blurry grey something that used to be the sundrenched world you've spent your summer in. London's The History Of Apple Pie (recently introduced by Yuck's blog) and LA quintet Sweater Girls both are as twee as it gets, so it makes an awful lot of sense that the fresh and tiny London based tape label Cool In A Crisis is gonna put out a split cassette featuring the two bands very soon.

Listen to three of their charming tunes below, all being full of wonderful pop melodies complete with cute girls' voices, jangling and fuzzed guitars and glockenspiel, in other words every ingredient we'll never get tired of hearing since 1986. Seriously, this has made my day.

The History Of Apple Pie - Mallory

Sweater Girls - Pretty When You Smile

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2440226&show_comments=false&auto_play=false&color=ff7700 Out Of View by The History Of Apple Pie Read more →
Now that fall 2010 has introduced itself with a weekend of constant raining, I figure it's about time for some painfully sweet indie pop to put a little smile on your face while you're having your Sunday afternoon tea, melancholically gazing out of the window into the blurry grey something that used to be the sundrenched world you've spent your summer in. London's The History Of Apple Pie (recently introduced by Yuck's blog) and LA quintet Sweater Girls both are as twee as it gets, so it makes an awful lot of sense that the fresh and tiny London based tape label Cool In A Crisis is gonna put out a split cassette featuring the two bands very soon.

Listen to three of their charming tunes below, all being full of wonderful pop melodies complete with cute girls' voices, jangling and fuzzed guitars and glockenspiel, in other words every ingredient we'll never get tired of hearing since 1986. Seriously, this has made my day.

The History Of Apple Pie - Mallory

Sweater Girls - Pretty When You Smile

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2440226&show_comments=false&auto_play=false&color=ff7700 Out Of View by The History Of Apple Pie

Underwater pop

26 Sep 2010 — Tonje Thilesen

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Say My Name.

26 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

How To Dress Well's breathtaking debut Love Remains (Lefse), for sure one of this year's most magnificent albums, has apart from the stunning beauty it represents in itself sparked some considerable buzz about R&B;'s resurrection and redefinition with the means of contemporary lo-fi/bedroom recording techniques that were brought to fame by last year's surf rock and chillwave/hypnagogic pop hype. And though it might be a little too early to proclaim a new trend, artists like South Carolina's Top Girls or Sydney's Guerre who we've both already covered repeatedly on these pages indeed take the same line of fragile, falsetto-laden soul vocals over twisted synth patterns and reduced beats that often appear to be no more than faint echoes. After a short hiatus, today Guerre's Lavurn Lee has come up with the brand new tune Say My Name which heads even more towards the minimalist approach, hardly any instrumentation diverting from Lee's ethereal multi tracked vocalization, thus pretty much hitting the core of rhythm and blues. Amazing.

Guerre - Say My Name

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How To Dress Well's breathtaking debut Love Remains (Lefse), for sure one of this year's most magnificent albums, has apart from the stunning beauty it represents in itself sparked some considerable buzz about R&B;'s resurrection and redefinition with the means of contemporary lo-fi/bedroom recording techniques that were brought to fame by last year's surf rock and chillwave/hypnagogic pop hype. And though it might be a little too early to proclaim a new trend, artists like South Carolina's Top Girls or Sydney's Guerre who we've both already covered repeatedly on these pages indeed take the same line of fragile, falsetto-laden soul vocals over twisted synth patterns and reduced beats that often appear to be no more than faint echoes. After a short hiatus, today Guerre's Lavurn Lee has come up with the brand new tune Say My Name which heads even more towards the minimalist approach, hardly any instrumentation diverting from Lee's ethereal multi tracked vocalization, thus pretty much hitting the core of rhythm and blues. Amazing.

Guerre - Say My Name

The Crown Center.

25 Sep 2010 — Henning Lahmann

Take a listen to some pretty fresh vibes from the ever-thrilling Not Not Fun catalog, California psych gods Topaz Rags' first new offering since last year's Capricorn Born Again LP. Just as expected, The Crown Center is another terrific jam from the dark and sticky places of the tropics. The 7 inch is available for order now.

Topaz Rags - The Crown Center

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Take a listen to some pretty fresh vibes from the ever-thrilling Not Not Fun catalog, California psych gods Topaz Rags' first new offering since last year's Capricorn Born Again LP. Just as expected, The Crown Center is another terrific jam from the dark and sticky places of the tropics. The 7 inch is available for order now.

Topaz Rags - The Crown Center