07 Mar 2012 — Jesse Thompson
If you follow this site regularly, then you already know that we're pretty much loving everything the Minnesota-based label
Moon Glyph is putting out right now. Their newest release is the
Mango Sunrise LP by
Food Pyramid. And with their second single ("Oh Mercy" being the first), the Minneapolis, MN trio comprised of C. Farstak, C. Hontona and M. Weather have built a sound that occupies a hard-to-define headspace. It kind of reminds me of something you may encounter just before sunset in between stages on the third day of a summer music festival. "Mango Sunrise" features layers of shimmering psychedelic leads, echoes and synth drones, each operating on their own tonal plane and rotating around a rhythm section that would fit well at any deep-space dance club.
According to Moon Glyph, the songs on this album range from "percolating, ambient rivers to various weirdo strains of dancehall jams," and this lead track certainly gives the listener an accurate taste test of the "majestic grandeur its title evokes." Visit the
Moon Glyph website for more info and to pick up a copy.
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06 Mar 2012 — Henning Lahmann
A little while back
we premiered the video for "Rituals", the first track to be uncovered off
Death And Vanilla's self-titled debut EP, to be released March 13 conjointly by French imprint
Hands In The Dark and Sweden's
Kalligrammofon. Today, together with our friends over at
Hartzine and
Impose, we exclusively present the advance streaming of the whole album of the Malmö, Sweden-based duo, which was formed by Marleen Nilsson and Anders Hansson in 2007.
Blending 60s French pop, South European movie soundtracks of the same era, a pinch of library music, and a distinctly Lynchean appeal, the project's sound might be reminiscent of other backward-leaning dream pop outfits of recent years, think Still Corners or Trailer Trash Tracys for instance, yet the music of Death And Vanilla comes across as much more honest and thoughtful, and after all more sophisticated, especially in standout track "Cul De Sac", a magnificent psychedelic pop masterpiece that already has its spot reserved at any forthcoming late night summer rooftop barbecue this year.
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05 Mar 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Not much to say about this one, basically just sheer excitement:
My favorite album of last year, the self-titled debut by Peter Berends' outsider hypno jazz project
KWJAZ, originally released on cassette via his own imprint
Brunch Groupe and later reissued on 12 inch vinyl by
Not Not Fun, finally got the CD treatment, a fact that in itself perhaps doesn't seem that thrilling at all, but that was before I told you that this edition comes with two bonus tracks, one of them a brief two and a half minute disruption, the other one another superb, mind-altering transmission that stretches across 19 sublime minutes.
Take a listen to an excerpt of the second track below, and get the CD via
Boomkat now.
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05 Mar 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Pretty stoked on the solo project by Paris-based Sophia Hamadi aka
Playground, whose self-titled debut EP, released last Friday via
Stellar Kinematics, was on some heavy rotation this past weekend. The EP was mixed by Brian Pyle aka
Ensemble Economique, who also contributed to standout track "Come Alive In Me", among other things singing on this one. These are some heavy and highly compelling synth vibes here with a nicely otherworldly quality, all in all a very remarkable debut indeed.
Stream the whole EP below (including three worthwhile remixes) and download it for free
here. Cover artwork by Elise Tippins of
recently championed outfit
Featureless Ghost.
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05 Mar 2012 — Tonje Thilesen
Unless you have been living in a cave lately, you probably know that the Norwegian pop outfit
Team Me have had a major break-through shortly after their debut album
To The Treetops! last year. Not that the presence of
Uno Møller as a member of Team Me is so important anyway; the sounds are after all quite different from one another. Maybe is it the earlier Team Me that strikes me when listening through Uno Møller's second album
Silent Riots (following the gorgeous
Songs From My Beautiful Colourball back in 2010) — that sort of hidden melancholy Team Me's original founder Marius Hagen introduced us to in the first place, before turning into a quirky pop orchestra of six, including Uno on bass.
Compared to so-called singer/songwriters who have a tendency to strip down their music into the minimalistic, over-used "classical guitar and vocals" (and which also tends to sound incredibly boring), Uno Møller's composing and writing is, in my opinion, strong enough to keep your interest through
Silent Riot's 44-minute spin. He also invited Oslo's own electronica goddess
Lucy Swann on the single track "Riots", which you can find in the stream below.
Silent Riots is out today via
Lazy Acre Records, and can be ordered via their
website.
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05 Mar 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Deeply enchanting, anxious and frail outré pop offerings by
Aloonaluna, the solo guise of California via Gainesville, Florida's Lynn Fister. With its shuffling rhythm and distant whistling, "Fall Like Leaves" initially appears to showcase some optimism, but once Fister's slightly distorted voice sets in, hidden behind a thick veil of reverberated haze, the light fades away until eventually all remaining confidence evaporates in a final synthesized sigh. Watch
Rachel Evans' marvelous visualization of the highlight track of Aloonaluna's latest effort
Bunny below, assembled with scenes from the 1971 film
Social Seminar: Bunny.
Bunny is out now on
Hooker Vision. Order the cassette
here.
Aloonaluna - Fall Like Leaves
Also check another Rachel Evans-made video, for the track "Watercolor Rabbit":
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05 Mar 2012 — Jesse Thompson
Over the past decade, the Los Angeles-based experimental music group
Lucky Dragons has created an influential body of work that's consistently challenged traditional song structures and musical expectations. With performances built on ideas of cooperation and collective experience of the unfamiliar, they are well-known for their high level of improvisation, crowd participation, and visual experience. The self-proclaimed meditative-punk group, comprised of Luke Fishbeck and Sarah Rara, puts on live shows that are as much, if not more, performance art as live music and has played a plethora of venues varying from popular avant-garde art spaces like Los Angeles'
The Smell to the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
NFOP is excited to premiere the new
Miko Revereza directed video for the Lucky Dragons song
"Mirror Makers" off their latest LP,
Existers. The piece is highly communicative, as if someone was telling a story without words, only sound and gestures. After about a minute, bass synth bounces atop a swell of warbling processed sounds and thin, steady percussion, prompting the sentiment of an emphatic, more expansive narrative retelling. It's what happens when you finish a brief story, and the listener just blankly stares back at you with a confused look. It's that deep breath and okay-let-me-try-this-again moment, and with Revereza's spastic, minimally abstract visuals consistently lining up with the foundational components of the song, I have to say that I'm left with the same feeling I get after encountering more standard modes of storytelling, which is a much-appreciated and difficult wordless feat for the music world.
Watch the new video for "Mirror Makers" below and stream the title track from the
Existers LP, which is available now via
Swill Children.
Lucky Dragons - Existers
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