Take a listen to the wonderfully lush, swirling new Echo Lake tune Another Day, perfectly shoegazey dream-pop from one of our favorite London outfits. The track is the a-side from Echo Lake's forthcoming 7 inch on No Pain In Pop. The single is due July 18 and should be up for pre-orders pretty soon over here, but you may get lost in the splendid wash of echo and reverb just as well right now:
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After playing a show which left the festival audience of Huset Ved Sjøenin Oslo last week with wide eyes and even more frequent jaw drops, Norway's upcoming pop queen Bendik aka Silje Halstensen is breaking barriers with her slightly new, fine-polished sound. I could do nothing but to gasp while witnessing what used to be a hidden gem at Urørt, explode and turn the heavens upside down — a power I'm quite sure many of the fellow musicians around me at the narrow pier in front of the stage felt a twinge of envy for not possessing themselves.
Naturally, the track Blåsar Vekk taken from her recent release Stille is one of my own favourites from the EP. Almost exactly four minutes into the song, Bendik and her loyal band takes an unexpected turn, evolving from that particular sonorous and almost innocent sound into a huge, atmospheric composition in the veins of post-rock, which truly shows us the strongest side of Siljes beautiful voice.
Even though you might not understand the words, I strongly advise you to spend six of your valuable minutes to listen to the whole thing (preferably on some good speakers, too). One thing is quite certain, however: Bendik needs to be experienced live.
Check out our photos from the beautifully located Huset Ved Sjøen festival here.
Photo (above) taken in Nepal.
My Mom used to drive a Volvo, I think it was the most unspectacular car one could ever imagine. But on the other hand, it wasn't such a rad eighties type like the one in the picture above. So anyway, totally loving this shattered radio-sampling day-glo snippet by North Carolina producer Dreams West. Cop Volvo along with another rather new-ish track named EMC Corporation, both splendidly hazy daydream nostalgia pieces slightly reminiscent of those ancient times when we still were excited about, eh, "chillwave", i.e. 2009.
Check the dude's Soundcloud for more sampled bedroom glory.
Dreams West - VolvoDreams West - EMC CorporationRead more →
A couple of weeks ago, Georgia resident Exact Index (aka Diego Deleon) finally released his third and incredibly catchy EP Desire via Double Phantom Digital, stacked with 80-s synths and funky guitar riffs. Have a first look at the video for Ready To Know below.
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Last year, we were very much into both Si Faustine (OESB) and Liasons (Soft Abuse), so the news that our favorite Bronx-based bedroom folk outfit Pigeons is up for a new release pretty soon has sparked some serious excitement among these realms. No Shore will be out on cassette via Tokyo's Sixteen Tambourines in early July, featuring eight brand new tracks.
Below, take a listen to b-side track Both Youths, an utterly beautiful, slow-burning ballade that exposes singer Wednesday Knudsen's dreamy vocals over the swirling, gently off-kilter synth and guitar play by husband Clark Griffin.
Pre-order the tape now right here.
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In order to do justice to our reputation, here's the latest shit coming out of the sprawling cosmos of Hype Williams-associated stuff:
This untitled session apparently was recorded in Ronkonkoma, New York in the last days of 2010, and over the course of about 24 minutes it features everything we love about this duo. Starting with a very precise instruction of how to smoke a joint, the track shows off some very trademark HW synth exegeses, meandering for about 17 minutes and enriched with some characteristic sample works, before the whole thing collapses into a wave of harsh electrostatic noise, only to give way for the instructor towards the end to repeat his briefing, this time over some almost charming, sampled string parts and a classy hip hop beat. Overall, this session delightfully summarizes what a Hype Williams live experience is all about. So if they should ever come to your town, make sure you're there.
Speaking of, Hype Williams are gonna support Gala Drop next Monday, June 20, at Berlin's West Germany.
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From the brains behind kikiilimikilii (together with Nathan Wheeler), a new and slightly more experimental project is starting to take shape, Gross Bite, a duo which came to life during their last winter tour in States. Their first release, Yod EP, leans on dark-drifting, psychedelic sounds, slow build-ups and drumming from a dark African landscape, which altogether forms that peculiar and noisy, but indeed splendid sound, taking much inspiration from the early phases of black metal. Head over to Bandcamp to snatch the whole thing for free. A physical cassette release is set to July via Deep Tapes.
Well I guess no one needs to dig very deep to come up with some solidly underpinned Ariel Pink comparisons here, but in any case I'm pretty stoked on this deliberately weirdo lo-fi synth ballad Cymbals here by unknown San Francisco dude Olin. Almost Maus-y vocals heavily buried under multiple layers of synthesizer patterns that are gently meandering along a sloppy drum machine line or briefly, all it needs to get us unreasonably excited on a Tuesday morning.
Olin's four-track self-titled debut EP is the first release by Easy Tapes, the label recently launched by Andy Johnson of both Sick of the Radio and Tony Bonanza fame. You should go here to download it for free.
Olin - CymbalsRead more →
