Somewhere in Florida or in California or, most likely, in some lost spheres between Florida and California, Rachel and Jeremy aka Kiss Kiss Fantastic create ethereal dream pop made for lone nights at home or sunny days out, for feelings of love or of sorrow. According to their myspace, the two have never met in person, and though I don't know if that information is up-to-date, for all I care they don't have to as long as songs like Beautiful Mess emerge from this distant collaboration, shoegazey pop perfection so blissful it made me be aglow with happiness all morning.
Staying in Los Angeles. Under the moniker Railcars, Aria Jalali makes psychedelic noise for noisy psychedelics, raw and harsh sounds that almost shred your subconscious before the underlying melodic structure creeps out of the fuzz just in time to unravel songs with more subtle beauty than one might have expected. Still, the whole deal remains a tough listen throughout Railcars' first two EP's Cities vs. Submarines (2008, produced by Jamie from Xiu Xiu) and Cathedral With No Eyes (2009, both on Gold Robot), but the experimental sounds Jalali delivers are worth sticking with as they will uncover more layers of splendour each time you come back to listen to them.
Aria Jalali is currently working on his debut LP and of a cover of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, and has just released a remix album of Cathedral With No Eyes, featuring reworks by amazing artists such as Xiu Xiu, No Age, Jeans Wilder, Truman Peyote, White Rainbow, and Lucky Dragons. It is available as a free download over here.
Along with one of those captivating remixes and the title track of Railcars' sophomore EP, Jalali has made available the as yet unreleased tune Stray Dogs of Wroclaw, an enthralling nine minute trip into other spheres that's slightly reminiscent of Not Not Fun's label roster. With already such a multifaceted output, the forthcoming full-length is for sure something to be excited about.
Just for you another new song by Ghost Animal aka Michael Avishay from the City of Angels that I can't get enough of right now, taken from his wonderful little self-released EP Frater Ave Atque Vale, available as a free download right here. Twisted surf pop diamonds just seem to pop out of this guy without effort.
Moreover, Michael has just announced that Mat from the fabulous Coma Cinema has launched a new label, Summertime In Hell, that's gonna release Ghost Animal's debut full-length on tape later this summer. Now that's good news, we start counting the days.
Mickey Mickey Rourke aka LA's Miller Rodriguez attempts to redefine the place of sounds in time and space, giving the worn-out genre ambient some new meaning at the dawn of a new decade. After his acclaimed debut full length Festive Bummer (that you can still download here), Rodriguez has a new album coming up aptly named M M R, and Pretty Puke is the first track he's kindly made available. Under thick layers of reverb, there's a subtle and slightly psychedelic melody emerging, giving room for a fuzzy voice slowly droning in the distance and eventually fading away again.
Watch this brand new video for Blackbird Blackbird's Summer Heart, a collage of snippets from Of Brooklyn Summers by Hudson Lines, a beautiful interplay of San Francisco's hottest upcoming chillwave and footage composing everything we could want from a perfect summer: beach parties, backyard concerts, and portaloos.
Blackbird Blackbird aka Mikey S is another extremely promising musicians evoking nostalgic memories of the 80s, but still his dreamy synth pop does not sound at all redundant, with sample-heavy layers of low-key melodies drenched in reverb, we actually can't get enough of him right now.
Apparently there's something going on these days that has put South Carolina on the map of everyone who loves blissed-out, blurred and synth-heavy bedroom dream pop, with artists like Toro Y Moi, Coma Cinema, Phillip Oscar Augustine, and Top Girls, probably to name but a few.
Persona La Ave is Dylan Dawkins from a town in that certain state called Florence, and it appears as if felt the urge to pay homage to the musical heritage of those South Europeans that are most likely responsible for his hometown's name, at any rate this morning Dylan sent over this splendid track which is a remix of a tune by Italo Disco veteran Gazebo that he "chopped up and slowed down", in his own words, and indeed it is a treat, all sticky late night nostalgia, cheap bars and sleazy girls. Brilliant.
The first time I wrote about Niki Smith a couple of weeks back, I had to admit that I knew close to nothing about except for the fact that she was living in Brooklyn and that she had written this more than beautiful song Revenge of the Sun. However, with some myspace mailing accomplished, now there are actually quite a few things about this very talented 21 year old I could tell you (even who the guy in the picture was), but I'm gonna limit myself to some hopefully essential facts, for instance that Bingo Pajamas is Niki's solo expression that's been going on for quite a while now (Revenge of the Sun and the whole album Shidiot were already written when she was only 18), she has another band named Reynard and Vixen that however apparently doesn't have a myspace yet (I hope they'll change that soon) which actually has priority.
Ms. Smith is a Colorado native and an old (via highschool) affiliate of the Fort Collins, Co posse around Matthew Sage aka the great M. Pyres and his amazing Patient Sounds label. A few days ago, just before shutting down the office temporarily to go touring on the East Coast, Matt blessed us with the first Patient Sounds Sampler which is free to download right here. And listening to this wonderful mixtape yesterday, I more or less accidentally stumbled across an obviously brand new track by Bingo Pajamas, another fair and beautiful and innocent little song, but at the same time it's more than obvious that in the past three years and supposedly since she's arrived in Brooklyn, Niki has made considerable progress as regards songwriting and recording techniques (even though she might have had some help on this one). In any case, this one's a captivating wake up call.
I don't know what you're up to this weekend, but chances are high you will not listen to something more blissful, infectious and summer happy than this brand new little tune by LA's Ghost Animal. Hazy fuzzed out surf pop near perfection, needless to say any more.
