Listen. I know this is the Internet and that your time can be spent doing an infinite amount of other things, but you have to give this video at least a minute-and-a-half of your attention. And you can’t just skip ahead, because you have to get there, ya know? The video is for a song called “Crying Shame” by LOL, a side project of the Internet's very own Jono Mi Lo from Daytime Television (and obviously, the imprint Amdiscs). Camera quality limitations used to their finest. Check it out. I’m serious.
The brains behind Copenhagen's brilliant imprint TAMBOURHINOCEROS have always had a weak heart for the transcendent, genre-melting pop music, being a popular home to band members from somewhat popular, danish indie ensambles, who at some point of the band's lifeline, decides to breathe life into their personal music projects. Following CTM from Choir Of Young Believers, the band's keyboardist and Oh No Ono member Nicolai Kleinerman is seemingly the next in line to move in the direction of avant-garde, conseptualized psych pop, carrying the name PRE-Be-UN.
Watch the video below featuring the oddly composed, however instantaneously captivating single "Mysteriously In Love", taken off PRE-Be-Un's debut album Clean Spasm set to August 19th on Tambourhinoceros.
changemod is the still fairly new side project by south Texas resident Nate McKee, who's probably better known as the man behind The Answer Page. Lingering in an uneasy state between uncanny ambience and more straightforward, electronically enhanced post-consensus pop immersion, the project's debut summer/summer EP explores the empty spaces that subliminally define our pseudo-urban existences in the 21st century. You don't necessarily need to call the characterizing mood depressive, but whatever the artist's principal intentions and inspirations that shaped this work, certain undertones will leave the listener with an unsettling awareness about life's precariousness. If that is exactly the kind of material that makes you turn towards pop music in the first place - and for us, it definitely is - then at least for today, look no further: simply take a listen below.
changemod's summer/summer EP comes with a bonus remix of the title track by Datahowler and is available as a free download over at bandcamp.
The musical metamorphosis of Julia Holter continues. With her new song "World", put up last week, the musician abandons her ambient roots and strengthens the chamber pop elements that she introduced on her critically acclaimed album Ekstasis. The typically spherical soundscapes have been replaced with silence. Her very dry voice and a softly playing ensemble of all kinds of classical instruments and a choir is all we can hear. Since "World" is the opener of her third full-length, Loud City Song, you may guess that it will set the tone for the rest of the album. Fact is, unlike her first two albums, this time Holter didn't record her songs alone in her bedroom but together with Cole Mardsen Grief-Neill and a group of musicians, which already indicates that the piece will probably sound a lot different. That aside, "World" taken by itself sounds promising, making us count the days until the release of Loud City Song.
A little while ago, we reported about the forthcoming Meudiademorte ten-year anniversary edition, a "wooden box containing 10 one-sided 7" singles by members of the artistic family", accompanied by the film "Mirage" which will tie all ten contributions together audiovisually and which is conveniently going to be released in a series of just as many parts. Last time, we premiered the psychedelic Pretty Lightning assault "Mantra De Morte", and this week's second part comes courtesy of trio Schrein (and yes, that neatly translates into 'shrine'), whose dazzling and beguiling, free jazz-informed improvisations are merely interspersed along a mind-altering sequence of 80s talk show scenes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ads, with surprisingly coherent results. I'd mention hypnagogia if I didn't know better. Watch it below.
UK-based Vondelpark has a new video for their most recent single '‘Always Forever'’ — a curiously intimate depiction of a couple on honeymoon, fit with scenes of what looks like a floating Final Fantasy figure. Despite the strangeness of the video, the track is strong enough to stand on its own as a beautiful bass-induced dream-pop tune. From the onset, "Always Forever" gives the feel of a personal home video, capturing the lovers’ romance with the peculiarity of the two juxtaposed scenes. However, what is up with the substance of the visualisation? Following previous Seabed music videos for "California Analog Dream" and "Dracula", the visualisation of "Always Forever" seems like a strange follow-up, but Vondelpark have determinedly defended their curious choice, by commenting on their video (perhaps after the continual negative comments on YouTube), saying, “It’s a love song, and they’re in love.”
That still doesn’t explain the bikini-clad figure floating around. Oh well. Seabed is available now via R&S Records.
Vanessa Upson aka Violetness' long-anticipated 12" Last Night in My Dreams, I Was Talking to You has finally arrived, and the all-too brief yet utterly wonderful work has just received another accompanying video, this time for sweeping, defiant and exalted outré pop anthem "The Mighty Moss". The video, directed by Rodrigo Melendez with a stunning performance by Silvia Kaehler, is as unsettling as it is bold and apposite, and we're happy to premiere it here today.
Datalog is the solo project of Brooklyn resident Conor Heffernan, who full-on turned his hand to the machines in 2010 after five years in the indie rock business as a keyboardist. Though we have no clue of how his former ventures sounded like, listening to his forthcoming Haarp EP, we assume it's safe to say that it was the right decision. Landing somewhere between techno-leaning dance beats, more explorative, abstract electronic soundscapes, and even a little dash of forward-looking jazz elements here and there, the EP's seven tracks make for a compelling listen. The subdued, acidic "Sumingashi II" - rather fittingly, each track is named after Japanese paper crafting - is a clear standout, evoking impressions of opaque, watery sceneries somewhere far east. The accompanying video, premiered below, perfectly translates this imagination into restrained images of a night ride's disconnected, surreal city lights. Watch it below.
The Haarp EP is out May 28.
While you're at it, also check out this previously unpublished footwork remix of "Sumingashi II" by Brooklyn-based producer KRTS:
