So far I had consciously avoided jumping on the Kitty Pryde bandwagon, for one due to the fact that last year's hype, mostly sparked by a good deal of our cherished stateside blog friends, somehow had made me suspicious, but also (later on) as I was plainly rather underwhelmed by the young rapper's so far most widely recognized EP haha i'm sorry, despite all obvious talent. That however changed last night during a period of protracted insomnia, and from now on you may just count me in as a believer. The rather brief "Dead Island" off Kitty's forthcoming D.A.I.S.Y. Rage EP is a true killer, both visually and sonically. Some fairly big amount of credit should go to London beatsmith Water – 'your future favourite producer' according to Dummy's Ruth Saxelby – whose instrumental track "(diplo)" from last October's debut EP sluts, sampling the frantic marching band beat of Major Lazer's "Pon de Flor" (hence the name, I assume), provides a perfectly smooth and subtle substructure for the rapper's flow, which comes across as more confident and hence more mesmerizing than ever. Her marvelously snotty line 'I love NY cause there's so many bridges to jump off / Or backyards where you get dumped off' strikes me as most memorable right now, but it's really the whole twisted assault of insidiously presented vocals that at least for me may define a whole new dimension of Kitty Pryde's art. In short, you see me thoroughly impressed.
The future is more interesting than the past. Especially now that we've survived the world's end and a whole year of new beginnings and numerological unluck awaits us. Many exiting, forward-thinking productions and artists from this past year seem to agree with that statement, especially within the electronic realm of futuristic new sounds and genrehybrids. Others disagree and dive backwards into the wavy sounds of memories and patina. But when that ubiquitous retrospective indie nostalgia is spawned off the hands of Baltimore duo Beach House, it somehow never gets old. Here is their new home music video made up of footage from their Bloom recording sessions in 2012.
As the first release on Stratosfear, our recently founded 7" label with Splendour, Montreal/New York duo Solar Year has enchanted us with two brand new singles to be featured on the 7"; the mythical A-side 'Night & Day', and the stellar, slightly more emotional B-side 'Magic Idea', that recently premiered via Dazed & Confused. Recorded back in October, Ben Borden and David Ertel give us the 15th edition of our NFOP Sessions series, performing an altering version of 'Night & Day' in their rehearsal space in Montreal.
Don't forget to pre-order your copy of the 7" here, shipping from Berlin on January 7th.
Watch the first-ever video for one of this site's long-standing favourite musical endeavour, Berlin via London via Toronto's Digits aka Alt Altman (full disclosure: who now writes about Canadian music for NFOP). The piece, which was directed by Seth Mendelson, follows an apparently recently landed alien (assumingly here to save us from the apocalypse, though we can't be sure) while she makes her first encounters with physically engaged humans, growing more and more confused. As for the song, few have mastered this sort of synth-laden, smart yet immensely catchy pop as thoroughly as Altman, so it seems easy to predict that his forthcoming EP Love Is Only Affection, out February 26, is gonna be yet another satisfying example of his nearly perfected craft.
The ablaze lo-fi pop of Athens-based craftsman Kid Flicks receives some vivid and playful visuals in "The Dirty Utopians", the first single off his new LP By Typing "I Talk", You Don't Talk, that can be streamed in entirety via Soundcloud.
According to his Bandcamp, the limited edition 12" LP will be available later this month.
Following Solar Bears' excellent guest post on new, left-field music from Ireland on Monday, we're already back with yet another Irish gem for you all, with even more to come on Friday (but that will be a secret for now): Dublin's electronic duo White Collar Boy have already performed twice in Berlin on different occations, and are set for another return on January 24th next year, supporting an otherwise excellent line-up through the (one and only) Berghain sound system. It's still a bit too early to make an anticipation for their upcoming live show, but at least they've got their visuals on place with this brand new video below directed by Evan Buggle below.
If you're in search of truly visionary, forward-looking yet unpretentious and dead honest pop music - like we are - turns out there's no need to look further than to London district of Deptford, where Daniel Woolhouse has been making remarkable music for quite a while now, but nothing so far has been as beautiful and perfect and devastating as "UNION", a song so hopeful/hopeless that it will take your breath away, over and over again. So even if you happen to live far away from the River Thames and its docks, close your eyes and wander around in the nocturnal, empty streets that were able to inspire Deptford Goth to create a piece of art as wonderful as this.
"UNION" will appear on Deptford Goth's debut full-length, due in early 2013 via Merok.
Appropriately dreamy if slightly unsettling visuals for the wonderfully melancholic "I Want It to Live", taken off Gray Things' new single Girl. This latest material by Cats Purring affiliate Thomas Cooper is less frantic and funky and neatly fits into that stream of surprisingly sincere and downbeat, introspective electro pop artists coming across the Atlantic lately just in time for the grim Berlin winter. Montréal-based superstar in waiting Majical Cloudz comes to mind with his outstanding tune "Turns Turns Turns", but "I Want It to Live" surely doesn't need to take a backseat in comparison. Very pretty.
