Floating Action

8 Aug

I love having people in my life who are just as obsessed with finding new music as I am. This find comes from my cousin Ben, and It’s a pretty darn good find.

Floating Action is from North Carolina, the band consists mostly of one person, Seth Kauffman, who sings and plays everything except the pedal steel on this, his third release Desert Etiquette. The album was written and recorded in a matter of about 4 days, and it shows, but not in a bad way. The songs are loose, but not sloppy, as a whole the album have a very casual feel to it. Both songs included below, “Eye of A Needle” and “Well Hidden” are both chilled out, and laid-back. So get out your chaise lounge, and put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage, and relax to some smooth indie rock.

Floating Action – Eye of A Needle from Desert Etiquette (2011)

Floating Action – Well Hidden from Desert Etiquette (2011)

Tomorrows Tulips

30 Jul

When I was young and didn’t know better, I thought I could do anything I wanted to do. I wanted to be a cartoonist. Draw funny pictures for a living. All my favorite comic strips were created by accidental artists: “I didn’t set out to draw a comic strip, but now I’m in thousands of newspapers. Go figure.” I hated reading stories like that.

If I were a musician, I’d hate Tomorrows Tulips’ story. It goes something like this…Alex Knost started this band called The Japanese Motors with some friends when he was 17. They didn’t know how to play instruments, but they practiced a lot, then got signed to Vice Records and toured the world with bands like Modest Mouse. Then he thought it’d be better to play and tour with his girlfriend (wise choice) and so he wrote some songs, she played the drums, and now they have a record out on this cool boutique label.

Tomorrows Tulips are all reverby and lo-fi. The guitars give off a hazy shimmer, the sunset’s rose reflection off the rippling sea. Simple melodies and hooky bits that get stuck in your head like the ocean does in your sinuses after you’ve been out surfing all morning.

Oh yeah, and Knost rips at surfing and skateboarding.

Some guys have all the luck. And skill.

The rest of us blog.

Eternally Teenage

Casual Hopelessness

Tomorrows Tulips – “Casual Hopelessness” from jack Coleman on Vimeo.

Tomorrows Tulips – “Eternally Teenage” from jack Coleman on Vimeo.

www.galaxiarecords.com
www.tomorrowstulipstoday.com

Anna Morley

22 Jul

Anna Morley is a classically trained vibraphone player from Australia, now living in Barcelona, and she’s quietly making a stir with her unique compositions. Morley works with London-based produced Alex Foster who adds gentle rhythms and heart-beat sized beats to her instrumentation. Along with the vibraphone, Morley occasionally adds her own vocals to tracks and plays the violin, keyboard, and an array of percussive instruments.

Her EP Character (from where these downloads originate) is a chilled-out ambient work and her debut album Red Balance (out today—stream it below) is equally crisp and clean, while a bit more bubbly, a refreshing soda pop on a summer day. Space-age bachelorette pad music at its finest. Although I think anyone, regardless of their marital status, will enjoy lounging to such a soundtrack.

If you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in Spain in the next couple weeks, be sure to check out her shows.

Es Lo Que Hay from Character (2009)
Today the Heart from Character (2009)

www.annamorley.com

Fruit Bats

21 Jul

Fruit Bats are releasing their fifth album, Tripper, on August 2, 2011. The song included below is a great indicator of another solid release. Please enjoy.

Fruit Bats – Tangle and Ray from Tripper (2011)

 

Shan’s original post from 01.27.2006

I’ve been meaning to post the Fruit Bats for a while now because, well, because they’re as reassuring as a warm cup of tea. The acoustic guitar has a lovely lilt to it. The slight, overdubbed vocals don’t demand attention but get it anyway. And the alternately peppy and melancholy rhythms float on and on and on. All in all, you get the sense that the Fruit Bats respect their mothers, and a little motherly love in our indie pop could do us all some good.

 

 

Eleanor Friedberger

14 Jul

Eleanor Friedberger is better known as half of the band The Fiery Furnaces; if that doesn’t perk your ears up, hopefully listening to the song below will.

I am not one who usually puts a song on repeat and plays it until the MP3 skips. I’m afraid I’ll get “burned out” with the song. With “My Mistakes”, the first track from her debut solo album, Last Summer, I have completely gotten over that fear. I have listened to this track more in the past week than most other releases this year. It really is an amazing song, packed with a fuzzy bass line, driving beat, just enough keyboard and even a sneaky saxaphone at the end. If there wasn’t already a video for this song (below), I can picture Eleanor cruising around on a bicycle of some sort, on some small town main street, waving to all the passersby as she quietly sings this song to herself. At least that’s what I want to do when I listen to this song. I hope you enjoy this song as much as I do, it is the song of this summer.

Eleanor Friedberger – My Mistakes from Last Summer (2011)

Thurston Moore

28 Jun

Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore needs no introduction, being the lead singer for Sonic Youth and releasing solo albums for the past 20+ years. However, in his long musical career, this is the first time that he has collaborated with Beck and the results are quite spectacular. Both songs below (and the entire album) are full of depth, and quite different from his last, more straight-forward indie rock effort. Thanks in part to Beck’s production skills, great use of strings, and of course Thurston’s incredible talent at songwriting and guitar playing. Enjoy.

Thurston Moore – Benediction

Thurston Moore – Circulation

Ty Segall

21 Jun

Ty Segall is carving out a big notch in the “neo-psych garage” (I wish I came up with that name) genre that’s been brewing in SF for several years now, alongside bands like Thee Oh Sees, and Sic Alps. Segall has played in, and collaborated with quite a few bands out of SF, such as Party Fowl, Epsilons, and Sic Alps to name a few. Segall’s new album, and first full length with Drag CityGoodbye Bread, comes out today and is definitely an album you need to add to your collection. “You make The Sun Fry”, shared below, is a great example of the album as a whole. Full of reverb, fuzz, thick bass lines, and bashing drums, ”You Make The Sun Fry” is lo-fi goodness at it’s best and is another great song to add to your summer playlist.

You Make The Sun Fry from Goodbye Bread (2011)

Socalled

15 Jun

On paper, Socalled’s bio reads like an elaborate art hoax: he’s a producer/ composer/ arranger/ rapper/ singer/ journalist/ photographer/ filmmaker/ magician/ cartoonist/ puppet maker – oh, and Yiddish music enthusiast! – who, for his fourth album, invited 34 collaborators from all ends of the musical spectrum into the studio. As a whole, Sleepover is disjointed – sounding like “Prairie Home Companion” one minute and “106 and Park” the next. There’s a recurring thread of humor and pastiche on many of the tracks, but others stick out as being quite earnest. So it’s difficult to nail a unifying theme. However, taken individually, each song holds its own, and some even stand out. Take these two examples, where the eclectic ingredients come together nicely into a singular concept. The title track is a send-up of ghetto-tech anthems, with none other than Detroit’s own King of Booty, DJ Assault, serving up hypnotic refrains over a frenetic klezmer loop. (The joke wouldn’t be complete without puppets freaking in Socalled’s apartment – so be sure to watch the video.) By contrast, “Work With What You Got” is a positive vibration calypso-hop jam featuring Roxanne Shante and The Mighty Sparrow on vocals that would feel at home on the soundtrack to a feelgood children’s movie.

Socalled || Teaser Sleepover #2 from Dare To Care Records on Vimeo.

Sleepover (featuring DJ Assault) from Sleepover (2011)
Work With What You Got (featuring Roxanne Shante and The Mighty Sparrow) from Sleepover (2011)

Miracle Fortress

13 Jun

The sophomore record by Montreal-based Graham Van Pelt (dba Miracle Fortress) is single-handedly satisfying my seasonal synth-pop jones. The single, “Miscalculations”, is an achingly perfect jam that sounds as right today as it would have 25 years ago. It will ease its way into even the hardest of hearts, mark my words. Miracle Fortress is currently touring with Junior Boys, which should make for a double scoop of synth-pop goodness.

Miscalculations from Was I The Wave? (2011)

www.secretcityrecords.com
www.miraclefortress.com

Capsule

11 Jun

Capsule is a three-piece, post hardcore, punk rock band that I stumbled across the other night while searching for music. They play hard and fast, almost as if each member is trying to out do the other. “Neuralize So Numb”, the opening track, clocks in at a blazing 1:05. The song is angry, aggressive, and very catchy. It ends almost as quickly as it starts, and it will punch you in the face, so you have to pay attention. I really like this song, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Capsule – Neuralize So Numb

http://www.myspace.com/capsulefl