Hillary Kaylor
RCRD LBL BLOGGER
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Holiday Shores (Floridians, CMJ darlings, and all around affable guys) have a new tour-only cassette called Through The Thin Cloud and today they're gifting one of its exclusive tracks. Below, the band channels lounge lizards past in this boozy little cover of Arthur Russell’s “Your Motion Says,” replete with downtempo chords and cowbell. Hit up MySpace for tour info on where to lift the tape, or return the love by picking up their album.
Holiday Shores - Your Motion Says (Arthur Russell Cover)
Previously:
Holiday Shores - Phones Don't Fued
Holiday Shores - Edge Of Our Lives
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Birds & Batteries’ new EP Up To No Good came out this week and there’s been some talk about honky-tonk layering, Halloween freak boogie and lost in the woods funk. Also, cough syrup-induced dancing. Below, a little more throat coat with “Sneaky Times” and "Out In The Woods" until the full length anodyne drops in 2010.
Birds & Batteries - Out In The Woods
Birds & Batteries - Sneaky Times
Previously:
Birds & Batteries - The Villain
Birds & Batteries - Lightning (UTNG Version)
Birds & Batteries' RCRD LBL
Alice Russell is from England? We call foul, she’s got to be from Rogers, Texas, thrice divorced, her congregation's star alto and Alvin Ailey’s muse with pipes like these. Below lift the excellent, soul and funk-kissed KidKanevil remix of “Let Us Be Loving” before it drops next week. Show support here by purchasing Pot of Gold or a slew of singles and 7-inchers including The White Stripes covers and Mr. Scruff remixes. Also, dainty limited edition teacups. Okay, she’s British.
Sounds like: Duffy, Aretha Franklin, Jill Scott
Alice Russell - Let Us Be Loving (KidKanevil Remix)
Alice Russell's RCRD LBL Page
When our buddies at Loudersoft sent Skewby our way, it was kind of impossible to pick our favorite track. The kid hails from Memphis, his hooks are Philly, his flow’s New York, and every song is different. Reminiscent of backpack-era Kanye, Skewby’s killing the campus scene, and rightly so. Below, his rework of “No Handlebars” bests the original, and two tracks—wild with old school giggles and blasting horns—prove mixtapes don’t have to suck.
Sounds like: Kid Cudi, The Cool Kids, Kanye
Skewby - No Handlebars
Skewby - Get Retarded
Skewby - No Critics Allowed
Skewby's RCRD LBL Page
Fresh off releasing “Slow Poison” (and our favorite steel drum remix), The Bravery has kindly gone ahead and dropped yet another track from their upcoming album Stir The Blood. “The Spectator” is lush with angst, strangled melodies and the band’s nuanced strain of dark dance. It also sounds a bit like MGMT, right? We think it works.
Sounds like: Editors, The Killers, MGMT
The Bravery - The Spectator
Previously:
The Bravery - Slow Poison (Drop The Lime Remix)
The Bravery's RCRD LBL Page
(Photo: Jeremy Williams)
Our friends at The FADER have been jamming on this Belgian-cum-Miami funkfest for a minute, and it is righteously good. We were already drawn to the coffeepop sway of Au Revoir Simone’s original, but this rework does ten better, snapping the songbirds off their chilly branch and blasting south in a stained-glass Maserati. Below, Aeroplane re-affirms our faith in the Flemish, just in time for the weekend.
Au Revoir Simone - Another Likely Story (Aeroplane Remix)
Previously:
Au Revoir Simone - Sad Song (Pacific Remix)
Au Revoir Simone - Shadows (It's A Fine Line Remix)
Au Revoir Simone - Grateful
Lindstrøm & Christabelle - Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane Remix)
Au Revoir Simone's RCRD LBL Page
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WHY?’s original “One Rose” is a quiet, well-crafted, singer-songwriter-type of tune. Just like Yoni Wolf said—it’s not hip-hop, you guys. But those missing the beat of yore get a break as hip-hop producer Alias (Aesop Rock, Sage Francis) matches Wolf’s folksy bleating to Casio beeps in this swimmy little rework. It claps, it crests, it sways. And then, the Autotune kicks in! Eskimo Snow is out on Anticon now.
WHY? - One Rose (Alias Remix)
Previously:
WHY? - The Hollows
WHY? - These Few Presidents
WHY? - The Vowels, Pt. 2 (Amplive Remix)
WHY? - This Blackest Purse
Themselves & WHY? - Canada
Rifle Recoil's bio leads us to think he waxes cosmic on the spaces between defining moments as the defining moments themselves. Kind of like in yoga class when Ursula says, “The divine in me is the divine in you,” and we pretend to get it. “Bad Girl” is a meditative electro-folk hymn—heavy on the organ, circular in lyrics, and narcotic in atmosphere. Something to lure us back from the edge, when we could easily jump or stay.
Sounds like: Prince, a wall of delay pedals
Rifle Recoil - Bad Girl
Rifle Recoil's RCRD LBL Page
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(Photo: Joel Barhamand)
The first single off A Place To Bury Stranger’s sophomore album follows the record’s maxim: to make the “craziest, most f*cked-up recording ever.” This slept-on Cereal Spiller rework of "In Your Heart" somewhat mitigates the original’s nightmarish reverb and gut-wrenching frequencies, favoring a slicker, snythier ode to 1980. Exploding Head is out now and will hurt your insides in a good way.
A Place To Bury Strangers - In Your Heart (Cereal Spiller Remix)
Previously:
A Place To Bury Strangers - The Light (Love And Rockets Cover)
A Place To Bury Strangers - I Know I'll See You (The Clapp Remix)
A Place To Bury Strangers' RCRD LBL Page
NC-native, Jay-Z protégé, the dude on tour with Jigga and Wale who doesn’t have an album yet—you may recognize J. Cole already via guest spots on The Blueprint 3 or Back to The Feature. His own mixtape The Warm Up is 22 tracks of easygoing flow where laid-back vocals effortlessly meld with anything from hi-frequency samples to piano bars. Debut album comes out next year, “Grown Simba” and “Lights Please” available below. Any rapper who references The Lion King has got our vote.
Sounds like: Wale, Jay-Z
J. Cole - Grown Simba
J. Cole - Lights Please
J. Cole's RCRD LBL Page
