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DOWNLOAD: UNKLE - The Answer (Trentemoller Remix)

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: ballad

Even though this proceeds more sedate and stately than anything Trentemoller usually lends his hand to, it still gives me the creeps. That creepiness is what the Danish producer brings to "The Answer" which, as the original's title suggests, is actually rather resolved and sunny in its outlook. Not so here—synths flutter like wind chimes in coming storm winds, coal chamber sighs provide punctuation, guitars wail like nervous horses. The video for the original stars Ray Winstone talking about getting hit by lightning. This would be more suited to Charlie Sheen going to bed alone at night. Where Did The Night Fall is the name of UNKLE's latest album, which arrives in deluxe edition April 11. A new EP, Only The Lonely, comes out a week prior to that.

 

UNKLE - The Answer (Trentemoller Remix)

Find More Free Trentemoller Music Here

Find More Free UNKLE Music Here

PREMIERE: Lonely Galaxy - Modern Romance

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: ballad

A song for the lovesick, the physically unwell, the crestfallen and anyone who secretly enjoys that sensation when tears start biting at your temples. Harry Granger-Howell named himself well—Lonely Galaxy's lament for "Modern Romance" isn't anything new, but then that's the whole point, I suppose. Heartbreak will always be heartbreak, whatever the decade. In the tight, solemn atmospheres of his new release EP2, out c/o the heroes at Transparent on December 6, Harry may have found a voice to echo glumly down through the ages.

Lonely Galaxy - Modern Romance

DOWNLOAD: Perfume Genius - Learning

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: ballad

Mike Hadreas' debut album begins with this, the first track he ever wrote. "Learning" is a fragile, morose affair: sounding not unlike a tentative apology. To who? Well, maybe to himself - that debut Perfume Genius album was written and recorded while Mike was in retreat from an extended and damaging bout of New York hedonism at his mum's house in the suburbs. Find the bittersweet fruits of that retreat on Learning, out now through Turnstile Music.

 

Perfume Genius - Learning

SXSW DOWNLOAD: CHEW LiPS - Seven

As it happens, we haven’t written about electro outfit CHEW LiPS since last summer, but it seems fitting that on this first sleep-deprived weekday of Daylight Savings, we’re shaking ourselves awake with another menacing pop ballad from the London trio. “Seven,” is a giddy cut meant to divide the dancefloor, something moody and brooding until Tigs’ soaring voice overpowers the synths and glitch like a souped-up Annie Lennox. Those who can, must catch them in Austin beginning this Wednesday, while the rest of us busy ourselves with Unicorn, a killer consolation prize and the band’s recent debut on Family.

 

CHEW LiPS - Seven

Find More Free CHEW LiPS Music Here

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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Sunderbans - Life Support

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: ballad, indie

 

What's the opposite of a pick-me-up? A put-me-down? Sunderbans have done their level best to write an anthem for this as-yet non-existent phrase, a task as hopeless as "Life Support" sounds, really: with its fatalistic chord progression, sombre subject matter and singer Chris Hutchinson's morose throat. Maybe it's better this kind of woe remains nameless - feels kind of crass to get in a plug for their debut 7" now, but it's out on the 8th of March; this being the B-side.

Sounds Like: The xx, Jonathan Richman's "Hospital", A Grave With No Name

 

Sunderbans - Life Support

EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Wildbirds & Peacedrums - My Heart (AU remix)

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: ballad, tropical

(Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud)

Usually people wheel out the steel pans when they want something to sound chill and summer and laid-back, but this AU remix of Wildbirds & Peacedrums, well... things get pretty dramatic. It's much more 'wildbird' than 'peacedrum', that's for sure; Mariam Wallentin switching up into full-on diva mode as those pans rattle nervously, strings panicking in the background. Find the new video for the original version of "My Heart" here.

Sounds Like: En Vogue, High Places, Micachu

 

Wildbirds & Peacedrums - My Heart (AU remix)

Previously:

Wildbirds & Peacedrums - I Can't Tell In His Eyes

Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Doubt/Hope

Wildbirds & Peacedrums' RCRD LBL Page

DOWNLOAD: Mike Bones - What I Have Left (Alexis Taylor Cover)

Posted by Kev Kharas

Tags: lounge, ballad, pop

One of the best things about Hot Chip is when the beat drops and the tracks turn away from the party. It's in these low-lit moments - on "Made In The Dark", or "We're Looking For A Lot Of Love", for example - that bespectacled singer Alexis Taylor gets to indulge his fairly blatant inner diva and here, with his cover of Mike Bones' "What I Have Left", the Hot Chip man's in his element, cooing over a funereal drumbeat and downbeaten organ keys. The track will be released on the B-side of Bones' fantastically-titled new single "Today The World Is Worthy Of My Loathing", out May 11th through Vice. 

Sounds Like: Celine Dion, Hot Chip, SALEM

 

Mike Bones - What I Have Left (Alexis Taylor Cover)

Previously:

Mike Bones - What I Have Left

Mike Bones - What I Have Left (Sian Alice Group Remix)

Mike Bones - What I Have Left (Brian Degraw Remix)

Mike Bones - What I Have Left (Silk Flowers Remix)

Mike Bones' RCRD LBL Page

EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Soap&Skin - The Sun

As you may have gathered from the photograph, Anja Plaschg isn't the happiest of campers. The 18-year-old's stern Soap&Skin project wilts the soul with an eery, monochromatic misery somewhere between archetypal pop shrewishness and windswept post-rock; "The Sun" all doomed piano and ragged guitars, lyrics with nagging references to black holes and imminent death. It's as masterful a rendering of gloom as you'd expect from someone who'd grown up punk on an Austrian pig farm.  The consensus seems to be that Plaschg might just be something of a genius - her debut album will look to reinforce that view upon its release next Monday, April 13 through PIAS.

Sounds Like: Björk, Fever Ray, Sibylle Baier

 

Soap&Skin - The Sun

Soap&Skin's RCRD LBL Page