Users
DOWNLOAD: Dustin Wong - Pink Diamond
Guitar dreamer Dustin Wong just wants to psych and bliss you out. Will you let him? On one hand, "Pink Diamond" is a delay pedal clinic with notes overlapping, flickering and bending into a mess of minimalist composition. On the other, this is pure interplanetary music. If your head felt like this all the time… well, that would be good. Hear more on Dreams Say, View, Create Shadow Leads – a new full-length which drops February 21 on Thrill Jockey.
STREAM: D'Angelo - Left & Right (James Blake Harmonimix)
D'Angelo, where have thou gone? I'd guess one of those old English bros from the Victorian era would have penned such a sentence if an artist of D'Angelo's caliber suddenly just disappeared for over a decade with no music to his name. Well, the world turns and now it appears that our man is back playing shows and previewing new material for eventual release in 2012. Yes! And what better way to modernize than with a James Blake remix. Spacy, tribal, intense, soulful, weird and welcome.
DOWNLOAD: Elephant & Castle - En Memoria (feat. Tune-Yards)
Elephant & Castle, aka David Vincent Reep, is something of a wanderer, which bodes well for his sonic cameleon sensibilities. Take this one, "En Memoria," which features Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards) on vocals and seems to pluck natural sound from all over the globe with an intensely spiritual focus. Atmospheric, lush and dreamy, flutes flicker while hands pound away on the rawhide of drums and keys hang in the wind – a great introduction to what will go down on Elephant & Castle's debut, Transitions, which comes March 13 via Plug Research.
STREAM: Flaming Lips - Now I Understand (feat. Erykah Badu, Siri)
An oddball surprise from Flaming Lips? Imagine that! On this new one, "Now I Understand," the group goes positively ambient and comforting with some lush vocals from legendary songstress Erykah Badu and an abstract conversation with Apple's favorite new daughter Siri. This is a quick take – simple, peaceful, pure in intention.
DOWNLOAD: Black Dice - Pigs
(Photo: Jason Frank Rothenberg)
If you want to go weird, there is no band finer than Black Dice. It's been like that for a decade, and if the material on their new album Mr. Impossible is any indication, it'll be like that for another one. The first taste is the irresistible "Pigs." It's a meticulously-formed, vacuum-wrapped sludge of roadhouse blues, jittery dance music, punk snarl and sonic wackiness. No, they didn't go pop, but this is Black Dice cut with an exacto knife – so pointed, calculated and worked-over that it's experimental music given the proper time to marinate and become great.
DOWNLOAD: Dirty Three - Rising Below
After seven years of dormancy (aka its members collaborating with major names like Nick Cave, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Bill Callahan and Cat Power), Dirty Three is finally back with a new full-length entitled Toward The Low Sun on Drag City. "Rising Below" is the first taste, and it's a pastoral mixture of free violin, chunky guitar and Jim White's signature drums filled with breeze and heavy-handed attacks in equal spurts. Hear more post-rock awesomeness February 28.
DOWNLOAD: Prince Rama - Summer Of Love
The first couple times I saw Prince Rama perform, I couldn't tell whether I was witnessing a new spiritual angle on noise or the birth of a cult that would someday have people careening off rooftops into parked cars. I'm leaning towards the noise side now, though! "Summer Of Love" has it all down with washed percussion, bells plucked like harps, droney ceremonial vocals and an eventual explosion that takes everything into more aggressive terrain.
DOWNLOAD: White Car - She The Bodiless + Now We Continue
Disembodied voices crushed to rhythmic pulses. Sound collaged violently into an airy nightmare. That's "She The Bodiless" by Chicago industrial project White Car. It's awesome, yet we're glad its intensity was chased with another preview track from the upcoming Everyday Grace LP (via Hippos In Tanks). "Now We Continue" has a ghoulish, danceable creep to it that's perfect for a cold stare and letting fog roll out the side of your mouth.
