DOWNLOAD: Vetiver - More Of This (Neighbours RMX)
...in which Vetiver's Andy Cabic remixes Vetiver track "More Of This". It gets more disorientating than that, Cabic's 'Neighbours' remix taking in Hawaiian surf and sun-drenched Afro guitars and still somehow sounding like Christmas. I guess it's the bells. Either way, things are pretty chill here, so we're not gonna ruin the good vibes by worrying about it too much at work's-almost-done 'o' clock on a Friday - find "More Of This" on a new, limited edition Vetiver 12", out through Bella Union at the end of the month.
Sounds like: Floating Points, Vampire Weekend, Wham
Vetiver - More Of This (Neighbors RMX)
Previously:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Very Best - Julia (feat. Kano)
Kano's verses here are notable for a few things - for one, it marks the phrase 'to Chris Brown somebody''s official passing into the public vocabulary. Really, though, that's a red herring; "Julia" a springy, jocular romp of a track that kind of sounds like what Madness or The Specials might if they'd just recorded their first album in 2009. Sunshine's never a surprise when The Very Best are around, obviously, but as October (!) draws towards a close that light and happiness is more welcome than ever, even if it does come over the strange, farting bass weight of a kind of toytown dubstep. Rather generously, there's also a remix by UK club kid JAYOU and an instrumental, so you can spit your own bars over the top and be just like Kano.
Sounds Like: Madness, JME, Vampire Weekend
The Very Best - Julia (feat. Kano)
The Very Best - Julia (JAYOU Remix)
The Very Best - Julia (Instrumental)
Previously:
The Very Best - Rain Dance (Featuring M.I.A.)
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Featuring Ezra Koenig)
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Featuring Ezra Koenig) (Theophilus London Remix)
The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa (Metronomy Remix)
The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa (Architecture In Helsiniki Remix)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Wildbirds & Peacedrums - My Heart (AU remix)
(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
DOWNLOAD: The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Metronomy + Architecture In Helsinki Remixes)
The Very Best duo Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit met in a second-hand furniture shop, so it makes a cute kind of sense that they'd be eager to pass their musical wares on to others to re-use and re-model as they see fit. First, Metronomy, whose effort sounds very much like - gasp! - A Metronomy Song, with its synths of torn velcro and the original vocal (supplied by Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig) morphed all tinny and robotic. Architecture In Helsinki's go at the desk results in something far more faithful to Esau and, uh, Mr Clit, leaping with the sort of sun-maddened enthusiasm you get when you let Australian people mess around with steel pans.
Sounds Like: Daft Punk, Late Of The Pier, Vampire Weekend
The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa (Metronomy Remix)
The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa (Architecture In Helsiniki Remix)
Previously:
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Featuring Ezra Koenig)
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Featuring Ezra Koenig) (Theophilus London Remix)
DOWNLOAD: Extraperlo - Cavalcade + Banadores
Is it worth apologising for the poor quality of that photo? Does it offend your eyes? I hope for your sake's you're not so prude, but either way Extraperlo probably aren't worrying too much. The quartet's sound is a remarkably carefree one, something that chimes with my own memories of their home city in late spring, early summer. Barcelona's a beautiful place and "Cavalcade" is a beautiful song, primary colour synths gliding overhead like crop dusting planes spiked with colourful smoke, the red and yellow of the Catalan flag pressing against clear, blue skies. Less pretentiously, vocalist Borja Rosal sounds oddly like Joe Strummer, while funk guitars strut and settle into glimmering patterns reminiscent of Orchestra Harlow's "Horsin' Up" or oddly, again, Wild Beasts or Orange Juice. Extraperlo have been compared to El Guincho but while that was perhaps inevitable given their hometown and an affiliation with the same label (the great Discoteca Oceano) that brought El Guincho's music to the world, this band's tropicalia seems to lurk within the track without ever making itself explicitly known, understated, wandering and - yes - carefree.
Sounds Like: Air France, Wild Beasts, The Clash
DOWNLOAD: Snowblink - Green to Gone
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Music means the world to those who love it, I suppose because it unveils a greater truth that calls out like a beacon. Somehow it’s always fresh surprise when two people place a palm on opposite sides of the glass and discover they’re hand-twins. “Green To Gone” feels like a long-lost sibling. With that simple strum and bright country clarity, Snowblink's Daniela Gesundheit is a real charmer (at one point the dudes from MGMT sang backup for her). She’s a spring day in a year of rain.
Sounds like: Sigur Ros, Meiko
Previously:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Flashguns - IDNLY (Lagos Boys Choir Remix)
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"I Don't Not Love You" - it's a suitably non-committal long-name for a remix that seems to pop and strut and bust and fart in a million different directions all at once, Flashguns' original turned by Lagos Boys Choir into a travelling parade of attack drums and synth panic. Amidst it all there's a serenity there, though, and it's odd. I can't explain it - the thing's hectic but still, somehow, calm. After four minutes or so "IDNLY" seems to bewilder itself and goes jerking and spitting off into the distance, like a drunk angry at an enemy only he can see. You and other bystanders, meanwhile, are left with the lasting impression that that, whatever it was, was fucking great.
Sounds Like: Teengirl Fantasy, El Guincho, Alan Vega
Flashguns - IDNLY (Lagos Boys Choir Remix)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Friend - Black Keys
It makes sense that Jesse Kanda is getting some attention now the sun's come out. When the weather's good you wear shorts. You drink Rubicon or Lilt. You go outside. You listen to Friend. Jesse's a photographer, director and, as is most appropriate right now, a music producer living in London and "Black Keys" is perfect: a surreally pleasing punch of floaty vocals, fruity steel pans and liquid synths that eagerly recall his Technicolor remix work for the likes of Air France, Lindstrom and Metronomy. This track, along with the much-blogged "Doki", will be available on new EP Shima at some point in the near future.
Sounds Like: Psychic Ills, High Places, FaltyDL
DOWNLOAD: What's Up? - Harper + Seasoning's Greeting (Cropped and Subdued Mix)
(Photo: Katelyn Reeves)
The most blatant talent of California three-piece What's Up? is their unnerving ability to articulate in sound colours that haven't even been seen yet. "Harper", which wears its guitar strings tight across the neck in a mimic of steel pans, is perhaps the best example of this: its trebly tones flailing wildly like a haywire fruit machine or the plumage of a flamingo flock if, instead of feasting on the brine shrimp that turn their feathers pink, they reverted to a diet of LSD and fireworks. Seriously vivid and in the mood to party, What's Up? will get you kaleidoscopically crunk on their weirdo sunshine jams.
Sounds Like: Ratatat, Abe Vigoda, Growing
What's Up? - Seasoning's Greeting (Cropped and Subdued Mix)
What's Up?'s Austin Schedule:
3/20 - Treasure City Day Party
3/21 - The Moose Lodge
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Ducktails - The Mall + Daily Vacation
Remember when things were simple enough that when strangers at parties asked what music you listened to, you could reply with something as generic as "rock" or "dance" or "hip-hop"? Seems to me like those days of easy answers are gone - which in some ways is a bummer, because now all you have for those strangers is a shoulder shrug and some mumbling as you try to convey that you're really big on post-ironic, tropical psych-drone at the moment without sounding like an utterly obtuse f*ck. 23-year-old Matthew Mondanile is the man behind Ducktails, as any true fan of post-ironic, tropical psych-drone will already know given the smattering of his tracks that have surfaced online over the last month or so. What you might not be aware of, though, is that Mondanile can sing - musically "The Mall" follows a familiar meandering, sun-lit path but having the New Jersey kid's voice over the top gives it an extra dimension for you to plug into. "Daily Vacation", also from Ducktails' new self-titled LP (forthcoming on Not Not Fun), sees vocals shy away again, allowing gilded guitar and moseying drums to drift blissfully like a whole warm front through your drafty mid-winter window frames.
Sounds like: Ecstatic Sunshine, Durutti Column, White Williams
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