Archive for the ‘Track Reviews’ Category

Ghost Wave // Hippy

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

First heard these killer tunes from New Zealand’s Ghost Wave via Sally Fork via Rose Quartz (looking like a re:re: chain e-mail, I know). It’s been a while since I covered a group from the Southern Hemisphere on the blog, so I’ll forgo a bunch of “down under” puns for both your sake and mine

Call me a sucker for fuzzy guitars, monotonic vocals, and instagram visuals, so it comes as no surprise that the track + video for Ghost Wave’s “Hippy” hits all the right spots for me. With all the summer shots/sounds, it almost makes me forget that I’m freezing my ass off in Salt Lake right now. Almost…

Check out the video and download the track below. Head over to the band’s bandcamp for a couple of more tunes.

Ghost Wave // Hippy

Laurel Halo // Constant Index (Actress Violet Remix)

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

Last weekend, I moved a massive amount of music (100Gb+) off my laptop to an external hard drive. So, proportionally speaking, I have a lot fewer full albums and a lot more random mp3s floating around my library. I figured I would go through these track misfits and feature one or two each week that I like. Some will be recent, others will have been from 5+ years ago (when I started getting into blog-downloads), but all will be good.

The first one is an industrial Laurel Halo remix by Actress Violet who, despite my mad google skillz, I could not find any details about. Gone is any resemblance to the original track (which you can stream below via Altered Zones): no singing, no layered rhythms, and most surprisingly no synths. Actress Violet instead opts to creep-ify the track by adding machine pulsations, discordant groans, and grinding beats. In fact, if it wasn’t for the occasional keyboard chime, I would be convinced that this wasn’t even remotely related to Laurel Halo’s original. Check them out below:

Laurel Halo // Constant Index (Actress Violet Remix)

Laurel Halo: “Constant Index” by alteredzones

Colleen Green // Rabid Love

Monday, September 12th, 2011

Another Colleen Green track dropped in my inbox the other day and I thought I would share since I’ve been on a Colleen Green listening marathon as of late. If the ID3 tags can be trusted, “Rabid Love” is track 3 from Green’s upcoming Cujo EP set to be released by Art Fag Recordings on October 4. It’s a typical Green track: driving fuzzy guitar melody, chilled-out vocals, and a 4 Loko energetic punch at the chorus — so yeah, an instant classic in my book. Check it out below:

Colleen Green // Rabid Love

Oneohtrix Point Never // Sleep Dealer

Saturday, September 10th, 2011

He’s backkkkkkk. After a lengthy stint serving as one-half of the Ford and Lopatin team, Daniel Lopatin’s solo synth creation, Oneohtrix Point Never, is now back in the spotlight. “Sleep Dealer” is a track taken from his upcoming November released LP Replica and also his first distributed mp3 under the Oneohtrix moniker in about a year.

Categorically different than anything off of last year’s stellar Returnal (#17 of my favorite albums of 2010), “Sleep Dealer” opts for diced-up sample-like cuts rather than the patented all-engrossing synth fermata whole notes that Lopatin is known for. If anything, this track makes me dying to know what the whole album is going to sound like! Check it out below:

Oneohtrix Point Never // Sleep Dealer

Andy Petr // This Can’t Be Real

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Rapper Turned Singer beat creator Andy Petr has been on a tear lately, seemingly releasing a new track (or a new EP) on daily basis for the past couple of weeks via twitter. Last night he sent out a notification to check out his latest concoction “This Can’t Be Real” with the message “if you would like to purchase this beat pay me a million dollars.” Needless to say, I had to check out what a million dollar beat sounded like.

After about five listens, I can resoundingly say that “This Can’t Be Real” would be worth every penny of that million dollars and then some. Opening up with a building start that any hype-man on the planet could get a crowd excited for, the track then slips into a drum-heavy (Petr’s leitmotif) spaced-out synth jam chalk full of unique rhythms and cuts. I’d have to come back to you with a list of MCs that I think would pair nicely with this beat (god, I sound like a fucking sommelier), but the fact of the matter is that any rapper would count himself lucky to have something this good to spit on. Check it out below:

This Can’t Be Real by Andy Petr

Angel Olsen // In the Morning

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Fresh off her Strange Cacti vinyl release on Bathetic Records (an exact duplicate of her stellar cassette from 2010), I’ve been dying to hear some new material from this heart breaking Chicagoan singer/songwriter. Fortunately, the folks over at Two Syllable Records has satiated that desire — albeit only partially — by releasing a fresh new Angel Olsen track for a Chi-town-centric compilation cassette.

Weekly Tape Deck premiered the near a-capella song last week and it’s taken me a bit to digest as Olsen takes you through the emotional ringer with her voice. Coming in at just under three minutes, “In the Morning” seems to be an inner monologue of a complex, depression-tinged mind, spitting out stream of consciousness style lyrics that take a while to decipher. Not Olsen’s best track, but for the time being it’ll do as we wait for more material. Check it out:

Angel Olsen // In the Morning

Glasser // Treasury of We (Delorean Remix)

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Keeping the remix vibe going from yesterday, Delorean’s take on Glasser’s xylophone-heavy “Treasury of We” — taken from her stellar 2010 LP Ring — seems to be battling for the “remix of the year” title. Deloreans reinvention of the sparsely constructed track strips everything out except the vocals and reconstructs it as a Euro-tastic discoteque jam that’ll be danced to from Lisbon to Krakow. Check out both the original and remix below:

Glasser // Treasury of We

Glasser // Treasury of We (Delorean Remix)

Grimes // Crystal Ball (Stalker Remix)

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Holy.Shit. Just when you think you’ve heard all the Grimes remixes another comes seemingly out of nowhere to blow you away. Stalker’s take on “Crystal Ball” is not just a unique spin on a tried-and-true Grimes track, but it’s also a complete 180 from any other Stalker track you may have heard in the past year and a half.

For the first time in, well, forever, the tempo remains above molasses pace and you have elements with sixteenth note rhythms (snare taps, vocal cuts), but the “traditionalists” need not fret: the grinding warped guitars are still there and the track itself still has that overall uncomfortable dissonance to it that Stalker is known for (although not as pervasive compared to say “final_1″). What gets me most excited about this remix is the fact that Stalker seems to be branching out and experimenting more which makes me even more eager to listen in on his future stuff. Check out the track below and get ready to be blown away:

Grimes // Crystal Ball (Stalker 432Hz Mirroremix)

Work Drugs // Swimmer Girl

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

While the East Coast is getting hammered by a hurricane and the Pacific Northwest is rainy as usual, the weather couldn’t be any more beautiful here in landlocked Utah. Looking outside my window at another cloudless day, it’s kind of hard to believe that it’s just about time to say au revoire to summer 2k11. To kick us in autumn properly, we have a summer-ending smooth beach jam courtesy of Philly’s Work Drugs. Now I’ve talked about these guys a couple of times before, and with “Swimmer Girl” you getting much of the same thing (shimmering guitars, airy keyboards, vocals that don’t extend past an octave) but somehow they always seem to hit the sweet spot of what my ears like. You can stream the track below and if you got time, check out the Baywatch-esque video:

Swimmer Girl by Work Drugs

Pigeons // Dead Echo

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

It’s been a while since I heard a peep out of the forward-thinking Bronx duo Pigeons (who, by the way, have the best band website on the planet). Coming off an ultra-limited release cassette release on Japanese label Sixteen Tambourines, the group is back with an impending stateside release, an LP verbosely called They Sweetheartstammers, on Minneapolis’s Soft Abuse Records. To celebrate the upcoming November release, the label threw up a stream of the track “Dead Echo” on their soundcloud, with the tagged genre of “Avantpop” isbeing incredibly apropos. Check it out:

Pigeons “Dead Echo” by Soft Abuse