The New Wine / Erlend Øye (Whitest Boy Alive)

During another round of exploration, I found a some sparkle in dance music. I discovered two really fun bands thanks to headphonesex . I've been a fan of music like the Juan MacLean , LCD Soundsystem and various other DFA names that are catching on like Yacht . Most of them are probably categorized as dance punk, similar but all with alot of variance from each other.

A friend had told me about Whitest Boy Alive a week or two ago but I didn't take the time to listen until today. What got me hooked in this madness? This:

It's really funky, and give that cheesy dance sound that makes your head wiggle and heart flutter. What got me is the synth part, it's a contagious hook, I'll admit it.

On to learning about Whitest Boy Alive, a little less funky, but more dreamy and I definitely feel that. Give this a spin:

Lastly, The New Wine, completely unknown to me, but so hip. Their music makes me want to eat glitter and bread just so I can get sick from dancing to their tunes. It would give me a funk driven puke frenzy, and everyone would just keep dancing in that sparkly vomit. Enjoy:

Hauschka

Prepared instruments are weird, but I like experimental stuff that keeps some format. So tonight, some prepared instrumentation. I decided to use Hauschka, a German pianist, since I picked up an EP or LP of his a few months ago, it's really relaxing piano based stuff, with a very contemporary feel. He builds songs that appear to be simple, yet develop into complex compositions that make new possibly limitless boundaries of the piano.

Hauschka uses what looks like some paint stirrers to add an unexpected result. It's another variable in the experience. The other worldly sounds that just some extra wood on the strings makes the music so much more captivating. Enjoy:

The Von Bondies

These guys rode the initial wave of the garage rock revival in the early 2000's. Thanks to bands like the White Stripes and the Strokes, the Von Bondies are somewhat popular. I caught them earlier this year live, apparently everyone in their home town of Detroit hates them. They got alot of heat from the crowd at the Grog Shop over their new album Love, Hate, and Then There's You. I didn't enjoy it as much as their other albums so I'm here to talk about their old music today.

Off the first album Lack of Communication comes a lot of hard blues rock. I'm a huge fan of the bass lines from many of them, all with a very mopey feel topped with angry and frustrated guitars and vocals. I really dig on songs like Cass and Henry that have very narrative dialogue style of lyrics. I thoroughly enjoy the nice bluesy jam that is Rock and Roll Nurse, and even better you can hear it too.

Pelican

With a new EP that's only available at shows, I was super excited about finding this. Pelican pulls off some really heavy jamming very well. They flow through ideas, but I think their transitions are a bit weak. Either way, Embedding Moss, the first song from their Ephermal EP is a solid track. Go ahead, and head bang. 

If you're lucky enough to catch them live, enjoy, and buy their merch. 

[right click new page/tab to listen]

Grizzly Bear

For a few weeks I've been seeing various references to Grizzly Bear, with a bunch of hype about their new album Veckatimest. I wasn't really sure on what to expect from it other than something folksy. I was extremely pleased with it. They remind me of a very psychedelic Simon and Garfunkle. With soft, but very powerful vocals and extremely interesting intrumentation, I can't believe I hadn't found them earlier. 

To find out about them, I first hit last.fm. The most popular song from the new album "Two Weeks" has very suiting tags. People describe the song as "motherfuckin rabbits ejaculating sunshine" , "heart shivers", and "makes me want to shout it from a rooftop". I'll let the unnamed masses speak for this song. Give it a listen here:

Phoenix

A while back these french guys released a high quality teaser track, "1901," from their new album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. It had a really deep growl to it, and an extremely contagious beat. I guess releasing some of their best work made sense. I downloaded it, it was free on their site. I enjoyed it, but forgot about it for 2 months. 

But what happened? Their album was finally released. There is so much material on youtube it's insane. So I found an acoustic version of a track that is obviously catchy enough that fans would appreciate it. Listen to the whole thing, it's actually very pretty.

Now, turn up your speakers and pretend no one is watching you dance in your chair when you listen to this:

Japandroids

I think everyone has a certain spot in their hearts for indie rock. It's hard to find your favorite flavor though. I previously covered Cymbals Eat Guitars, which was edgy, new, and really noisy. 

Through some careful searching I found something quite similar. It's got alot more energy, and a certain level of obnoxiousness but I think it's the perfect mixture. With lyrics like,  "I don't wanna worry about dying, I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls," the song Young Hearts Spark Fires seems to be the perfect super-happy-positive summer time song. Give it a listen:

Also, maybe check out some of their other tunes, just as raw, canadian, and indie rock as this song. They have just released a new record called "Post-Nothing" that actually drew me in because I think it's funny how overused the post- prefix is.