Unsigned London band Kites is made up by Richard Baldwin, Jasper Perkins, Jack Newton, and fronted by Matthew Phillips. Kites is a seeming 2011 lovechild tribute to New Order and Talking Head. If that doesn’t work for you, maybe a British version of early The Killers would be a fitting comp. Nevertheless, I think the 80′s synthpop influences are pretty apparent.
I love early Killers and appropriately, I’m getting a lot of the same feelings as I listened to the Kites’s EP. The 80′s electro influences are a wee bit more evident than anything on Hot Fuss though. It’d be unfair to assign the prediction of Kites success to the same level of The Killers, but the boys of Las Vegas proved there’s a large audience for this type of music. Here’s hoping that Kites can reach that audience and succeed.
I’ve decided to highlight Art Tastes Better Blind, with a new version of the song being released today. Check it out and enjoy!
I hope everyone’s weekend went well. I think mine did for the most part; I spent it away from the computer so that was a minor victory of sorts. I got to wander around a little bit and just think, which I find enjoyable. The people that encountered me probably wondered why this guy was sauntering along the hiking trail with his head seemingly in the clouds. But I didn’t care, it was time for me to be lost with my thoughts. Being away from the computer obviously means I was away from the blog. I haven’t posted for a few days and it seems odd to start again late into a Monday night, but here I am.
I wanted to highlight this song, Water People, by Grouper. It fits the mood of this Monday and really the whole weekend. It’s smooth and perfectly suited for reflection or meditation.
Grouper is the solo electro, ambient project of Portland’s Liz Harris. This song was released at the end of August on a vinyl 7″ after her residency at Marfa Recording Co.
Wow, this “writing a first post” thing is a lot harder than it seemed. Here I was thinking that I would be as good at writing as Lester Bangs, but instead my writing skills parallel those of the guys that continue to write Rob Schneider into movies. My lackluster writing skills aside, I do know good music when I hear it and hope to be sharing it with you.
As summer transitions into fall, I have been thinking a lot about my own musical taste transitions. Please allow me to introduce you to an artist that served as a catalyst into broadening my musical spectrum and is one that I respect immensely. Emancipator is one of those artists that can open entire genres for the listener because I find myself trying to discover music that sounds close to what he records. He meshes elements of trip-hop, jazz and electronica to create soundscapes that transplant the listener to another place. For proof, check out his first album Soon it Will be Cold Enough to Build Fires, a 2006 release. This album is full of powerful tracks that make me think of the majesty of the Pacific Northwest (quite fitting because Emancipator lives in Portland, Oregon).
Soon it Will be Cold Enough to Build Fires is the one consistent album that I have listened to all year, mainly because of how it always brings me back to transitions in life. For example, songs that invoke the transition from summer to fall are With Rainy Eyes or for the fall to winter transition Soon it Will be Cold Enough to Build Fires. Tracks like First Snow always remind me of cold winter nights after a massive snowfall. Tracks like Wolf Drawn and Anthem remind me of the transition from winter to spring. Listening to Soon it Will be Cold Enough to Build Fires is a cinematic experience for the mind and soul.
If you enjoyed Soon it Will be Cold Enough to Build Fires, Emancipator also just released an album earlier this year titled Safe in the Steep Cliffs, a sophomore effort which builds on the successes of the first album. I have not devoted enough time to the second album as I have to the first, but it is definitely worth checking out as Emancipator is an artist who transcends the genre and broadens musical tastes. I know he did for me.
In all honesty, this is one of those posts where I wished I was a Tumbleblog because it would be great to post this song, say it’s awesome and check it out, and then be done. But I try to say more than 10 words when I post. So it will be done.
As far as I can tell, the song is from a Canadian hobby musician, Derek Desroches. It’s an indie electronic track that I came across on Soundcloud and I listened to it about 4-5 times straight. When I listen to something that many times consecutively, there’s a decent chance that I like it enough to post about it. That’s the case here. The looping last half of the song is my addiction to the track.
The accompanying image is the painting The Field Far From Home by Edward Wolverton. Seemed appropriate.
Feeling like a bit-part actor,
I work in between the lines,
Saving up for something faster,
I’m waiting upon my time,
(For your heart’s sake)
Don’t you wait around for me to decide what
I want to grow up to be,
I’ll just let you down if I do decide that
I just want to wait and see.
This song isn’t new but it is good so I hope you’ll give it a listen if you haven’t heard it already. I’ve included a decent chunk of the lyrics because those words were the reason I listened to his debut album, Special Affections. I wrote about It’s Not My Party back in December.
In that post, I touched on the appeal of dance music and my views are still the same. It’s an outlet in this increasingly crazy world (see Michelle Bachmann). So dance like nobody’s watching.
The Brooklyn band, Milagres, has produced a smooth electro track that deserves to be on your summer mixtape from here forward. The understated synths, the somewhat eerie-yet perfectly normal falsetto, and the downtempo beat; it all fits so neatly. And it makes it understandable that it was on the strength of this track alone that they were signed.
Glowing Mouth is a sexy (god, I hate using that word to describe music but alas it fits too perfectly here not to), ethereal pop jam that’s perfect for summer. It will be on an LP of the same name that will be released in September.
