I’ve been sleeping on my love of Gotye (pronounced go-tee-ay like the French surname Gauthier) for a while, because I wasn’t completely sure what to say. Essentially, he’s an indie Australian producer who makes “electronic” albums that have no coherent theme. He’s a minor deal in  Australia and not really talked anywhere else. I’ve had his second and most popular album, Like Drawing Blood, for some time and it’s my favorite of the three he’s put out so far. His tracks range from somber and morose “Heart’s A Mess” and “Night Drive” to dancy “Thanks for Your Time” to retro “Coming Back” and “Learnalilgivinanlovin” to experimental “Distinctive Sound”.  Gotye’s first LP, Boardface is not as great as Like Drawing Blood, but contains one of my favorite of his songs “Out Here in the Cold”. His latest, Mixed Blood, is a remix album of some select tracks on Like Drawing Blood. I don’t generally like remixes, so needless to say I didn’t enjoy Mixed Blood at all, but it’s easily someone else’s steez.

Boardface- pass: highqualitymp3.com

Like Drawing Blood

Mixed Blood

Neo-soul is a huge segment of the new things I listen to, so I’ve been meaning to do a neo-soul spot for a while, but…varying amounts of sloth keep me from accomplishing most things in life. But now, in no particular order:

Kevin Michael

He has a badass afro, a beautiful voice, and seems to do cross-legged wall sits for fun. Judging by his promo photos, the accomplishments of his labelmates (Missy Elliott, Diddy, Paul Wall, etc.) and the guest appearances on his self-titled debut album (Wycelf Jean, Lupe Fiasco, and Q-Tip) , Kevin Michael was probably  groomed to be a mainstream big deal.  For whatever reason, he fell short of Billboard success. All this to say, sometimes his lyric writing is softcore and stereotypical in spots, like many or most big deal R&B singers, but his voice and music production are always impeccable. His slower tracks are my favorites : “Love Letter” and “Liquid Lava Love”. Others to note: “Vicki Secrets”, “Ain’t Got You”, “Stone Cold Killa”, “Too Blessed feat. Q-Tip, and the acoustic versions of “We All Want the Same Thing” and “It Don’t Make Any Difference to Me”. He’s slated to drop another full album this year. We’ll see how that goes.

Kevin Michael

Leela James

Leela James is fly. She doesn’t waste time singing stand-by-my-man love songs. Instead, she writes a lot of angry ex-lover songs, one of which has a backbeat composed mostly of shattering glass.  But I don’t just admire Leela James for her anger. For one, her cover of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” makes you wonder why Gwen Stefani was ever made a “lead” singer, in my humble opinion. Secondly, her lyrics always manage to hit hard… even when she’s singing a song about her love of soul food.  She and her backup singers also do a shit-ton of solid old school harmonizing… she even released a whole album of old school R&B covers to announce her commitment to bucking contemporary factory produced R&B (I haven’t heard many of the tracks though). I like all of her A Change is Gonna Come album, but if you need inspiration, try “Music”, “Rain”, and “Didn’t I” (the one with the glass).

One half of The Knife does a solo project. I thought The Knife was ok, but Fever Ray is minus all the sugary synthpop. There is only Karin, her insanity, heavy ambient bass, and the finest prose in all of human history:

i’m very good with plants
when my friends are away
they let me keep the soil moist
on the seventh day i rest
for a minute or two
then back on my feet and call for you

Also consider:
accompany me
by the kitchen sink
we talk about love
we talk about dishwater tablets
and we dream about heaven

One YouTube comment describes it as “morose shit”. I like morose shit…

Fever Ray
Also peep the videos for:
When I Grow Up
If I Had a Heart

I’ve been listening to a shit ton of music that I’ll post about as I spottily remember it. But first, I want to prattle on about how amazing I think Musiq Soulchild is:

I recently decided to download the man’s entire studio discography. Roughly 80 tracks and not a one of them is bad, granted all of them aren’t spectacular. True, Musiq Soulchild has a great voice and works with decent producers, but that’s just not the point for me. Typically I’m afraid of downloading the discographies of male neo-soul artists because after a handful of songs I get upset about intraracial portrayals of gender in the black community… then I have to turn it off and take a black solidarity, stress-induced nap. Maybe I should lighten up, but I rather just hype Musiq for his positive, not-completely-fucked up accounts of women and storylines that don’t feature black men as violent, misogynist sexual predators.

Though I like all of his stuff, I recommend starting with at the beginning, if you want to try it out:

• Aijuswanaseing (2000)
• Juslisen (2002)
• Soulstar (2003)
• Luvanmusiq (2007)
• Onmyradio (2008)

Hi everyone,

Its been a little while since the last post. Sorry.  I’m just not a good blogger.

Anyways, here is one of my favorite (and probably one of the cutest) records of all time. Awesome Animal Ambulance combines drum machine loops, synths, girl/boy vocals and winds them up into a rare musical gem:  a compact, simple, caring, and earnest record that unabashedly revels in its own quirky yet compelling sincerity.   This is a bright record that will have even the snarkiest listener headbobbing and smirking.

Buy it here at Aurora 7 Records

And also check out Suzy Coady’s website.  She did the artwork.

When someone hands me an album describing it as “raprockelectronica” I usually go in expecting a mixture of The Faint, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and (yes) Limp Bizkit around 1999. But after listening to the most recent album, Want from the band, group, duo 3OH!3 (pronounced “three oh three”) I’m pretty (pleasantly) surprised by Sean Foreman and Nathanial Motte’s genre dissolving style..

Take track 2, ”Punk B*tch”. It morphs from a pretty heavy rap beat to an electronic dance beat all the while maintaining the same feel through the whole song. Tracks “Holler Till You Pass Out” and “Chokechain” are hilariously pompous rap/electro mixes.  However, the song “Still Around” is a decidedly slow mix between emo and R&B…which is which is a unique (and addicting) combo. “Don’t Trust Me” is just a straight dance track(complete with handclaps!) but somehow still works with the rest of the album.

Admittedly, some of the lyrics aren’t that deep (ex. I just want you to know that we datin’ mad models and poppin’ mad bottles tonight….) but it’s still one ridiculously interesting piece of work. They have just enough talent and take themselves just seriously enough to make it work.

Holla Back.

I’ve been listening to a lot of new shit lately. Both last.fm and my late night myspace fumbling have pointed me to Kiss Kiss. I can’t think of anything like them. Their sound is somehow a blend of instrumental baroque pop with screamed hooks and occasional noise. Sometimes it sounds like progressive klezmer, other times it’s closer to melodic screamo. Regardless, it’s beautiful. Decent lyrics too.

Update: I finally found their album Reality vs. the Optimist, also I wasn’t looking very hard the first time…

This band randomly myspace friended me like a few weeks ago. I thought they would be some sort of inappropriate spam, but they turned out to be amazingly catchy pop music, in the same vein as Beat Happening /Kimya Dawson/ Moldy Peaches/ . Simple, catchy, playful, carefree, low fi, punk songs. Not to mention, they do a Daniel Johnston cover!

I just love this kind of stuff. you guys know what kind of good vibes they bring out. Just look at the influences and sounds like part of their myspace.

Listen to the Myspace

I cant wait to see them play live. I’ll probably be at their death by audio show and maybe one of the trash bar shows. people should come check it out!

Sarah records!

Theres really not much for me to say about it. Founded in 1987, in the UK, the Sarah founders, Clare and Matt wanted “to release 100 of the world’s greatest pop-records, to show up all the other labels by doing it properly, and – by means of 7″ singles, fanzines, flexidiscs, jigsaws, board-games and inflammatory literature – to raise the moral and political consciousness of the world to such an extent that, when the time came to release that 100th single, global Socialist revolution would be but a mis-timed handclap away. Sarah reached its century in August 1995, and promptly declared its work here done. The world, sadly, rather missed the boat“. Over the course of 8 years they managed to put out 99 singles, a few LPs, and some compilations of some of the greatest pop music the world has ever seen. Their roster includes such notable bands as Heavenly, The Sea Urchins, The Field Mice, The Orchids. Their DIY model was both inspiration and a reference point for a countless number of record labels, bands, zines, other diy endeavors. For me the Sarah records story makes me bittersweet and nostalgic for something that I theoretically could have, but of course practically never could have really experienced in person, or at least not have digested in any significant or tangible way.

So yah, basically, some kids did something pretty and good, and we should take something away from that

Air Balloon Road

The Body is two dudes from Providence, RI making some amazingly loud jams. Their face.to.the.floor breed of sludge-metal? is somewhat of a departure from most of the music so far featured on this blog. Brain piercing lobotomy sized shrieks and ribcage smashing instrumentals are not exactly on the same level as the whispery cuddlepop of Tokidoki’s “Cookie Cutter.” But, after their recent show in Brooklyn I struck up a conversation with Chip (right), where we talked about touring, luminous and phosphorescent beaches, Providence, technology, and probably some other stuff too. Turns out when i couldn’t find them for their park slope show in April it was because they totally got fucked by some dude they trusted to help them out and couldn’t play anyways cuz the cops shut the show down. I only mention this because I was pretty upset that i couldn’t find the place. I probably should have tried to interview them, but i just didnt realize that id end up talking to them for that long. Anyways, even though they make angry sounding, politically motivated, sure to break your speakers and headphones musics, it all comes from a genuine love of their community, good people, nature, and lots of other things. Don’t worry though they will still rock your basement to rubbles as you stand right there helpless with nothing to do except bang the shit out of your head as you go deaf.

The Body:

(go by the records too, you wont regret it)