Michel Gondry: The Spreemaster Cycle
- story Peter Macia
Honestly, the dreams are already too filled with weirdness to watch Matthew Barney’s masterpiece with any regularity, but this work of lightness can be watched every morning with a bagel and some juice, no problem. Also, Sprees are the best candy of all time: discuss.
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posted on Feb 2, 2010 in MUSIC VIDEO
50 Cent, “Many Men (Gonzales Piano RMX)” MP3
No knock to Digga, original producer of “Many Men,” but this is clearly how this song is supposed to be heard—as a dead-serious hymnal with the dread, drama and narcotic solemnity imbued by Gonzales‘ piano remix. From his upcoming mixtape Pianist Envy (AYOOOO!), it’s ramped up to epic Broadway levels, capturing 50 Cent’s resignation that people are trying to bang on him. Yes, a REALLY GOOD piano version of a rap track defies all logic on paper, but this just underscores what a brooding-ass man 50 Cent actually is, behind that moneyed smirk and those The Situation-destroying abdominals. He is, it seems, mere mortal. Dates for Gonzales’ piano talk show run at Joe’s Pub in NYC after the jump.
Download: 50 Cent, “Many Men (Gonzales Piano RMX)” (via Discobelle)
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posted on Feb 2, 2010 in MP3 / STREAMS
Video: Fresh and Onlys, “Invisible Forces”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
You know how surf music always has the breakdown where the guitar speeds up and everything comes together for one brief moment of darkness that you can only imagine as a simulation of wiping out in some bigass wave you underestimated? The Fresh and Onlys are great at taking that moment of darkness and drawing it out into a giant tidal wash of uncertainty and quavering goths-finally-enjoying-the-beach baritone. “Invisible Forces” is from the still excellent and still available Grey-Eyed Girls, out right now on Woodsist. (via The Tripwire)
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posted on Feb 1, 2010 in MUSIC VIDEO
Veronica Falls, “Starry Eyed” MP3
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
- photo Pavla Kopecna
Pretty sure we blogged some stuff about ice cream and soda fountains and poodle skirts the other day—or if we didn’t, we were probably thinking about it. The point is, Veronica Falls could almost fall into that sock-hop category: sweet boy-girl vocals with that swinging, loping rhythm that you instantly want a barbershop quartet to flesh out. It feels safe, and not always in a good way. Except it’s a ruse: Veronica Falls sound like the Pains of Being Pure at Heart just got to be too much (GET IT GET IT—sorry), like they’re doing all they can just to keep it together long enough to put on a smooth front and record a song.
Download: Veronica Falls, “Starry Eyed” (via Transparent)
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posted on Feb 1, 2010 in MP3 / STREAMS
[Ingenting], “Ge Tillbaka Det” MP3
We were in a serious crank stupor before we listened to this, grousing at basically everything and looking out our 13th floor windows to the street, shooting mean mugs at whomever’s head happened to cross our sightline. Then it was like, “cheery Swedes [Ingenting] wrote this song and you have no idea what they’re saying except it appears to be some sort of magical antidote to grumpiness. We wanna start a band where we just sort of guitar riff for a while randomly over bells and some harmonizing co-eds. Feels like some organic kinda Wellbutrin or something. Also loving these dudes because their MySpace photos consist of several fake/staged paparazzi shots. [Ingenting]: they’re just like us!
Download: [Ingenting], “Ge Tillbaka Det” (via Hyperbole)
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posted on Feb 1, 2010 in MP3 / STREAMS
Beach House’s Daytrotter Session MP3s
- story Matthew Schnipper
Beach House spent nine months writing their absolutely fantastic album Teen Dream, teasing out the pockets of sound and texture. They recorded the album is upstate New York with the help of producer Chris Coady. This was their first record produced with outside assistance, and the effect, at least, seems to be that they were more specific/less distracted. While this created a giant sonic leap forward, it was, to a small degree, at the price of some basic simplicity. Undeniably complex, the songs themselves are unable to return to the more basic wash of their self-titled debut and followup Devotion. But it’s just as much the skilled and elaborate performance that migrates Beach House from its original muddled beauty into a more pristine chamber with Teen Dream. What we’re trying to say is this: The Daytrotter Sessions Beach House recorded for four tracks from Teen Dream are the best of both worlds. These live sessions have the feel of older Beach House—powerful because of their languorousness, though in turn not interested in a grand clarity—with the enormous feat of the crystalline songwriting of Teen Dream. Though it would be difficult to recommend them over Teen Dream, these recordings are, in some ways, an experiment in what could have been.
Download: Beach House’s Daytrotter Session
Contest: Win an X-Mini Speaker
- story THE FADER
Now that we literally live in the future we enjoy our music in a more portable form than ever. That means that when we’re not listening to music on tiny earbuds we’re probably listening to it on miniscule internal laptop speakers while crying and wondering where all the bass has gone. People of the future: we need look no further than RIGHT NOW, because X-Mini has produced a line of speakers small enough to fit in a little box but loud enough to remind us what listening to music should really be all about. Hit us in the comments with a sadsack story about your poor sound situations and a few of you in the worst music-listening situations will get one of these bad boys sent directly to your doorstep. Just remember to use your real email address so we can let you know if you won. Things can only get better.
The Grammys Hate Rap
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Wait wait wait wait hold on, do you mean to tell us that Lil Wayne didn’t kick off his performance with an extended five-second string of expletives? Because this uncensored version of his performance with Drake, Eminem and Travis Barker is telling us otherwise. What’s up with all the unnecessary censorship, dudes? To be honest, we always thought, Hey, the Grammys might be increasingly irrelevant, but it’s probably still pretty exciting to go to, right? This year we got lectured about downloading music, watched Pink spin around in circles for an hour-and-a-half and got bummed out by everyone’s obsession with downtuned electric guitar. At least Jamie Foxx and Drake had a good time. Also, Taylor Swift dropped a Grammy and finally proved that the plastic ones we made for ourselves in 1994 are much closer to the real thing than we thought. And Phoenix got their Best Alt Rock Grammy from Tia Carrere in an empty room. (video via Nah Right)
Video Premiere: U.S. Girls, “Red Ford Radio”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Previously we viewed U.S. Girls as something promising. Pop sensibility cloaked under so many layers of hiss and extraneous noise that we knew we could like it, we just weren’t sure how yet. “Red Ford Radio”—from U.S. Girls’ Go Grey, out tomorrow on Siltbreeze—is the moment when it all finally starts to make sense. Maybe it’s the restraint. There isn’t really much here beyond a single stark drum and I can’t breathe in this red ford anymore/I’d do anything to get out, get out repeated forever with the same inflection and stoic vocal quaver as Paul Banks. The video, co-directed by Preston Spurlock and Jacqueline Castel (who is also responsible for this and this), comes off just as raw as the song. Not that big a surprise when you find out that it was all hand collaged and made on a black and white copier. All of a sudden we’re feeling really claustrophobic.
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posted on Feb 1, 2010 in MUSIC VIDEO
Video: Lemonade, “Lifted”
- story Matthew Schnipper
Lemonade’s new video for “Lifted” is like a coed version of Lord of the Flies. Either the dripping or the steel drums remove the song from macho power grab allegory. Lemonade have smiley face dolphins on the cover their new EP, Pure Moods, ecstatic upstate explorers in their video, cowbells and love calls in their lyrics. There’s a certain minty quality to this band and song, thick green just like salad leaves of their contemporaries, but registering deftly with left-field zest, bred to be quietly handsome, subtle game changers. (via Pitchfork)
