~Salad Boys - Metalmania
This group of Kiwis slipped under the door of the 015, with a breezy set of carefully constructed guitar pop. With a pop punk drive and post punk vibe, Salad Boys fits comfortably among the canon of New Zealand indie rock. Equal parts The Skeptics and The Chills. Some of the more acoustic songs on here have lush sound that is so often lost on modern acoustic Pop songs, where the strumming is not wittled down like a brittle pencil, but rather built up with layering and chorus pedals. Metalmania is a delightful dream and deserves many more spins.
~Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion
Coming off the heals of a Broadway stint, as well as the release of one of the most infectious pop songs ever written, Carly Rae Jepsen was poised to take the easy way out. Put Max Martin in a room, pen a few lyrics involving emojis and dunzo. Call Me Maybe part 2, making it rain. Instead the Canadian Pop star, went a different route. Channeling 80s new wave and disco, as well as early 90s house, Emotion is the sort of record you might expect from Kyli Minogue or even Robyn, at times. Its as a progressive as it is accessible and keenly focused on production and content. Nearly every song on the album can worm its way into your head, and yet it remains estranged from top 40 list. One could make the argument that I Really Like You is the sequel to Call Me Maybe, and maybe it is, but there are so many other tracks on this album that prove that Jepsen has transcended her breakthrough hit. I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance, Warm Blood, and All That are perfect examples, of a pop artist blending her influences into deeply moving, emotional dance songs. If you had originally written this one off, don't. I urge everyone to return to a record that critics will no doubt point to in 10yrs time.
~Tamaryn - Cranekiss
Cloaked in a dark, gothic sexuality, Tamaryn's Cranekiss is the sort of record Robert Smith would have loved to contribute to in the late 80s. Shed is the psychedelic wooziness that penned Tamaryn into the already overcrowded Dream Pop field. Instead she take the full step into pop-hood, with a massive record bursting with glittering synths, jagged guitars lines, and Linn Drum like percussion. With a simpleton's perception one might say, Tamaryn moved from Lush like sound to something in the realm of Siouxsie Sioux, though that comparison falls short of what is actually constructed here. The sounds our lavish and grandiose, yet still dark and yearning. Tamaryn lives more in a world of Kate Bush the way she transforms a croon to whisper, flexing her range in each track. Returning to the production, this record was made in partnership with Shuan Durkan, guitar mastermind behind Weekend, who released one of the best records of 2013, Jinx. Often we hear albums of this nature are purely derivative, aping outdated sounds of the past. Though with one spin of Cranekiss it is obvious that these songs are far more than a blast from the past, but rather a string of modern Pop songs, cast in a Goth-like house.
~Tory Lanez - Say It
Tory Lanez is a Canadian rapper/singer who optimizes what it is to be a Hip-Hop artist in 2015. Created by Kanye and perfected by Drake, singing and rapping on the same track is no longer a novel thing, but simply the norm. The staggering presence of Fetty Wap's Trap Queen to the hurtling rise of Ty Dolla $ign, Pop music is currently populated by minimalist R&B. What's different about today's R&B comes in the vocal delivery, often molasses intoned croons are coupled with staccato, ratatating; where the syllables bunch together and drop, like a mouth full of pebbles. Tory Lanez does nothing to disrupt or reinvent the current Pop-mosphere, but he has tapped into its best parts, producing a truly excellent club banging slow jam. Say it opens with the slow slink of an unwaveringly catchy keyboard line, before the meat of the song, a chorus of backup singers chime in with chill inducing, "Ooo Yeah.." What would otherewise be a fairly basic track is doubled down in the hook department, through the use of the backup singers and Lanez's breathy delivery. Not to be missed, this summer song stays warm through the winter.
Salad Boys sounds like the name of a mid 00's group with electro Indie leanings, in the vein of CSS, Deerhoof, Black Kids, or VHS or Beta. In reality these New Zealanders are a bunch of jangle wranglers, with a refreshing bit fuzz (think more Yuck, than Beach Fossils.) Dream Date is a poppy romp through the woods, with lumbering vocals and a thicket of precise guitar lines. Its like Thin Lizzy meets REM, by way of The Bats. Its New Zealand lumberwave, ya dig?
Look Back In Anger: BritishIndieShoegaze90s group Moose, enjoyed relative obscurity throughout their brief existence. Luckily, Moose spent some time to record a few records and the results were fantastic! Regulo 7 is a beautifully produced song, with an addictively arco string section that flutters across a medley of breathy vocals and acoustic guitar. Such a dreamy tune. Brings to mind Stereolab, or The Field Mice. Really if your into 60s leaning French Folk plus the sound of psychedelic England than this could be your jam. Also check out the rest of Moose's discography, its vastly under-heard.
Remember in the 90s when everyone was way into like The West, and adding a pseudo-Country twang to all their shit? I feel like that's kind of happening these days as well, with all the War on Drugs, Cass McCombs type acts. Anyway, who can really say.. its not like its a bad thing, or anything! There's just something psychedelic about the desert, man. Here we are now in chilly January with Twerps. The Melbournians loosen up a bit on their latest jam, letting those 6 strings rattle a little longer. Indebted to other jangle wranglers, such as (late career) Jesus and Mary Chain, Starflyer 59, Paula Cole (yup), and more recently Pure X, Twerps blend their own version of (Long Hair-Don't Care) TumbleWeed-wave. The chorus is a crescendos of dizzy haze, with backing vocals, distortion, and the steady throb of some groovin toms. Its very Indie and its very good, in fact I don't mind this one at all. Be sure to check out their new LP (Home On The) Range Anxiety, out soon.
Look Back In Anger: The Replacements need little introduction but here goes. These guys were the Minneapolis pioneers of Alt. Rock, transforming what it meant to crank the flange on your guitar and sing about suicide. The epitome of uber cool dudes, who just didn't give a fuck and happened write radical jams. Paul Westerbeg and co. cut a path through the 80s that weaved between the burgeoning Indie scene, Punk rock, and good ol Rock N' Roll. The result was a sound of suburbia, a gravely voice for both high-school drop-outs and D&D dweebs. Time to get dirty with their video for I'll Be You, a cut from Don't Tell A Soul:
Look Back In Anger: It's a beautiful Monday, you must be pining some real jangley sort of tunage. Behond, The Jasmine Minks, early signees of Creation Records, who garnered some critical esteem, but ultimately faded into the fog of blisstory. They have a very lofi strummy sound that sits comfortably between The Clean and The Monochrome Set. Don't let this be last song you ever hear! Feel free, drop me line! Write in the comment box and I'll fetch you a whole bucket of moldy oldies!
Here's are a pair of young Brits who tremble between American Football and something like Dinosaur Jr. Its a total early 00s meets early 90s blend that really sounds quite right. Be way ahead of the curve and dig on these mothers:
One of my favourite song writers and string slingers, Cass McCombs, releases a new video for 013 stand out Brighter. The song is sung by the late great Karen Black and the clip is more or less an homage to her vast body of film work, coupled with clips of her singing in her living room. It's visually simple, but extremely captivating with Cass stoically strumming away, as projections of Black stream across his face. Look here:
The girl-group transcender and Indie-Goth starlet, Frankie Rose, covers The Damned for this driving, synthed-out one-off single. Frankie is soon to drop her follow up to last year's wonderful Interstellar, with Herein Wild. Its a new record with a familiar Frankie Rose sound, fluttering between wispy ghost-pop and flanged-out bass heavy, Joy Division, circa Closer territory. FR has a knack for formulating melodies that come easy and glitter through layers of guitars and keyboards; something that numerous others try, but rarely achieve so consistently. The Damned makes perfect sense as a cover here, especially as each day we inch closer to the night of witches and ghoulies!
Following in the path of previous jangling-folk Cass McCombs singles, TCBOO proves to be another hit! Melancholic wit + exceedingly pleasing guitar work = this new jam from the C man. If Jack Johnson was someone that anyone actually ever cared about listening to he might share the same navel as Cass McCombs, but that's it! Lissin. This is the new new from Big Wheel And Others:
Long have I been in the Summer Camp camp, knowing the Londoners were capable of producing another strong single, after those first few mysterious tracks they released a few years back. Welcome to Condale, their first proper LP was a significant step above the production level of their early material, yet unfortunately it was a complete misstep. The songs were still licked with a familiar 80s-pop sheen, but they lacked the warmth and ear pricking quality one experiences when hearing something new and interesting for the first time, that you could find on something like Ghost Train. Fittingly titled, Fresh, has a reinvigorated sound, that sheds the group's drab dabbling into plasticized pop production, and returns them to more a original tonality. Laying on a heavily orchestrated string sample, Summer Camp have created their first true dance single, with an excellent combo of their usual echo-y vocal cooing and a joltingly funky bass-line (reminiscent of Tango In the Night-era Fleetwood Mac). This is easily one of the best songs of this summer, and one of those wonderful Indie-pop gems that you won't soon forget.
This group of Kiwis slipped under the door of the 015, with a breezy set of carefully constructed guitar pop. With a pop punk drive and post punk vibe, Salad Boys fits comfortably among the canon of New Zealand indie rock. Equal parts The Skeptics and The Chills. Some of the more acoustic songs on here have lush sound that is so often lost on modern acoustic Pop songs, where the strumming is not wittled down like a brittle pencil, but rather built up with layering and chorus pedals. Metalmania is a delightful dream and deserves many more spins.
~Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion
Coming off the heals of a Broadway stint, as well as the release of one of the most infectious pop songs ever written, Carly Rae Jepsen was poised to take the easy way out. Put Max Martin in a room, pen a few lyrics involving emojis and dunzo. Call Me Maybe part 2, making it rain. Instead the Canadian Pop star, went a different route. Channeling 80s new wave and disco, as well as early 90s house, Emotion is the sort of record you might expect from Kyli Minogue or even Robyn, at times. Its as a progressive as it is accessible and keenly focused on production and content. Nearly every song on the album can worm its way into your head, and yet it remains estranged from top 40 list. One could make the argument that I Really Like You is the sequel to Call Me Maybe, and maybe it is, but there are so many other tracks on this album that prove that Jepsen has transcended her breakthrough hit. I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance, Warm Blood, and All That are perfect examples, of a pop artist blending her influences into deeply moving, emotional dance songs. If you had originally written this one off, don't. I urge everyone to return to a record that critics will no doubt point to in 10yrs time.
~Tamaryn - Cranekiss
Cloaked in a dark, gothic sexuality, Tamaryn's Cranekiss is the sort of record Robert Smith would have loved to contribute to in the late 80s. Shed is the psychedelic wooziness that penned Tamaryn into the already overcrowded Dream Pop field. Instead she take the full step into pop-hood, with a massive record bursting with glittering synths, jagged guitars lines, and Linn Drum like percussion. With a simpleton's perception one might say, Tamaryn moved from Lush like sound to something in the realm of Siouxsie Sioux, though that comparison falls short of what is actually constructed here. The sounds our lavish and grandiose, yet still dark and yearning. Tamaryn lives more in a world of Kate Bush the way she transforms a croon to whisper, flexing her range in each track. Returning to the production, this record was made in partnership with Shuan Durkan, guitar mastermind behind Weekend, who released one of the best records of 2013, Jinx. Often we hear albums of this nature are purely derivative, aping outdated sounds of the past. Though with one spin of Cranekiss it is obvious that these songs are far more than a blast from the past, but rather a string of modern Pop songs, cast in a Goth-like house.
~Tory Lanez - Say It
Tory Lanez is a Canadian rapper/singer who optimizes what it is to be a Hip-Hop artist in 2015. Created by Kanye and perfected by Drake, singing and rapping on the same track is no longer a novel thing, but simply the norm. The staggering presence of Fetty Wap's Trap Queen to the hurtling rise of Ty Dolla $ign, Pop music is currently populated by minimalist R&B. What's different about today's R&B comes in the vocal delivery, often molasses intoned croons are coupled with staccato, ratatating; where the syllables bunch together and drop, like a mouth full of pebbles. Tory Lanez does nothing to disrupt or reinvent the current Pop-mosphere, but he has tapped into its best parts, producing a truly excellent club banging slow jam. Say it opens with the slow slink of an unwaveringly catchy keyboard line, before the meat of the song, a chorus of backup singers chime in with chill inducing, "Ooo Yeah.." What would otherewise be a fairly basic track is doubled down in the hook department, through the use of the backup singers and Lanez's breathy delivery. Not to be missed, this summer song stays warm through the winter.
