Atlas Sound (feat. Panda Bear): Walkabout
What did you want to see/ What did you want to be/ When you grew up
Atlas Sound has a new album coming out this fall entitled, Logos. It contains this new song (download below), “Walkabout” featuring Panda Bear. I am not sure about you, but this is one hell of a song that features a cheery sample of this obscure garage rock song by The Dovers:
DOWNLOAD:
MP3: Atlas Sound: Walkabout (feat Panda Bear)
Electrisixties: A Garage Rock Band From Buenos Aires
On my first night in Buenos Aires, my roommate and now good friend Juan took me to see a band that one of his friends plays in called Utopians at a place called Plasma. Plasma, located in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires is a small hip loft/lounge that has a stage. Since you walk up a flight of stairs in order to enter Plasma, it pretty much feels like you are in someone’s hip apartment/loft.
PLASMA:
When we arrived there was already a band playing called Electrisixties. As I listened closer and gave the band a better look, I noticed it was four Argentinians playing perfectly tight 60’s style garage rock. Perfect harmonies, good English pronunciation and matching Mod style 60’s suits with high boots to top it off. As I listened more and more to each song, I thought about what a cool city I had moved too. Number 1, I can’t think of a venue in Chicago as cool as Plasma and number 2, I don’t remember ever seeing a band as cool as Electrisixties. It was refreshing to see a band play without any pretension and a band that actually came across well-rehearsed.
VIDEO - Electrisixties Perform their song “A simple goodbye”:
I look forward to seeing these guys again live. While mixing a combination of 60’s garage rock covers with their own original material, Electrisixties are about as good as it gets.
Visit their myspace and listen to their original song “With You.”
www.myspace.com/electrisixties
A.C. Newman Take on Me (A-ha Cover)
I was in Starbucks today grabbing a coffee and a nice little song was playing in the background. It took me a couple seconds to realize it was Take On Me by A-ha being played acoustically. I listened to it some more and realized it sounded like “that guy from the New Pornographers” or more precisely A.C. Newman (I shouldn’t say that guy from the New Pornographers since I like his solo work a lot better than I like the New Pornographers.) Anyways, when I got back to my computer I looked it up and sure enough A.C. Newman has recorded a cover of the A-ha classic and it is quite good in my opinion.
It turns out it was recorded for Sweetheart: Our Favorite Artists Sing Our Favorite Love Songs from Starbucks.
Check it oooutttt.
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Ocotillo Let Me Love You Cover
A couple years back Mario had a hit with the song Let Me Love You.
Well Anyway, while perusing around some of my favorite music blogs, I came upon a post from Music for Robots about an unknown mysterious artist named Ocotillo who decided to record a cover version of this Mario song using a drum sample from Paul Simon’s Obvious Child and a simple Synth line. Right off the bat this caught my attention. After giving it a listen, I knew there was something special here. Ocotillo has managed to make Let Me Love You his own, taking a generic R&B tune and evolving it into the style of music the song’s chords and melody were meant to be painted with.
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Your Gunna Drive Me Crazy
I first heard this song on the SiriusXMU channel on Sirius Satellite radio a couple months ago. I liked it for its quirky, catchy take on dance music. After hearing it several times on the radio, I kept making a note to myself to download the song. The only problem was I couldn’t remember who the song was by. I was out of luck until a couple days ago when I heard another song on SiriusSMU that sounded really similar to this song in its style. It turned out the artist was called Passion Pit. I got home and downloaded the Chunk Of Change
DOWNLOAD:
MP3: Passion Pit: Better Things
YACHT Summer Song
So this song is already a year and a half old but I just heard it and like it, so I am going to post about it. I saw Yacht open for LCD Soundsystem and he is a pretty entertaining act. Kind of like the high school geek who got good at sampling and playing around in garageband. I guess this song is an ode to LCD Soundsystem for taking him out on tour and for putting him in their myspace top 8.
From what I can tell, the song is filled with LCD Soundsystem samples, most notably the punching bass from “Time to Get Away” and a little synth sample from “Someone Great.” The drums might be from “Time to Get Away” as well. Can anyone spot anymore samples? Enjoy.
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The Killing Moon Pavement Cover
I have kind of been obsessed with The Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen over the last couple weeks which you might of seen in this post. I was listening to Sirius XMU the other day when this cover of The Killing Moon by Pavement came on. It grooves. The little guitar solo parts remind me of a nice rendition of Cortez The Killer.
DOWNLOAD:
MP3: Pavement: The Killing Moon (Echo and the Bunnymen Cover)
NewVillager Shakes Its Finger At Pop’s Lucid Dream
“Buried deep in the American memory hole is this thing called NewVillager that threatens to—if not watched, and studied, and cornered—collapse all that is around it in on itself. NewVillager is, as you no doubt know, a part of a tradition that begins with Villager. Continued to Villager 2. And VillagerVillager. And VillagersAgain. And now to NewVillager. The Villager tradition ingests itself periodically, in its way following the model created by the Puerto Rican pop group Menudo. In fact, the only major difference between the process by which Menudo evolves and the way a Villager iteration forms is the Villager commitment to what they refer to as Radical Parthenogenesis.” — Matthew Simmons, The Daily Press, Escanaba Michigan, April 15, 1985
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Dance Party Time: Empire of the Sun
Can we say contender for the best single stateside in 09′? Already getting major airplay in Australia since August, Empire of the Sun is a collaboration between Luck Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of Pnau, both Australian based musicians. Already huge in Australia, the single “Walking on a Dream” is about as perfect a dance pop song gets. I fear I am going get incredibly sick of this song only because I have already played it on repeat 15 times in a row. It is such a short song that it is easy just keep playing it. Oh well, it is worth it.
I am predicting this song to catch on in the States over the next couple months and be huge. If it doesn’t, we are all collectively idiots. Or the song just doesn’t make it over here for some reason….. Also, if you haven’t already, check out The Sleepy Jackson. Good stuff. Their first album Lovers
So here it is. Invite some friends over and have a dance party. I am sure I could bust out some sweet moves to this song. I took it for a little test drive on New Year’s.
*Thanks to Jeff for blasting this song on New Year’s Eve.
DOWNLOAD:
MP3: Empire of the Sun: Walking on a Dream From Walking on a Dream
MP3: The Sleepy Jackson: Come to this From Lovers
Joe Pug
Over a morning cup of coffee the day before your senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina your thoughts become clear. ”I am unhappy here.” So what do you do? You pack up your bags, drive the longest route possible to Chicago, work as a carpenter by day, pick up the guitar you haven’t played since your teenage days and spend your nights playing that said guitar. Using ideas that you had for a play, you write delicate folk songs channeling the lyrical insight of an early Dylan.
Months later you are playing a headlining show at Schubas and have released an EP to critical aclaim.
So goes the story of 23 year old Joe Pug.
Wise beyond his years, Pug sings like he has travelled the world twice over, delivering his stories like a sophisticated poet without compromising melody or song-craft. He plans to drop a full length album in 2009. We are definitely looking forward too it.
DOWNLOAD:
MP3: Joe Pug: Hymn #101 from Nation of Heat Ep
