This Swedish pop group is stunning. At Popscene in SF tonight, they brought the feel of M83 with live guitar and drumming and sweeping female vocals. Just the right amount of glittery electronics give their music that texture and grandeur so coveted in electronic music. Definitely an act to see live, their album doesn’t do their music justice. They need M83’s producer badly.
Fake Tales of San Francisco by Arctic Monkeys
(via postcardsfromsantafe)
Best Coast — “The Only Place” (Live on Letterman)
I am in love with Best Coast’s sophomore album “The Only Place.” That’s right, it’s a good sophomore album, which is basically impossible to do.
As much as I love Best Coast, I was a bit disappointed with their debut Crazy For You, because it lacked the emotional rawness and range of older EP tracks like “The Sun Was High (And So Was I)” and “Make You Mine.” The album felt like the same song over and over.
The Only Place does everything that a sophomore album ought to do. It scraps everything that didn’t work in the last album (like its uniformity) and keeps everything that did—it captures those sparkling moments from Crazy For You songs like “Our Deal” and applies thatto the whole album. The song “The Only Place” is a gem of songwriting, and the rest of the album has the same emotional honesty that defies cliche. Huge props to The Only Place.
Suckers— “Figure it Out”
Suckers performed a solid set last night at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. They are super tight as a band and have a great range of songs. One of their strong points is creating musical contrasts that just work (e.g. whistling over metal-esque guitar). Can’t believe I didn’t discover these guys sooner. They’ve definitely won a fan.
The Lonely Forest — “We Sing In Time” (In the Open Session)
In the Open Sessions are consistently good. It just seems to make sense to play this song acoustic.
Yeasayer — “Devil and Deed”
I don’t know much about Yeasayer, but I can say that this track (which I think is still unreleased?) is fun, catchy, dancy, and sounds really good live. Give it a listen. I think fans of Starfucker and M83 will like this.
Rodeohead-Hard ‘n Phirm
This is a must-listen for Radiohead fans.
Oh my jesus. Amazing.
Pixies—“Caribou”
When I’m not listening to current artists, I’m going back in time and trying to catch up on the decades of music history I wasn’t alive for. Studying up on some grunge with Pixies.
Sleeper Agent and Ben Kweller Rule the El Rey
(via Sleeper Agent and Ben Kweller Rule the El Rey)
Kentucky punks dazzle while opening for Ben Kweller
(via elreytheatre)
