Our inbox, it overfloweth with good tunes. Soundtrack your weekend with songs from Ash M.O., Average Joe, Fiebre del Sistema, Hearty Har, The Infinity Chamber, Jenny Kern, Rook Monroe, Realidades, USE and Vatar.
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Here’s the thing – we don’t know what kind of weekend you’re having. Maybe it’s Column A: a laid back lounge in the sweatpants kind of weekend. Maybe it’s Column B: a work up a sweat getting shit done kind of weekend. Maybe it’s Column C: a little of both. To help you soundtrack accordingly we’ve broken this week’s best submissions into three categories: Chill, Hot and Just Right. We’ll start with Just Right, and then like a choose your own adventure you can slow it down with the Chill tracks, or jump ahead and jump around to the Hot tracks.
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———-JUST RIGHT———
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Average Joe – “King For A Day”
Man oh man, I cannot describe the joy I felt when I first heard this. Without putting too fine a point on it, they just don’t make them like this anymore. Like a lost track by The English Beat, “King For A Day” is a perfect pop song that blends second wave ska with an effortless groove to create my leave-it-on-repeat track of the week.
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Hearty Har – “Waves of Ecstasy”
Tyler and Shane Fogerty aka Hearty Har may not have their dad John’s famous swamp rock sound but they have the same knack for great songwriting. This is top tier mid-tempo indie rock, with shades of psych and melodies that bubble throughout.
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———-CHILL———-
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Rook Monroe – “Californialand”
This is a bit on the commercial/mainstream tip compared to what we normally post on the blog, but when something is this catchy respect is due. Those la da da da das got their hooks (pun intended) in us and we were quickly won over to the song’s breezy and easy pop vibe. Coming in at only 2 minutes and some change, the song is over before the charm fades, and if that ain’t the secret to everything I don’t know what is.
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Jenny Kern – “Coming Back For Me”
We’re big fans of the indie pop movement which thankfully is nudging pop music away from strictly-for-13-year-old-girls and back into a territory where songwriting is in the forefront and the backup dancers are non-existent. “Coming Back For Me” is a fine entry into this effort, with a melancholic sensibility running through its melodies that every adult can knowingly nod their head to. We love Kern’s voice and obviously as she wrote the song this is the definitive version, but we can also see how a more R&B style cover ala Solange or FKA Twigs would be, as they used to say, fire.
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Vatar – “Outcast Star”
The best instrumental tracks don’t even play like songs, but rather as feelings and moods that wash over you. The combination of this track’s slowly expanding and evolving synth with acoustic instrumentation from the Middle East and Northern Africa transports us into a sonic space entirely new. We’ve never floated in an isolation tank, approaching enlightenment and clarity, but “Outcast Star” makes us feel like we are, we have, and always will be.
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USE – “Fine”
A simple Radiohead-esque piano progression underpinning the song, “Fine” is a great example of how adding and subtracting layers on a song can be everything. It swells, it drops, it subverts expectations and then rewards them – all without ever diverging from that initial piano part. It’s a magic trick for your ears and one that USE pulls off flawlessly.
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———-HOT———-
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Fiebre del sistema – “Y que decir”
Speaking of flawless, who doesn’t love a flawlessly executed punk rock song? These Argentinian punks are bringing us a decidedly Bad Religion-esque sound which if you know anything about punk music you know is a very popular style and an overcrowded field, but Fiebre del sistema stand out from the pack. The song rips, they nail every nuance and the one guitarist looks like my nephew, only older. Something for everyone, or at least everyone in my family. Still, even if you yourself have no nephew, you should give it a listen.
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Ash M.O. – “NIFA”
The self-described “Mayor of the Gayborhood” on a mission to “Make Hip Hop Gay Again” brings a playful but savage wit to “NIFA” – a song about racism and homophobia with possibly the most un-sing-along-able chorus of all time. The lyrics include several lines so good you’ll want to replay immediately. Ash M.O.’s flow is impressive and the track is a bop that walks a swaggery line between trunk rattling street anthem and bedroom rap creativity.
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Realidades – “Cronos”
We’ve noticed that there seems to be a whole new crop of bands influenced by At The Drive In, and frankly we couldn’t be happier about it. Realidades falls squarely into that category and bring the same intensity and ear for dynamics that made ATDI such a game changing force. This rocks plain and simple. There’s really not much to say beyond that.
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The Infinity Chamber – “Willow”
When a submission bills itself as “unusual” and “expands the limits of genres” it usually is a publicist smokescreen for some extremely uninteresting, paint by the numbers song that has like a djembe on the intro or something. Kudos to The Infinity Chamber for being artists of their word. “Willow” plays like a psych-folk spiritual successor to the Toadies “Possum Kingdom” and the video has a Midsommar meets Wallace & Gromit vibe and we are both delighted and creeped out by both. We really couldn’t figure out which section of the post to put this one, so we’ve included it at the end – a compliment in our book.
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