Are we crying because of allergies or because we’re blessed with so much great new music? Only our hairdresser knows for sure. Today we bring you new music from Pallas Athene, 4 Oceans, Abrasive Trees, Lost Near Blue Ape, Sound Science, Twin Dive, WondRWomN, Parallel Action featuring WondRWomN, Wonders of the Yukon, Camera2 and SeepeopleS.
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Pallas Athene – “Gimme Gimme”
A glitch pop dream with muffled far away drums n’ bass and vocals that are detached both sonically and attitude wise. A but like what The Postal Service would sound like if Ben Gibbard took the heart from his sleeve and buried it under layers of big sweater art school cool.
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4 Oceans – “Thousand Yard Stare”
Great rock riffs know how to use space and silence to amplify the rocking (see “Back In Black” and “Unsung” for example) and 4 Oceans take that philosophy to the next logical level with this one. Not only do the riffs in “Thousand Yard Stare” have space to breathe and heighten the impact but so does the whole song. We don’t often hear metal or hard rock songs that give us as many dynamics as we get on this perfectly balanced and engaging metalcore number.
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Abrasive Trees – “Without Light”
This gothy post-punk number spools out dark and liquidy with a repetitive chord progression anchoring it as waves of distorted and reverbed out guitars swell and swirl into a sonic tidepool threatening to pull you out into the ocean at night.
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Lost Near Blue Ape – “Operator”
A fun and slick mid-tempo stomp with a series of riffs that in the hands of a heavier band could pass as quality Queens of the Stone Age style rocker. Here though it’s more along the lines of The Strokes as produced by Dan Auerbach, which will probably serve the band better in commercial concerns. We know that sounds like a dig, but it’s not meant to be. Well done radio friendly crossover rock is one of God’s creatures and we love it equally.
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Sound Science – “Stone Structure”
Well this is awesome. Like the best of Laurie Anderson’s work, this song bridges the gap between poetry, soundscape and untraditional pop song. An inventive blend of deconstructed eastern stringed instruments, synth waves, stutter stop electropercussion and inventive singing, this should be required listening for everyone to open up their ideas of what a song can be.
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Twin Dive – “Let Light In”
Sounding a bit like Spiritualized at their most rocking, this one jumps right in, guitars a riffing, bass and drums a grooving and the singer rasping “Let light in” and you’re hooked. This is not fucking around rock n’ roll with one foot in 90’s era British guitar rock and the other one up on the monitor leaning into the sweaty crowd.
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Parallel Action feat. WondRWomN – “Connect the Dots”
Hip hop has a problem, and that problem is the flavor of the month(s). Whenever someone hits with something refreshingly new all we hear for the next few months is every rapper under the sun doing their version of that same thing, usually with diminishing returns. So imagine our delight when discovering this completely out of the box song from Parallel Action (featuring WondRWomN). A relentless and seemingly disconnected flow marches confidently over what is essentially a five minute long jazz drum solo, with deep bass, ominous synths and random sounds swirling in and out. Sounds like a chaotic mess, right? Wrong. Chaotic yes, but even with everything going on here, and pretty much all of it refusing to let you off the hook with an easy hook, it’s a remarkable cohesive piece of avant garde jazz influenced hip hop. This certainly won’t be the next flavor of the month, because quite frankly 99% of all rappers and producers out there couldn’t pull this off.
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Wonders of the Yukon – “Rachel (And All The Goofs And The Stars)
It’s been a minute since we’ve heard a song as effortless and charming as this one. Perfectly blurring the line between roots rock and indie rock, this is the type of stealth pop writing that modestly and confidently lays out its hooks and melodies rather than beating you over the head with them.
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Camera2 – “Natalie”
Fronted by former Ivy singer and multi-instrumentalist Andy Chase, Camera2 gives us a a hushed and soulful indie pop number here that feels like late night pop music for grown folks and we are into it. It expertly shifts and moves about in a small space, never losing the intimate feel of the song or the mood it creates. Our general ambivalence towards music videos has been noted on the blog before and this one doesn’t do anything to dissuade that, but half the press release was about it so they’re obviously very proud of it (or it cost a lot of money) so give it a watch while you enjoy the top notch tune.
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SeepeopleS – “It Feels Heavy”
Refreshingly original sounding indie rock that captures the wide open spirit of Self and Jason Falkner. They don’t sound anything like either of those artists, but the ability to create pristine big sounding and unique songs is the same, and lord knows that is a rare gift indeed.
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