With the industry in full throttle and the Imposition on the road to SxSW, we hardly know where to begin. How about a weird Tim & Eric directed video for Beach House's “Wishes” starring Ray “Leland Palmer” Wise, or catch Animal Collective's videos from their Terminal 5 performances with the relaunch of Centipede Hz Radio, and as seen on TV; Andrew W.K. is now the official commercial spokesman for Playtex's new 'Fresh + Sexy' freshen-upper wipes for his and hers pre-and-post-coital activities. Now that you got that, let us attempt to explore the past week in no particular order.
It is that time again to head to Underground SF this evening, Friday March 8, to catch another installment of Push the Feeling where Ghostly International's Lusine will be performing live along with Pale Blue Dot plus the good skills from PTF residents YR SKULL and epicsauce DJs. Don't fight the feeling and get into it at 9pm, free before 10 with RSVP via Facebook. Get your pre-party on with this listen to Lusine's The Waiting Room available now, courtesy of the progressive electro minds at Ghostly.
It's like friends remixing friends, as SF's Seatraffic gets their sentimental single, “Superficial Heart” remixed by fellow Bay Area resident YR SKULL, where the track's dreams open up into the new generations of what we had always hoped dance music would sound like in today's not-so-distant future.
Fresh off the Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss mixtape, Mykki Blanco is “Feeling Special” with a new cut produced with sparse-clacking keys from Matrixxman. From references to Donnie Brasco snitches to Lenny Bruce punchlines about chickens that cross the road; NYC's Cosmic Angel beckons all with the iniative of; “Follow, follow, follow, follow me down that rabbit hole. Shit's so deep I'm feeling special…” Following up the 'The Party From Hell Tour,' Mykki is taking off on the global, 'The Initiation Tour' in effect now through the end of April ahead of the Betty Rubble: The Initiation EP coming soon. Also catch Ms. Blanco spilling some queenpin rhymes at SxSW next week.
Colleen Green delivers something infectious yet light as lead electric pop with her single “Heavy Shit”, give us a piece of what's on her mind. A sound that shines with Colleen's trademark indie powers of instant accesibility, the lyrics remain personal about the relatable feelings of misgivings encased in a guitar to drum machine marriage you want to play on repeat. Colleen's new album Sock It To Me comes out March 19 from Hardly Art.
Tune your viewers to Lady's video for “Get Ready” off their self-titled debut available March 12 from Truth & Soul.
Our buddy Raleigh Moncrief dropped the single “On Feedback” this week which takes his idiosyncratic approach to 606s, 808s, and any other sampler device the good man can get his hands on as a cacaphonic sound trajectory. Dive through the digi distortions and to the heart of the airhorn sirens sampled sewer bound spirals and upward swirls, as Moncrief's much awaited Dusted EP drops March 19 from Anticon.
Purling Hiss dropped the video for “Mercury Retrograde” that hurdles the group pass the green screen and into the cosmos where things are falling in and out of orbit and syncopation. Purling Hiss's album Water on Mars will be available March 19 from your friends and ours at Drag City. Check the tour dates here.
Making their way to SxSW and touring with Chad Valley, Brooklyn's Ski Lodge fronted by Andrew Marr dropped by the new vintage indie ringing single, “Just To Be Like You” ahead of their 12″ self-titled's April 16 release from Dovecote Records. Marr borrows the guitar licks from a time before there were mp3s, Bandcamps, Soundclouds, Spotify, peer 2 peers, torrents where the most earnest and well meant sentiments of hurt and admirations were committed to 7″s and cassettes. Marr eschews the technological advancement train and parties like the new romantics never hit the mainstream and every sunny day is always speckled with overcast bits of grey and spackled with the things daydreams are made of.
Porltland's Adventure Galley has been the collective love of the internet and bring their biggest and brightest main stage crasher to date with, “Semantics”. A track that dedicates itself to the eyes that stand out from many, this is the track that you wish would try to outstay a welcome that you wish would stay longer before as the song of “Semantics” comes grinding to an abrupt halt. Also listen and look to the Adventurers' video for their single “Weekend Lovers“.
We don't have to tell you that wild transportational/tranformational things are happening with the Exray's. From cartographical charting of the unknown, Jon Bernson has piqued our curiosities, mailing cryptic photos, fragments, and pieces of what can only assume to be some trans-galactic puzzle. But maybe we are jumping the shark here before our understanding has come in full, but all we know is that the latest single “t h e . d o m e” features the one-man horn section courtesy of Aaron Rockers' trumpet and will have you driving late nights searching for a mythic, ancient dome.
In a further installment of keeping our scanners on Exray's, the 3 warriors of Jon, Michael, and Jason are excited to present to you the fuzzy organ grinder strange, foreign but familiar terrains of “t h e . f a l l ” that celebrates the seasons and the cycles of life as if observed from the outer places that look in with wonder at the almost unbreakable riddles of the Sphinxes.
Get excited. Lock the doors. Shut the windows. Hide the pets. Because we got a monster new track from San Fransiscan legends in their own right; Thee Oh Sees, with “Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster” from the forthcoming Floating Coffins, dropping April 16 from frontman John Dwyer's own imprint, Castle Face.
Team Spirit's debut self-titled EP is out April 9 on VICE Records / WBR, but we cannot refuse this ridiculous teaser trailer animated by Sweden's Hannes and Johannes.
Ólöf Arnalds album Sudden Elevation is available now from the legendary o.g. indie imprint, One Little Indian Records and we got your listen to the gorgeous acoustic single, “Return Again”.
Spending a little more time in Sweden, Ólafur Arnalds collides emotional vocals, pianos, and strings with worlds both old and young in the Magn
