MUSIC, AMIRITE?

Kwes - Meantime EP (2012)

Description:

Kwes is best known as a hot young producer from the underground of East London. Having worked with Damon Albarn, Micachu and the Shapes, The XX, Speech Debelle and many more, his production work (as well as remixes for Hot Chip, Zero 7, Jealous Guys) has awarded him ‘in-demand’ status. But it’s his own music that is going to put him in the ears of the global music loving population in 2012.

His Warp Records debut, Meantime sees Kwes’ finest collection of compositions yet. A 4-song EP that comes to life by layering synths over rustling field recordings and sparkling xylophones, it’s smart pop music, ready for the radio but void of pandering; home-schooled but meticulously studied.

Free pop is the designation Kwes gives his own compositions, and it fits well. It is a philosophy of creating pop music that knows no bounds, shuns no eccentricity and values inventiveness over any kind of rules that came before it. However, between the disco shuffle of “Bashful,” and the lazily swaying “Honey,” Kwes shows he can be quite the understated new-soul vocalist as well.

Some will be drawn to the tape crackle, others to “Honey’s” springtime hooks, but Kwes’ Meantime proves that there is nothing wrong with being brought up on a strict diet of popular music and imagination, not to mention loads of talent.

-MusicDirect

My only complaint with this EP is that it’s way too short. Also, fun fact: Kwes is synesthetic.

But yeah get this.

Download: Mediafire

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Best Coast - The Only Place (2012)

Samples: The Only Place

Description:

Haven’t listened to this yet but I figured I’d put it up for all interested parties. I’ll edit this post later, but for now, here, have a fairly generic press release type description:

Where Best Coast’s 2010 debut, Crazy for You, stacked fuzzed-out garage guitars and girl-group vocals into a low-fi blaze, the indie-pop duo’s follow-up sounds way richer – with shades of Patsy Cline, Dusty Springfield and Dolly Parton in frontwoman Bethany Cosentino’s vocals. Fiona Apple and Kanye West producer Jon Brion helped the band take advantage of L.A.’s Capitol studios, where everyone from the Beach Boys to Frank Sinatra cut classic sides. The new sound suits emotional tunes including “How They Want Me to Be” and “Better Girl,” about the pressures of indie celebrity. “When I first got successful, wow – people got mean!” says Cosentino. “These songs are the sound of me picking myself up. I wanted to get this off my chest and sing my heart out.”

-Rolling Stone

Enjoy.

Download: Mediafire

April 2

Lotus Plaza - Spooky Action At a Distance (2012)

Samples: Strangers, Eveningness, Remember Our Days, Black Buzz

Description:

The second solo effort for Lockett Pundt, better known as the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for the indie juggernaut Deerhunter. While Bradford Cox’s in-your-face persona and bizarre musical genius attracts much of the attention that Deerhunter gets, the more understated Pundt has some good stuff going on as well, and this record is where he definitively proves it. This is a great indie rock album to be sure—like Pundt himself, it’s not too in-your-face or groundbreaking, but like a Real Estate record, it slowly demands your attention with its fantastic marriage of effortlessly lovely pop melodies, hazy guitar, and laid-back vocals.

Download: Mediafire

March 25

AU - Both Lights (2012)

Samples: Get Alive, Solid Gold, Epic

Description:

Both Lights is the third album from the Portland, OR-based duo AU consisting of Luke Wyland and Dana Valatka. Following-up their critically-acclaimed 2008 album Verbs and its 2009 EP evolution Versions, Both Lights’ 11-tracks illuminate the frantic energy that drives AU complete with Wyland’s soaring vocals and multi-tentacled performance on keys and guitar and Valatka’s adrenalized percussion. Both Lights is a homemade album. It’s about breaking up. It’s about finding oneself, again and again. It’s about the struggle to make what you make and give it to the world. It’s the glowing spectrum of carnival lights and it’s the pitch-black wooded walk home. It’s your heart racing.

-MusicDirect

This slightly ridiculous review is at least reasonably descriptive. This album has both a controlled orchestral stateliness and a frenzied energy to it, and it’s not necessarily solid gold, but it’s well worth your time.

Download: Mediafire

March 23

Lower Dens - Nootropics (2012)

Samples: Brains

Description:

Hypnotic and claustrophobic, Lower Dens‘ songs are suited for escapism, for drowning out the din and zoning out to their transfixing charms. The band’s stunning 2010 debut, Twin Hand Movement, contained an equally soothing and seething array of icy guitar melodies and fuzzy noise that coaxed listeners into Jana Hunter‘s musical world. As the band’s enigmatic center, Hunter came off as a reluctant frontwoman, shyly submerging her heavenly vocals in the songs’ haze. Her lyrics felt anxious, inward-looking and difficult to pin down, yet infinitely open to interpretation. Two years and hundreds of live shows later, Nootropics takes a confident step forward, embracing the mystery of Hunter’s voice and expanding in musical scope. Amid relentless touring, Hunter found herself writing a majority of the material for the album on a keyboard plugged into headphones in the backseat of her van. The band has also augmented its lineup: Guitarist William Adams and bassist Geoffrey Graham are joined by new members Nate Nelson on drums and Carter Tanton on keyboards.

The result is an experimental record which trades layers of guitars for swaths of synths and droning repetition. As such, songs like “Lamb” and “Nova Anthem” — not to mention the 12-minute closer “In the End Is the Beginning” — take their time building to gorgeous, pupil-widening moments of clarity where everything clicks in full. Hunter says Nootropics is more of an optimistic look into the world and out to the cosmos, searching for meaning and addressing a need to change. It’s an ambitious mission statement to go along with a richer sound.

-NPR

The much anticipated followup to one of my favorite albums of 2010. Compared to Twin Hand Movement, there are fewer songs that immediately grab you, but Nootropics slowly but surely works its way into your head through its motoric momentum-building Kraut-beats and dreamy vocals. And it doesn’t let you go.

Get it, yo.

Download: Mediafire

March 18

Beach House - Bloom (2012)

Samples: Myth

Description:

I’m too excited and awed to actually write a thoughtful, coherent post about this album, so…just get it.

Sonically speaking, it starts exactly where Teen Dream left off and executes an even more cohesive, singular musical vision.

But seriously, fuck, this is good, just get it. It’s not out for another two months, and it doesn’t even have proper album art yet. Take this opportunity.

(And, unlike most of the leaked copies floating around Soulseek and the rest of the interwebs, I present you with a completely complete version, complete with a complete track five!)

Download: Mediafire

March 16

Daniel Rossen - Silent Hour/Golden Mile EP (2012)

Samples: Silent Song, Saint Nothing, Return to Form

Description:

The most immediately noticeable aspect of Silent Hour / Golden Mile EP, the first full solo release by Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, is that it sounds a lot like Grizzly Bear. Almost exactly like Grizzly Bear. From the chiming, multi-tracked guitars to the softly booming timpani and muted woodwinds, many of the elements here are far from new additions to the Grizzly Bear oeuvre. However, with his dexterous songwriting ability and soaring, otherworldly voice, Rossen manages to breathe new life into the Veckatimest formula, delivering a set of subtly gorgeous folk songs that, along with his recent work with Department of Eagles, should establish Rossen’s standing as one of our era’s finest songwriters.

-Andrew Whitworth, The UCSD Guardian

The very-soon-to-be-released five-song debut EP of Grizzly Bear tunesmith Daniel Rossen. It’s pretty familiar territory for fans of his other work, but it certainly doesn’t disappoint. Think of it as a hearty appetizer for the Grizzly Bear album to be released later this year. I know you’re excited.

Download: Mediafire

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Dunes - Noctiluca (2012)

Samples: Jukebox Adieu, Vertical Walk

Description:

The L.A. trio Dunes are made up of members of Mika Miko and the Carrots, but there are no traces of the former’s all-out attack or the latter’s girl group formality. Instead the band mixes up a concoction that is equal parts 2010’s reverb pop, neo-psych moodiness and late-’80s college swirl on their debut album Noctiluca. You can hear contemporaries like Dum Dum Girls and old-timers like Throwing Muses in their sound — you even get a rare Salem 66 feel in the intertwined guitars and vocals. Taking the best of all their influences, the trio comes up with a sound that is pleasingly murky, tangled, and full of melancholy sweetness. The songs are free of clutter but long enough to build some mystery, the guitar and bass mesh together like overgrown foliage, and the drums push things along gently but firmly. Stephanie Chan’s vocals wind through the mix like a thick haze; she has a rich voice that occasionally rises above a whisper but is usually content to stay deep and hidden. Thanks to a production job that keeps everything tightly wrapped under a blanket of mid-range, and songs that all fall into the same basic structure, tempo, and dynamic level, the album has a flowing, unbroken feel that allows the songs to flow into each other smoothly, which would be a problem if the band didn’t have such a richly hypnotic sound to begin with. As it is, you come out after 40 minutes of listening to Noctiluca with a warm glow of peaceful indie rock satisfaction.

-Tim Sendra, AllMusic

A solid debut without a lot of hype or media attention—it’s just quietly good. Kind of samey, but as the review above notes, when the samey stuff is decent enough, there’s not too much of a problem.

Download: Mediafire

March 15

Zammuto - Zammuto (2012)

Samples: Idiom Wind, Yay, Too Late to Topologize, F U C-3PO

Description:

A new album of delightfully bizarre experimental weirdness from Nick Zammuto, better known as one half (the sometimes-guitar-playing-and-singing half) of the sadly now-defunct duo The Books.

With this release, he moves away from The Books’ signature sample-collage sound towards a more singer-songwritery style, with vocals and even occasionally recognizable instruments, while still approaching his music with the same adventurous and generally strange attitude.

There’s a lot of variety here, even within songs, as Zammuto manically rushes around, constantly shifting sonic gears. If you don’t like what you hear, stick around, because chances are, it’ll quickly be displaced by something else that might be more to your liking. Zammuto definitely isn’t for everyone, but I’d recommend everyone to give the album at least one full listen regardless. From the stuttering Yay to Full Fading, Zammuto’s fractured but beautiful take on a Bon Ivery type tune, something’s bound to stick.

Download: Mediafire

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La Sera - Sees the Light (2012)

Samples: Please Be My Third Eye, Break My Heart

Description:

This second album from La Sera, alias Vivian Girls’ bassist and harmonist ‘Kickball’ Katy Goodman, pulls a zippier, sharper surf-pop punch than its dreamy, self-titled predecessor, but it still has heartache, stirring guitars and sun-soaked melodies at its core.

-Nicola Meighan, The List

It’s got fuzzy surf jams, it’s got delicate songs of heartbreak, and all of it is anchored by Kickball Katy’s lovely voice rising above the jangle-pop. Out March 27, but pick it up now and get hooked.

Download: Mediafire