More Chvrches, this time for their song “Lies.” I haven’t done a thorough review of everything I’ve listened to in 2013 yet (that comes in December), but I said it before and I still believe it to be true: Chvrches = best new band of 2013.
I was a pretty big fan of Stornoway’s 2010 debut album, but their 2013 album Tales from Terra Firma hasn’t really hooked me. Thanks to this video, for a rather nice song called “Farewell Appalachia,” I’m going to give it another go.
Here’s the most recent video from Jagwar Ma, from Sydney, Australia. Their debut album Howlin’ came out in June, and has been in constant rotation ever since. This particular song, “Come Save Me” is one of the best on the album, even if this video for it is kinda meh.
The band is playing one of those Red Bull Sound Select shows on December 10 at the Neptune. It only costs $3, but you have to give Red Bull your first born. It’s totally worth it.
Gorgeous animated video and song from Vancouver, BC’s Young Galaxy. It’s from their 4th album, Ultramarine, which came out this past April
Another day, another awesome Australian band. This time it‘s a band called Cloud Control, and just like Jagwar Ma, they’re also from Sydney.
I love this video. It was filmed on location in Bolivia. The creepy clowns, a 13 year old girl who lip synchs with major conviction, and confetti. And the song is every bit as great as the video. Haven’t listened to the rest of their album yet, (Dream Cave, which came out back in August) but I now have high hopes it will be totally awesome.
Coming in at just over 22 minutes, this new video from Arcade Fire is more like a sketch comedy show than a music video. It was directed by Roman Coppola, and has cameos by a slew of people, including Bono, Ben Stiller, Michael Cera, Aziz Ansari, Eric Wareheim, Rainn Wilson, Bill Hader, Zach Galifianakis, and I’m sure many others that I’ve already forgotten. But in the end, it’s still a delivery mechanism for some new music from the band, off of their forthcoming album Reflektor, which is due Oct. 29. The songs “Here Comes The Night Time,” “We Exist,” and “Normal Person” can all be heard within the video.
I wasn’t a huge fan of The Suburbs, the band’s last album, but from what I’ve heard already, I’m very excited for this new album.
A natural progression from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sleigh Bells, London’s Savages are here to pound your head in, musically.
They’ve been around since 2011, but their debut album, Silence Yourself, didn’t come out until this past May. Sorry to say I’m a bit late to Savages — they came to Seattle a week ago Monday. Did you go?
This video is definitely NSFW.
It’s also pretty ridiculous, and not in a good way. I do like the song, and The Weeknd has been making some great R&B, Michael-Jackson–esque music for a couple years now. Now he’s moved into the Michael-Jackson–esque video realm as well, complete with simplistic story lines and chauvinistic mayhem.
Even so, it’s poignant, and you should probably watch it (in the comfort of your own home, rather than at the office).
Filmed in Detroit, this video for “Muzzle Blast” by The Darcys is beautifully bleak. It was directed by short-film director Adam Azimov. Who knew Detroit could look so good and so utterly horrible all at the same time?
I hadn’t heard of The Darcys, who are from Toronto, Ontario, until now. Intrigued, to say the least. Their latest album, Warring, came out last week.
Wow. This song/video from Laura Marling is the perfect soundtrack as the torrential rain pours down outside my window here in Seattle. It‘s as if she took what I love about the late great 16 Horsepower (minor, dark chords and eerie harmonies) and wrote new lyrics for it. Now to download the full album, Once I was an Eagle, which came out back in June of this year.
Michael K. Williams, best known as “The Wire”’s Omar Little, stars in this new video from MGMT (be sure to check out that band website). No idea what’s going on in this video.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of Hayden before, but I can’t figure out when or how. From Ontario, Canada, Hayden Desser has been performing under his first name since 1995. Us Alone is his 7th studio album, and it came out back in February.
This song, “Blurry Nights,” is damn near perfect. It’s a duet, with Hayden performing along with his sister-in-law Lou Canon (the song’s chorus makes for one hell of an awkard family reunion between the two of them), who I have not heard before either. Will have to investigate more.
Just like that, Arcade Fire are back at the top of my musical rotation, with this lovely disco tune “Reflektor.” Their new album of the same name will come out at the end of October.
If you own a smart phone, and have a little time on your hands, do yourself a favor and go to the interactive version of this video. In the same vein of “The Wilderness Downtown” and “Neon Bible,” the band has worked with Google developers to create a Google-Chrome-only video for “Reflektor.” And it is mind-blowing.
I’m still kinda floored that Franz Ferdinand are back and they sound GOOD.
This video, for their song “Evil Eye,” is an awesome true-to-the-form B-movie short. Prepare for comical gore, which may or may not be NSFW in your world. Still, great song.
Their latest album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, came out earlier this year.
Yet another new awesome song from TV on the Radio (yes, their “website” is currently nothing more than the number “2” on a white field), who haven’t formally announced any new-album plans. This video, for the song “Mercy,” documents the crazy, stop-motion trip of a rock-alien of some sort. Mmmhmm.
Josh Tillman is squeezing everything he can out of last year’s Father John Misty album, Fear Fun. “I’m Writing A Novel” is a nice little country-rock tune, but this video doesn’t have the same great qualities all previous FJM videos have had. This is more of a tour journal-like video, but that’s just fine. I can watch Josh prance around jokingly over and over again with the best of them.
Foxygen, from Los Angeles, are bringing back psychedelic rock & roll in a big way. Here’s “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic” in a fantastically blissed-out acid trip video.
Their debut album, of the same name, came out earlier this year.
Far out, man.
Every once in a while, a pure pop song hooks me and I find myself drawn back to the song over and over again. This song, by Copenhagen’s Oh Land, does just that. Oh Land is the nom de plume of Nanna Øland Fabricius, and she’s been performing in this particular guise since 2008.
I have a limited pop music vocabulary, but of what I do know, this seems to be even more deliberately kooky than, say Lady GaGa. I like the tune, as well. Oh Land’s third album, Wish Bone, comes out September 24.
This is mind blowing. I consider the medley from Abbey Road to be the single most phenomenal passage of music in all of recorded time. And I say that without hyperbole.
Here we have, through some fancy use of technology, the isolated vocals for the entire passage (except for a lone tambourine and piano that somehow crept in during “Mean Mr. Mustard”)
It’s amazing how much the music makes these famously disjointed parts feel of a family. Stripped down like this, the disparate nature of the song bits is painfully obvious.
Jaw, floor.
/via kotkke.org
NPR All Songs Considered’s Bob Boilen says:
The Tiny Desk has moved, and OK Go has helped make it so.
Earlier this year, we needed to figure out the best possible way to move my Tiny Desk from NPR’s old headquarters to our new facility just north of the U.S. Capitol. We wanted to go out with a bang and arrive at our new space in style, so our thoughts naturally turned to a catchy pop band we love: OK Go, whose unforgettable videos have been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube.
Bandleader Damian Kulash used to be an engineer at an NPR member station in Chicago, so we figured he’d be up for helping us execute a simple idea: Have OK Go start performing a Tiny Desk Concert at our old location, continue playing the same song while the furniture and shelving is loaded onto a truck, and finish the performance at our new home. In addition to cameos by many of our NPR colleagues — Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, David Greene, Guy Raz, Scott Simon, Alix Spiegel, Susan Stamberg and more — this required a few ingredients:
- Number of video takes: 223
- Percent used in final version: 50
- Number of raw audio channels: 2,007
- Percent used in final version: 50
- Number of microphones: 5
- Number of hard-boiled eggs consumed: 8, mostly by bassist Tim Nordwind
- Number of seconds Carl Kasell spent in the elevator with OK Go: 98
- Number of times Ari Shapiro played the tubular bells: 15
- Number of pounds the tubular bells weighed: 300
- Number of times the shelves were taken down and put back up: 6
- Number of days it took to shoot: 2
- Number of cameras: 1
OK Go played “All Is Not Lost” from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, with words tweaked by the All Songs Considered team. And so begins a new era for the Tiny Desk, after 277 concerts (counting this one) in our old home.
The Carl Kasell bit is my favorite part.