Let's Move On Together

In between memorializing activities this weekend, I was checking my phone (like we do) and saw that San Francisco purveyor of bliss, Blackbird Blackbird (formerly known as Bye Bye Blackbird) released the Let's Move On Together EP. Like the last Happy High, it's seven minutes in heaven (okay, eight), and also freely bandcamped. Mikey S explains the EP will double in size on a vinyl later this season. Go get it, then get horizontal.

(via)

Is This On Me?

Ben Sifel nails another.

Friday Send-Off | Summer Majestic

Well Jamie Harley (via Delicious Scopitone) just ended my search for the big FSO.
More brilliance. This time for His Clancyness.



Have fun. Be Safe. Get weird.

WOOM

A charming music box called Muu's Way showed up last night with understated grace. This wasn't blogwave seduction, it was old fashioned 'may-I-have-this-dance'. There's an honesty and patience to these songs (at times recalling Panda Bear's Young Prayer) built with scarce, strange tools. All softened by the smiles of Sara Magenheimer.

Oakland's WOOM have a lovely debut here, one likely to grow by the hour.

Two tracks are allowed to linger before June 28th and both are active standouts, so grab "The Hunt" and "Quetzalcoatl's Hip", here. This is the launch of Muu's Way:



And if I can't find time to give Friday a proper Send-Off, may this WOOM-related slow dance moment provide the right message.

Quick | Elite Gymnastics

A heap of jams blazed through this month. Sometimes it takes a play count to tell you which ones are sticking around. The four tracks on Real Friends are. If these wildly varied grooves are yet to roam about your rotation, go to Psychedelic Surf Club and set em' free.

(first seen on Ice Cream Dreams, who now has a tumblr).

RxRy * | * visual sequence

RxRy entered my mind for the first time in too long last week while running to the end of a pier. I'd never tested his 'auditory passcodes to an unknown dimension' during such an activity, and it actually synced up a perfect escape – eyes open just wide enough to see but not decipher or care, while windblown seagull cries seeped into beat.

So our still-blurry friend just blasted a set of videos from his forthcoming VAEIOUWLS LP. The first experience is "EUUIO (latch crescent tide saw)", followed by "AAIEI" above. Signed:

congruent triangles

and cloud patterns

more soon

best

_Rx

Here are the two from GOTC: "AAIEI" and "EIIOA (flint rasp export defect)"

Update: A third video has been added to the sequence, "UUAII (root lapse portrait soil)":

more triangles
and microuniverse sheets of rainbow

Cosmic Sound

When he's not a Ghost Mountain man, Houston's Stephen Farris creates Cosmic Sound using old school analog synths and VHS tape samples. That science applies to his visuals as well. Fitting then that an EP called VHS vision will land soon. UPDATE: here it is. And now, "Bear Auras":

Monster Rally

Easing into this Monday for sure. And it doesn't get any easier than an instrumental depiction of the image above, for free (bandcamp). This short EP is a flashback to the Hawaiian vacation I've never taken. Destined to loop.

(via yvynl)

Police Academy 6

Couldn't resist the click. A funny myspace says Police Academy 6 is "a six piece all female lesbian jazz-funk group active in the 70s", hot n fresh out the kitchen from Iraq, which might not be accurate (but is great, and maybe the fresh part is true with 0 friends and 56 views at the moment). From there we grab a little self titled zip. And things get interesting.

It opens briefly on "Nostalgia", a watered down theme from what has to be some old TV show (tell me if you get it). Onward we get distant and subdued until "Run" and through "Apollo" where all shifts beneath the shaking floor of a club spinning disco era Arthur Russell. Wild stuff.

He just sent another and this one's a jam, up close: "gettin down"

Mixtape | RANDOM RAINBOW Volume 2

The first compilation (or optical and meteorological phenomenon) appeared after a 'stress storm', and this case is no different, albeit less random. The tracks themselves have accumulated over the past few weeks like shimmering specs of gold in the rapids of our blogosphere. Some picked up along the way from friends, and others generously straight from the source. And it's with my utmost excitement that RANDOM RAINBOW can debut a new track from Teen Daze, which he tells us was recorded the rainy morning following our chat. The thought of him doing that has me completely glowing. Alongside "Hard Times/Good Times" (that's a lone mp3 for you gold rushers) are fellow red hot Canadian dreamers Blue Hawaii, Kumon Plaza, Foxes in Fiction, NEON CANYON, and Lester Brown (in a collaboration with MICKEY MICKEY ROURKE). And the equally prismed rest are from all over: Barcelona, Belgium, and of course Dom's sexy America.

♦RANDOM RAINBOW♦

View tracklist here.

Real Love,
Sutton

Phantogram @ The Bowery Ballroom [NYC; 05/19/10]

Busy week here for our New Yorker but like she said, how can you really pass up an invite to this one? Phantogram had my ears pretty excited back in November, and Victoria confirmed that the band is just as easy on the eyes, and super gracious to boot.

"And they were clearly excited to be playing to a sold-out crowd. 'We're a very young band and from the bottom of our hearts, we're just so glad you're here,' said Josh as their show neared to a close. With a big smile on her face, Sarah whipped out her iPhone and proceeded to take a photo of the crowd before walking off stage."

(BrooklynVegan)

RADAR FICTION

As recent posts would suggest, I've been all up in the clouds, riding a blissed-out missile of chill. And you know, eventually that thing needs to make contact. Even if we catch those currents again as soon as later today (likely), the past hour called for a straight fuming of rock and roll. Brooklyn's RADAR FICTION had it.

RADAR FICTION EP (2010)

Singer Mick Vonn will be the deal breaker here. He knows it, and he doesn't give a shit. Vocally (and at times lyrically) he can be abrasive, but hits that up-front, punk rawness we usually look back in our collections for (Iggy Pop, The Modern Lovers, Television, etc). These are their first recordings, and fearless ones at that. They've played a few local shows (Union Pool, Arlene's Grocery, Public Assembly, Knitting Factory). So keep em' on your radar.

Thursday Love | "Time"

That floored me, Jamie!

(via)

Lonely Galaxy looks to be a gripping frontier. Grab "Time" and equally powerful "Have a Heart", plus an Active Child remix of the latter, here.

Wednesday Love | Baths

This feels a bit meta with the fluid month Baths is having, but wow. My love for this album is so heavy, I must make sure, for good measure, that if you haven't yet taken the wonderful advice of our via lovers (yvynyl, Delicious Scopitone, The Road Goes Ever On, etc) or from P4K, that you consider mine as well: anticipate Cerulean with a passion. Grab "Halls" and "Maximalist", watch "STUPOR" for some context, seek the leaks if you'd like, and know that the mastered copy arriving July 6th is worth the wait. Will Wisienfeld is one very talented dude. I don't even know where to begin.

Twin Sister @ Open Road Rooftop [NYC; 05/14/10]

Our favorite breakout act of the year graced the top of New Design High School last Friday to mark the start of event season for Rooftop Films. Victoria was there (lucky!) and per usual, came home with a lovely evening on memory card:










And now I'd like to once again watch that video yvynyl put together. All around and away we go:

Blue Hawaii

Blooming Summer came and lifted this cloudy Sunday thanks to a tweet-lead from brother GOBBLE GOBBLE. Montreal's Blue Hawaii describe their sound as "beach storm & morning after" and that fits, as does the airy artwork. This debut LP roams around freely with digital drums ricocheting off celestial vocals like jj with suntans and bigger smiles. "Dream Electrixra" and "Blue Gowns" are destined for mixtape love (I'm gonna get on that). Arbutus Records has the the full and free download.

Blue Hawaii | Blooming Summer

They recently stripped down "Castle Of Clouds" for nomag and prefaced it with:

“At the beginning, this song was an upbeat computer song, with midi sounds. [...] It was originally super dancy, and we took it apart, and it became really ambient and slow. [...] We went to Guatemala for two months together, and we got samples of kids playing soccer and fireworks, and we put tons of reverb and delay on those, and compressed the whole song. Yesterday, we got excited that “Felix wants us to do this acoustic thing!” so we came up with this arrangement.”

TOP GIRLS

Faintly humming across waves of distortion, this South Carolina project brings to mind moans of the great southern gazer himself, Bradford Cox. For now, these two tracks are a solitary glimpse into the mellow souled water world of TOP GIRLS.

"Not Enuff" and "Face It" from Attraction EP

Opening an email entitled TOP GIRLS at 3AM was worth the gamble. Add with the new RxRy gems Get Off The Coast just posted and have yourself a faded one.

Friday Send-Off | "Let Your Hair Grow"

Lester Brown | Inslomania EP (2010)

A tiny, unassuming fish called Inslomania has been waiting in my iTunes (iTank?) for over two weeks, straight chilling. Lester Brown sent him over with kind words. He also pointed me towards the energy of friend/collaborator MICKEY MICKEY ROURKE, which, as previously noted, was pretty serendipitous. And like that occurrence, there's something about today's lack of sleep and this patient EP that feels exactly right (the video helps, made by Life Aquatic, and via). There's an isolated, almost murky vibe beneath the liquid feel goods here. Lester's vocals seem just a bit out of frame at all times, like he's singing from an off-screen shower or something.

Tuesday Love

Love for Beach Fossils is in draft mode right now as I collect summer 2010 magic (somehow before it strikes) for the other night job (that one powered by Chuck Taylor), but this clip just had too much ♥, it couldn't wait.

Friday Send-Off | "Aquarium"

Cyberspace rays struck down perfectly upon this Friday morning when Jamie Long passed along "Aquarium" w/video, as if knowing I was in search of a Send-Off. I see now Jheri had similar fortune, so he gets a [via] here.

Life Of Dreams will land later this year. Until then, here's a bundle of free floaters from his myspace, plus the new one above.

Make this weekend glow. Have fun. Be safe. Get weird.

Washed Out + Small Black @ The Bell House [Brooklyn; Cinco De Mayo, in pics]

Guactacular 2010 wrapped up just in time for this chill pack to do their now well-documented thing at a very guac-ed out Bell House. Victoria had only good things to say of their sets (which sounded stronger than our LA experience) and now has some lovely pics to show for it:

Endless Spring

"It was all shot in Hawaii. I moved out there for 3 months to record the album and learn to purify rainwater."

Sun House rose yesterday on a soundcloud. "Endless Spring" arrived today via sunset. Said album should appear sometime in June. Until then, this house is on watch.

Update: He just shot over a note: "so the band name is now Houses, the album - All Night and it will be coming out in late June. Hopefully I can get those videos back up soon too."

MICKEY MICKEY ROURKE

M/M/R's moniker conjures up a beast of imagery, until his tranquil output tames all notion. His icy aesthetic hints to a darker side, until that output again reveals a brighter beauty. And we'll consider him from Magic Mountain until proven otherwise.  

MICKEY MICKEY ROURKE | Festive Bummer (2010)

An ambient recording really can't unwind itself until your mind asks it to. Whatever Tuesday was, call it an above average day of tension, it needed a festive bummer. 

On opener "COZE", a calming wave begins that moves throughout the rest. A subtle strum here, a delicate bell there (a fast forwarded voice here, a dog bark there); it's a slow, sonic exchange suited for a lost thought or perhaps a sudden appreciation for what surrounds us.