i am absolutely smitten with this 'chillwave' thing that's going on in teh interwebosphere. the faded, 80's loops are the perfect cure to late April, when you miss summer like an old girlfriend and you couldn't care less about the indoor management rule and the sight of cold precipitation makes you sleepy.
something about the combination of early-morning court appearances, a perma-headache of epic proportions and new shoes whose primarily design objective seem to be to transform my helpless feet into mulch has made this particular day, out of most days, rather difficult to bear. and it's days like these that make me glad that there are people out there who make good music.
alexander ebert, of magnetic zeros fame, has released a solo project and it is the perfect accompaniment to 'one of those days' - soulful, sometimes cheerful and sometimes mellow, and all around authentic, his brand of modern folk is just the ticket.
so apparently i'm making a habit of becoming enamoured with gorillaz on average 6 months after everybody else.
it's uncanny. without fail, a new gorillaz album/single/video will be released, the scenesters will declare it the new audio bible, and i will be... unfazed. and like clockwork, approximately 6 months later i will come across a particular track (one already located, enjoyed and recycled by the rest of the world) and for some strange reason... love it senselessly.
this one in particular i had the fortune of coming across at the drake a couple weekends ago, and shazam-ed it (that app is magic, incidentally, and it scared me a little) from the dancefloor (which i think is a new height of music dorkyness/antisocialism). i like the brash faux-horn that drives the track, and the vocals are pop-ish in a way that's not trying to hard. the finished product is dancefloor-appropriate alt-pop that's guaranteed to follow you home.
okay you guys so apparently this whole lo-fi sound thing is here to stay. which is quite a good thing in my view, because i oh so enjoyed grizzly bear's Veckatimest. naturally, i'm enamoured with up-and-comers we are trees. i won't go into great length about their sound, as it's quite similar to grizzly bear, but rest assured that this is heartfelt, authentic lo-fi folk-rock and it is wonderful. check out their bandcamp to hear the length of their first EP, Boyfriend, and samples of the appropriately titled follow-up Girlfriend. i don't know offhand whether there is a full-length in the works, but i certainly hope so.
okay cats and kittens, i'm in the midst of a competitive moot so this is going to be a short one.
RAC dropped their second full compilation album, Volume 2, and it is the source of all happiness. it's a free download from their site, so snatch that puppy up. right now. it's all gold, start to finish, but phoenix's Armistice stands out - sugar-coated dancey goodness at its finest.
they also pulled together the soundtrack for an interesting little movie called Holy Rollers starring a pre-social network jesse eisenberg. i can't speak to the movie (i'm just popping it onto the dvd player as i write this) but the soundtrack is delightful 90's-era club dance. If You Forget Me is the highlight, with liset alea providing the vocals that add a little emotional punch to the song.
so i have been holding off on writing about tennis for a while now. first i wanted to wait until their debut Cape Dory came out, and then i wanted to wait until my lp arrived, and then i found out they were coming to toronto and decided to post on their show... and after this long, laborious crusade, we find ourselves here.
i'll open by saying that Cape Dory is, and will be, my favourite album of 2011. i love the band; i love their sound, their aesthetic, their husband-and-wife dynamic, their breezy sailing motif. all of this is delightfully true to form in their live performances. i had the chance to see them at the horseshoe last night and they were rather lovely. alaina moore is a bundle of energy in a flowery top and red bouncing red curls, stepping away from the keyboard when given the opportunity to prance about. and yes, her voice is more than capable of handling the lilting heights of even more difficult tracks like Marathon with ease. husband patrick riley was stalwart despite a somewhat sweltering stage temperature, with touring drummer james barone (i think - they've been through a couple) providing the swinging drumbeat that brings the band's sound together.
tennis' time on stage was necessarily brief - with only Cape Dory's 10 short tracks to work from, a few new songs they've self-admittedly pulled together on the road to round out their set, and a rather adorable cover of brenda lee's Is It True, the set lasted about 45 minutes. short and sweet was the name of the game here, with moore opening most tracks with a quick one-liner (Pigeon, the band's love ballad, was introduced with 'this song is about patrick', bringing about something of a swoon from the otherwise hipster-brand ambivalent crowd). Marathon, being the band's most-circulated single, naturally was the best-received by the crowd, and was arguably the highlight of the night; though i will always have a soft spot for Long Boat Pass.
touring mates holiday shores opened up the evening with with a young, beach house/the drums-sounding set. local talent (and apparently political players) the darcy's followed up with what i thought was a rather loud set, considering who they were opening for, but if that's your thing, you can download their latest 7" here.
young galaxy had the misfortune of releasing their debut self-titled album on the heels of psych-rock darlings mgmt's Oracular Spectacular; it unfortunately ended up slipping under the radar and went primarily unnoticed. unfazed by their split from arts & crafts and a mediocre response to 2009's Invisible Republic, they're back with a new album, Shapeshifting, and it is strong. the vancouver-based trio seem to have hit something of a stride, and offer up a series of catchy, meaningful tracks with well-layered instrumentals and the lovely, half-there half-daydreaming vocals that lend the genre much of its identity. this is dream-pop at its best, children.
