Light Vibes

kunde vara solsken.

Light Vibes // Wish We Had

Under the Covers Monday: The Cure & Bat For Lashes

Pounding steamy pavement this morning to the beat of "Daniel" made my tummy rumbly for the next release from Bat For Lashes {she's in the studio, until then you can gnaw on the Two Suns special edition}. And there's an excellent covers listing here, with Natasha Khan taking everything to a more mystically inky level. It was enough to make me sparkle-up my eyelids and jam on my feathered headdress for the rest of the day.

Bat For Lashes // A Forest
The Cure // A Forest

The Naked and Famous

This has a similar initial affect I can {unashamedly} say Lisztomania had nearly a year ago. Call it the season, call it the humidity, call it a fervent belief that I'll always be 19.

I'm not even positive I LIKED 19 all that much at the time, but it seems pretty romantic from this side of 27.

New Zealand's The Naked and Famous have heavy hints of some of our American sweaty dance favorites - Passion Pit, M83, Yeasayer, Temper Trap. The kiwi's electro-pop single from late 2010's "Passive Me, Agressive You" gets a breathless remix from lacy muse White Sea.



The Week's Once Over

Sultry dirge from Circle Pit
Recent release from City and Colour
Illmatic reincarnation from Elzhi {Dustin Artz}
Under the Covers Tuesday. Just this once. Courtesy of Radiohead.

I'm slipping into this weekend on swift hourglass sands towards big change, and a massive adventure. More on that soon. Kiss on that ol' fox of a father; I'll be out with mine doing unpaid child labor in his "garden." The fact that he used to pay me a dime for each 5 gallon bucket of sticks I picked up on his canadian-natl.-park-maintained property simply endears him to me. Now.

xx,
chirgo

The Naked and Famous // Young Blood (White Sea remix)

Circle Pit

Jack Mannix and Angela Bermuda are unconventional, unapologetic and Australian. In that order. After the tales of Sydney street life, drugs and casual sex on gritty Bruise Constellations, Circle Pit languidly slides into a new 7", Slave / Honey on Sub Pop. Synthy gospel on one side, druggy shoegaze on the other, you can stream both sides here.

Circle Pit // Honey

City and Colour

Have I posted about Dallas Green before?

I should have. 2009's Bring Me Your Love was one of those albums I played in my car, at my desk, in my flat, for my friends, for my cats, tried to learn the chords, put some of the lyrics on the "about me" section on the Facebook. Even if it's emotive, heavy on the sentimentalness did bring down my street cred.
Don't judge, you've done it too wombat.

As the alias City (Dallas) and Colour (Green), the frontman of post-hardcore Alexisonfire plays melodic, largely acoustic folk music that airs this side of vulnerable. His third album Little Hell, released earlier this month, was both recorded and mixed on tape at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton, Ontario. Canadian analog, I dig.

While a solid handful of tracks seem ripe for the One Tree Hill picking, the dusky brothel video shot for the first single, inspired by his wife's frequent night terrors, might say otherwise.



City and Colour // Fragile Bird
City and Colour // Hope For Now

Under the Covers...Tuesday. Go easy on me. : Radiohead & Portishead

All right, ok, I know, I slacked, I'm sorry. I was a blasted waste of brainspace after a massive Sunday on-set for Mckay's lastest short-film. I'll update with a trailer in a week or so. If you like 50's rockabilly, a faceless keyboardist and femme on (zomb')femme makeouts, then you're going to absolutely despise "Johnny."

A favorite band playing a favorite song by another favorite band is an easy win while my bandwidth is still this compromised. I'll manage something far, far more introspective and monotheistically challenging later this week after a good nap and a butterscotch candy.

Sneak-peek from set of enigmatic performers in makeup by LeftwichFx - accomplished in cozy proximity to Empire's frydaddies.


Radiohead // The Rip
Portishead // The Rip

Elzhi

Hot town, summer in the city, nothin like a hot summa mixtape!

It takes cojones to go and recreate arguably the best hip-hop album of all time, but that's what Detroit lyricist Elzhi has done with Elmatic, a mixtape of Nas's classic "Illmatic" from top to bottom. New vid here (shit is fire).

Elzhi sticks to the formula; the track names are the same, all beats are roughly the same yet nicely embellished with some rich instrumentation (the end of "One Love" has 3+ minutes of beautiful instrumental). The lyrics though are mostly new, spinning everything Detroit instead of Queensbridge. All in all it makes you excited to relive the album once more. Though personally I don't think I will ever tire of the OG.

I think I used that wrong....
better check urban dictionary.

i never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death

-da

Elzhi // One Love

Kreayshawn

I don't know if I want to be her best friend, plead to run with her crew or punch in her the neck.

cinematographer
editor
rap beast
screw head
pot smoker
Oakland representer
Pixel Fantasy
bitch snatcher
White Girl Mob
"i got the swag, it's pumping out my ovaries"

What gives some white girl out of Oakland, a bubbly tattooed pixie, any amount of street cred for that kind of list?

Does it really effing matter? Really?

Because when gems like this pop up, IT DOESN'T.


I can only smiled bemusedly when a full scholarship to Berkeley Film School recipient has interview quotes such as:
Q: What are some Ratchet activities you enjoy?
A: Some Ratchet? Yeah, well, shout out to Team Ratchet! Me and Team Ratchet? We do everything ratchet. You know, like, shit, all-star weekend? In LA? We like, just ran around with guns and we like tried to rob Young Berg, and like, hella shit! {giggles sweetly}

love. LOVE. punch!



The Week's Once Over

Young and gingery with Zoo Kid {Becki Hohen}
Stoked to see the Bowerbirds again in Charlottesville
Emotionally in-touch with Eddie Vedder {Dustin Artz}
Under the Covers: starting the week off sweaty with "Lay Lady Lay"

Kreayshawn // Gucci Gucci

Zoo Kid

Archy Marshal, better known by stage name Zoo Kid, definitely lives up to his name with his amazing ginger quiff.

It's a little difficult to comprehend that Archy, at a measley 16 years, and has already been compared to the likes of Morrissey and James Blake, but his sense of teendream angst comes through with brokenheart lyrics in his debut single "Out Getting Ribs." His vocals bring a sense of old character, livened up with a unique new sense of dub rock. The featured track takes it title from a piece created by American Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, {le swoon} the kid is talented and cultured. He makes you wish that instead of rebelling in your adolescence you were taking your sorrows and producing something this soulful.

-B



Zoo Kid // Out Getting Ribs

Bowerbirds

I was first winsomely lead away by the Bowerbirds when they opened for Bon Iver at Black Cat in 2009. 2008? Though they played for a largely talkative and annoying crowd,

{taking a moment to just put it out there: i get weird juju from nearly every DC crowd I'm obliged to stand with. truly, what is with the apathetic posturing? shaves my buzz every time.}

{there. i feel better.}

the Raleigh, NC-natives Phil Moore {vocals, guitar}, Beth Tacular {vocals, accordion(!)} and Mark Paulson {vocals, violin} are, quite frankly, endearing. Critics toss around the "freak folk" genre, but I'd disagree. Feels more tempered; intimate story-telling over flowing instrumentation. An attentive beak to their glossy feathers. So tonight the four of us will have a bit of a reunion in Charlottesville when they open for Arcade Fire - followed by Régine and I ribbon dancing to Sprawl II.

Bowerbirds // Beneath Your Tree

Eddie Vedder

Ach.
He beat me to EV AND got me choked up before 10a.
Trust me, if you have any semblance of a soul and were born before '91, it's going to happen to you, too.


"I seem to recogniiiiize your faaaaaace.

Hauunting, familiar yet, I can't seeeeem tooooo plaaaace itttt…" ahem

Sorry, nostalgia makes me sing-type.

Eddie Vedder has arrived with a stripped down collection of songs over ukelele. Which is pretty amazing in both concept and actuality. His voice is so emotive it's nice to peel all the extranea away and just hear some simple music, and/or limit the amount of frat boys belting out power-driven discordant harmonies in their Jeep Wranglers (self-diss).

While the album certainly has its brooding and introspective moments, there's just something about the bright and tinny ukulele that won't let Vedder's voice dip into the swamps of sadness.

Try not to be moved by that reference! You can't!

Oh god.

Artax.

-da

Eddie Vedder // Goodbye

Under the Covers Monday: Bob Dylan & Magnet f. Gemma Hayes

Oh hay lil sweet sweets.

I have returned, relatively bronzed and properly drawly.
Or more so drawly than I was, which will thrill my best girlfriends who like to get me tipsy and encourage the use of "y'all" at any provided opportunity.

Hearing this over the loudspeaker at the Charleston airport, wedding-hungover and beach-depressed, was a petite saving grace of leaving Sullivan's Island. Doesn't hurt that it's one of the straightsultriest songs on the flockin' planet.

Magnet f. Gemma Hayes // Lay Lady Lay
Bob Dylan // Lay Lady Lay