Category Archives: Electronic

Germany Germany – Departure/Disconnect

February 28, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

I’ve known about Germany Germany, the project of Victoria, Canada’s Drew Harris, for a long time now, but I’ve never gotten around to posting about his work– not talking about his album last year, Adventures was an egregious oversight, but thankfully it got picked up by more prominent sites. The Germany Germany project had been on indefinite hiatus since December, but Harris has come storming back with the singles “Departure” and “Disconnect,” the latter featuring none other than Stefaloo.

“Departure” really sticks out as a favorite because it’s one of those electronic songs that is calm and mellow while also being sprawling. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been in love with the idea of space (along with all the science fiction it entails) and am thus immediately drawn to any music that seems to represent that strange combination of vastness, lifelessness, and awe. “Departure’s” wash of synths feels destined to be set against a black backdrop pock-marked with lights. It’s elegant, relaxed beauty.

Strangely, while “Departure” seems to reach out for the stars, “Disconnect” seems to exist deep under the sea, weighted down by miles of water. Stefaloo’s disconnected vocals only further the aquatic sense of distance, while the electronics themselves feel heavy and wet–that is until they burst out of the waves in a synth-pop blowout. It’s a combination that draws me to this release–the two songs, though of the same kind, compliment each so well. It makes the release feel like a mini-EP instead of just another double-single release.

The two tracks are the leads to Germany Germany’s next album, Blank Mind Empty Heart, which is projected for release in the summer.

 

Filed Under: Ambient, Electronic, Music, New

Sufjan Stevens – Futile Devices (Shigeto Remix)

February 24, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

I’ve been pushing Shigeto a lot since I first heard him a month ago. His album, Lineage, has quickly become one of those easy listens that you turn to when you can’t think of what else to listen to, like an old friend who’s always there to do nothing in particular. Since then, I feel like I’m seeing him all over, with everyone acting like he’s been a known name around the scene for years. Thankfully, I’m not the only one as Phillip over at Beats Per Minute, where I was turned onto this remix, feels the same way.

Age of Adz was a dividing record and its weird electronic bent inevitably meant it wouldn’t attain the classic status of his previous works. Still, though, every review I read made mention of the mostly-acoustic opener “Futile Devices” as a statement that Sufjan still, in fact, has “it.” He just didn’t really want to use “it” on Age of Adz. For Shigeto, though, it seems that it may have been the other way around. For him, “Futile Devices” may have been the easy-road option. So, of course, he decided to imbue with a little electronic flavor.

Shigeto doesn’t go as far out as Sufjan did later on in the record. His remix’s spaciness makes it feel like a cloud-thick hallucination, a translucent memory distorted by time and illness. The basic core is there, but there’s something different. It’s distracted and confused, lost in a daze. A word is a futile device–but then so is memory.

Filed Under: Electronic, Folk, Music, New

[Video] M.I.A. – Bad Girls

February 11, 2012 • By Arvind

I saw this video on a friend’s facebook wall and proceeded to get angry. Why you ask? Because M.I.A. is unlike any artist. Mainly because she’s the definition of a rebel. Her behavior during the Superbowl is an example [which I found quite admirable]. Her music “girly” or feminine in a different way than your typical pop star (I feel bad categorizing her music because she has so much variety). Her music is more than face value and you can dance to a lot of it. Sounds great to me. Enjoy Maya’s latest video of crazy awesomeness.

Filed Under: Electronic, Hip Hop, Music, Must Listen, New, Pop, Video

[Review/Stream] Shigeto’s Lineage

February 3, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

I’ve been out of business for about a week due to an ear infection that has rendered my right ear virtually useless in terms of hearing things. The result is that I’m way behind with everything regarding music because music is only half as good when you hear it through one ear. I think that’s how math works, anyway.

This, though, I couldn’t pass up. So, despite my crippled condition, I jumped on the full stream of Shigeto‘s new “mini-LP,” Lineage. After hearing the second single from the album, “Huron River Drive,” I knew this was a release I would have to pay attention to. Luckily, that belief has proven true and Lineage has done good on the promise of “Huron River Drive.” It’s a chilled-out collection of relaxed electronic instrumentals in the vein of Nujabes.

While normally this type of music gets relegated to background sound, it’s hard not to love the attention to detail apparent in Lineage. Every track flows like water, shifting slightly and deceptively. “Ann Arbor Part 3 & 4″ in particular embodies this movement, as the song is always in a particular groove but its elements never cease moving, starting from a relaxed piano sample and eventually incorporating everything from electronically chopped wind chimes to dubstep’s signature wobble. “Huron River Drive” remains the orange sunset it was before, but its surrounded by the rambunctious, off-kilter “Child’s Mind” and the 8-bit, beat-driven “Field Trip.” There’s a quiet, tamed sense of wonder to each of the songs on Lineage, like a genius kid who just discovered the paintbrush and knows what he wants to do with it. In fact, there’s a sense of watercolor to it all; it’s an album that’s painted in broad, vibrant strokes–strong enough to be evocative, but abstract enough for a million possible pictures–so that even with a single ear, it’s still a powerful work.

Shigeto is the moniker of Zach Saginaw, who draws heavily from his Japanese heritage and familial ancestry to inspire his work, right down the art for the album. I’m normally not big on artist bios, but his is actually one of the more interesting I’ve come across. You can check it out {here}.

{Buy the album from Ghostly, International}

{Full Stream via The Fader}

Filed Under: Ambient, Electronic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Music, New, Reviews

Mecca:83 – Daybreak EP

January 30, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

It’s the middle of January here in Ohio, which means laying down with your back to the grass on a warm summer night is little more than an imagined fantasy. Still, though, it’s a uniquely relaxing image–childlike in its simplicity, but ageless in its appeal–and it’s one that Mecca:83′s D A Y B R E AK (heretofore without spacing and capitalisation) EP calls to mind vividly.

The opener, “2am Samba” calls to mind the noisy cricket chirps and little flashes of fireflies of an endless summer night, when school was a distant worry. Meanwhile, the EP’s second track offers something for the adults inside, cleaning up the dishes and chatting over a fine wine while someone rummages around a piano. It’s a night-time narrative that carries well through the EP, though the sexiness of “Make Sounds” makes me hesitant to detail it any further.

In less esoteric terms, Daybreak is a short EP with relaxed beats that make it perfect for late-night mental wanderings. Impressively, the whole thing was made in a 24 hour period.  It has elements of a lot of other artists in it (“Send U” in particular sounds like it could have been an outtake of J Dilla’s Donuts) but it covers a wide enough range of sounds, from straight downtempo electronics to soul-infused hip-hop beats and some elements of chillwave, that I’m hesitant to pin any ones in particular on Mecca:83. It’s all held within a nice, chilled-out package, though, and keeps a consistent, enjoyable tone throughout.

And, in a final kicker, any funds made through Bandcamp go to the UK charity Mind. It’s also pay-what-you-want, so you can nab it for free in case you’re a full-blooded social Darwinist and don’t want to help anyone else. Or if you’re really cheap. But really, if you can’t pony a few bucks for a charity, why do you have internet access?


Filed Under: Ambient, Electronic, Music, New

[New] Silent Rider – Bloody War

January 26, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

Silent Rider & Michael Santiago

We first heard from Silent Rider last year when they sent along the video for their single “I Was a Bomb,” which we featured. The video was particularly compelling and made my never-published year-end list of favorite music videos. It was a great song, too, and I was excited to see where Silent Rider would go with the vocally-focused brand of electronic music they’d created. Well, it’s half a year later and Silent Rider’s still kicking and going strong, releasing a new single entitled “Bloody War.”

Since the time we last featured them, Silent Rider has moved from being the duo of Reed Kackley and Michael Santiago to just the solo act of Reed Kackley. Santiago does co-produced and contributed vocals to “Bloody War,” though, so there’s no accounting for a lost piece here. There is a marked difference in sound between “I Was a Bomb” and “Bloody War.” The former’s more immediate vocal melody doesn’t show up as strongly here, but that’s mostly because the focus on the latter song seems to be more on the production. There’s a guitar break that shows up a few times that just by itself is groovier than anything in “I Was a Bomb.” Silent Rider’s gained a signature sound in their short catalog of just three releases–electronic, downtempo jams with strong vocals and a slightly dark tone–and it’s great to hear Kackley play within the limitations of that sound.

Plans are in the work for a full-length release in March, with a tour to go along with it. So be on the lookout for Silent Rider. You’ll be sure to hear more about him in the future. (Hopefully it’ll include another great video as well.)

Filed Under: Electronic, Music, New, Pop

[New] Shigeto – Huron River Drive

January 19, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

Occasionally, you just need to cool out. Sit back. Relax. Put your feet up. Maybe contemplate a little. But not too much. Don’t overthink things. Just let them happen. There are good many self-help books, blogs, and anecdotes about what it takes to truly relax yourself. Your friend might recommend a yoga class, where you meditate half the time and slow your breathing to its lower pace. A book might tell you to close your eyes and think about being on a beach, with the sun washing over your face and the sound the cool sound of lapping waves in your ears.

Me? I’d recommend giving Shigeto a listen. Or “Huron River Drive,” anyway. It’s a different kind of come down, sure. It’s got an urban flavor. It’s more like a sunset on a burnt orange Japanese skyline. There’s a weightedness to it; it knows it exists in reality. It doesn’t carry pretensions. It’s cool in the classic sense, the effortless, laid-back sense. So, unwind a little. Have a drink. And just be.

Shigeto is the moniker of Zach Saginaw. He’s releasing a mini-LP entitled Lineage on January 31st on Ghostly.
You can also listen to the LP’s title track, “Lineage” on {Pitchfork}.

Filed Under: Electronic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Music, New

[Artist to Watch] AustinPaul

January 18, 2012 • By Nikhil

ze workplace.photo cred: andyryanflores.tumblr.comA few days ago we got an email from an artist out of Miami who goes by the name AustinPaul. His email caught my eye for one reason. There was no bullshit, only a few words and a link to a soundcloud playlist. His music caught my attention for a completely different reason. I was only a couple minutes into the first song and I was hooked (All of us here felt the same way). AustinPaul has begun to carve out a niche for himself in a genre who population is most likely only a handful of artists. But, as with all good music, the way his music is categorized has nothing to do with how it is performed. The Electronic/Dream Pop/Soul artist has done nothing but impressed me since that first listen. As I delve deeper and deeper into his music, I realize his music is a blend of the best pieces from his chosen genres, his music begins to embody Aristotle’s phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

AustinPaul’s most recent work, This Cloudy Mix, was my introduction to his music. He seems to be able to keep a balance within the music he creates, where he can isolate a certain genre, while blending these three genres beautifully. “Black Boots/Dark Roots” (my favorite song) starts the album off by showing his ability as an artist, while not relying on a certain genre to carry the song. The song is the perfect introduction to his music. At first glance, his music seems like it would be a rough listening experience, like a mad science project gone bad. But he quickly dispels any doubts with “Black Boots/Dark Roots” as the song catches you off guard and pushes you to explore the rest of the album. But the album does not follow the same mold throughout, it plays on the ambiance of Dream Pop, the synthetic noise associated with Electronic groups and the emotion of Soul music. The tone of the music seems to take on many different faces, as “Am I In Motion” plays into a whole new area of his music. The lyrics take a turn to deception, as if a woman has begun to toy with his emotions while an obsession for her creeps in. The album a common thread of a need for this woman, who enters in “Black Boots/Dark Roots”, and keeps the attention of the album’s narrator. She seems to continue to toy with his emotions and AustinPaul introduces a darker side to contrast the happier emotions portrayed in some of the songs. “Sync With You” plays on this contrast beautifully, painting a picture of a story with this woman as the relationship starts its dissent from a happy, healthy relationship and begins to crumble in front of our narrator. “Sync With You” is a microcosm of the story behind the music and the lyrics, one which AustinPaul paints with his beats and words. A story that can be related to by many listeners. It is a personal album which plays on the emotion within the lyrics along with the beats that backdrop them.

While This Cloudy Mix isn’t a debut (his “debut” can be found on his bandcamp), it is an apt introduction to a great up-and-coming artist. AustinPaul’s music sits in a strange genre and skepticism may be warranted from the mixture, but I’m hoping you listen to him with an open mind, although he will probably change your mind anyway. I expect big things out of AustinPaul as he has created something that warrants those expectations. I can’t wait for his next project, but for now This Cloudy Mix will do just fine. This Cloudy Mix is available for free through AustinPaul’s Tumblr, the link is below, so there is no reason not to get this album.

AustinPaul: {Soundcloud/Tumblr/Bandcamp/Twitter}

Filed Under: Ambient, Artist/Band to Watch, Electronic, Music, Pop

Active Child – High Priestess (CFCF Remix)

January 6, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

I’ve been a big fan of pretty much every CFCF remix I’ve heard so I excited to see a new one appear in our inbox a couple of days ago. In particular, CFCF’s remix of Taken By Trees’ dreamy “Anna” is a personal favorite. CFCF continues his penchant for mellow, groovy remixes with his version of Active Child’s “High Priestess.” The sound utilized here is fairly standard fare for CFCF, who imbues the track with a cloudy lightness by using airy synths to underlay the original’s vocal overtrack.

Like many great remixers CFCF always seems to make each track his own and “High Priestess” is no exception. Aside from baring his signature style, he’s succeeded in surpassing the original by elaboarting on a style only lightly implied on the Active Child’s rendition. The dreaminess is there, but only subtly so. CFCF opts to bring it to the forefront, going all out and even going so far as to use rain sounds and wood flutes at the track’s end.

Indeed, it makes the whole track feel like it’s on a slow, wafting descent downward as the high synth tracks of the introduction give way to the earthier forest sounds. It’s a slight that augments the song’s lyrical subject well, as Pat Grossi sings “Whatchya gonna do when you come back home?” in a high falsetto voice–the high priestess’ descent.

CFCF is the moniker of Montreal’s Michael Silver, a DJ and producer.
Active Child’s You Are All I See was released earlier this year on Vagrant Records.

CFCF: {Facebook | Last.fm}
Active Child: {Facebook | Spotify | Twitter | Youtube| Website}

Filed Under: Electronic, Music, Pop

[Artist to Watch] Oliver Tank

January 2, 2012 • By Sam Rutherford

It’s another late night and those insistent thoughts creep into your mind again. They’re the thoughts that only ever show in these wee small hours; they’re the worries and the wanderings of a lonely mind, feeding off the silent, sleeping world outside. It’s hours like these that need a proper soundtrack.

Certainly, this blog has a long history of posting and loving moody late night albums, so Oliver Tank’s apperance here really shouldn’t be a surprise. His music exists in the vein that began with Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours and was most recently exemplified in The Antlers’ sophomore release. This is the mood of Oliver Tank’s Dreams.

The music itself, though, draws closer comparisons to James Blake, Jamie Woon, and other slow-moving electronic-based vocalists. Where Blake might have used the wub-wub of dubstep, Tank utilizes a slow-dancing string arrangement on “Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion.” And where Woon would have laden the vocals with R&B stylings, Tank’s croons on “Up All Night” are simple and sincere. Like his contemporaries, Tank occasionally layers his voice in electronics, particularly on “Last Time,” where his warbles are smoothed by audio engineering. The result is a cold, lonely robotic sound that compliments the album’s tone well.

Unsurprisingly, Tank’s music is meant for a particular kind of soul. His music is easily comparable to others, but writing it off would be folly. The sparks are, as per usual, in the little details. Tank’s production style is full of minor touches that lend a unique feel to his music. It’s the quietly grand nature of “Grain of Sand,” which takes a page out of glacial ambient tunes. It’s the earnest repeated question of “Up All Night,” the lullaby nature of “Embrace.” I tend to focus on these little things when it comes to up-and-comers and I like what I hear in Oliver Tank.

Oliver Tank: {Facebook | Twitter}
{Listen to Dreams on Spotify}

Filed Under: Ambient, Artist/Band to Watch, Electronic, Music, Pop, Singer-Songwriter