Tag Archives: pop

mp3: YOOFS – FRIGHTMARE

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For one reason or another, there has been no shortage of awesomely catchy and sunny lo-fi music coming out of the UK over the past year or so, and I am in no way complaining.  I’m still not completely sure how I ended up following YOOFS on Soundcloud, but this song makes me extremely glad that I did.  ”FRIGHTMARE”, clocking in at just over 2-minutes, is the perfect short light-hearted and upbeat track that I needed to convince me that summer is actually beginning.  Although I don’t know much at all about the Bournemouth-based band, I will definitely be looking out for them in the future.  Stream “FRIGHTMARE” below and link to their Soundcloud for a few more really good songs after that.

-TC

YOOFS’ SOUNDCLOUD

mp3: HAPPY TRENDY – wobbling around

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The first song I ever heard by HAPPY TRENDY was his awesome cover of Coma Cinema’s “Tour All Winter”.  With this song, he’s once again putting an awesome analog spin on a song, this time by Frankie Cosmos.  Put together with three different synthesizers, and as HAPPY TRENDY puts it a “cardiac muscle” with a warm lo-fi fuzz laid over the top of it, this cover is headphone music at its best.  I would highly suggest you just go to HAPPY TRENDY’s Soundcloud page and just press play because its all really good, but you can also go to his bandcamp and stream some EP’s there.

-TC

mp3: TV Girl & Monster Rally – Average Guy (Blame)

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TV Girl and Monster Rally are two artists that have dominated sample-based electronic and pop music on the blogosphere since around 2011 and with “Average Guy (Blame)” they team up for appropriately sample-based pop bliss.  ”Average Guy (Blame)” mixes the lighthearted, doo-wop innocence of TV Girl with the abstract and hypnotic loops of Monster Rally.  Fair warning, you can’t only listen once.

-PK

420 Love Songs (Second 40)

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For the second 40 songs in Sam Ray and friends’ 420 Love Songs project, it seems like they’ve picked up the pace a little bit, releasing the second installment less than a month after the first.  It also seems like a lot more people are wanting to be a part of it considering the increased variety in artists.  These second 40 songs share the same mood and aesthetic with the last 40 with a bunch of new artists who I have never heard of and know nothing about.  If you are looking for a lot of new, unknown, and really talented artists, this compilation is for you.  And remember to keep checking the 420 Love Songs tumblr.  Stream two of my favorite songs below, by Elvis Depressedly and Alex G respectively, and the whole thing after the jump

-TC

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EP: Julia Brown – to be close to you

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I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is probably the project I was most highly anticipating in 2013.  I hopped on the Teen Suicide bandwagon kind of late, so after they broke up I kind of just looked forward to this album by listening to their old music for a month straight. Julia Brown and Teen Suicide show some clear similarities, but also a lot of differences.  With the distortion toned back a huge amount from most Teen Suicide projects, the extreme lo-fi-ness of the project becomes more evident, but Julia Brown use it to their advantage, almost using the fuzz as an instrument at some points by manipulating it with filters.  Most of the similarities are shown in Sam Ray’s songwriting.  With the poppier aesthetic of Julia Brown, it seems like Ray is now focusing more on creating catchy vocal melodies which he has gotten extremely talented at.  Overall, to be close to you met and exceeded my expectations and solidified my opinion that Sam Ray is probably the name to look out for in the indie world in 2013.  Stream one of my favorite tracks from the album below and listen to the whole thing after the jump.

-TC

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EP: R.L. Kelly – Life’s A Bummer

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Remember when I made that post last night where I said that I hoped R.L. Kelly would release her project soon?  Well, this morning I woke up to the pleasant surprise of R.L. Kelly having released this EP.  The EP, aptly titled Life’s A Bummer so far is definitely living up to my hopes.  Clocking in at just around 15 minutes in length, Life’s A Bummer has 7 fairly short tracks that all have the playful over-indulgence in melodrama that the title suggests.  As R.L. Kelly puts it; “sometimes life’s a bummer but it’s all good baby”, so listen to this.  Below is R.L. Kelly’s cover of an Alex G track, and after the jump you can stream the whole album.

-TC

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mp3: R.L. Kelly – you’re not the only monster from hell

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Here is another brand new gem from the 420 Love Songs tumblr from a new artist going by the name of R.L. Kelly.  R.L. Kelly is a new project from Rachel Levy of Kiss Kiss Fantastic and Teen Porn, and this is the first song she has released under this awesome monicker.  Like most of the other songs on 420 Love Songs, “you’re not the only monster from hell” has the melodramatic feel we have grown to love, as well as heavy pop roots.  With fairly basic instrumentation, this song is a perfect example of keeping things simple and focusing on really really good songwriting.  Apparently there is an R.L. Kelly album waiting to be released, so here’s to hoping that release date comes sooner than later.

-TC