Yep, I’m late. Here’s some neat songs:
- ♦ Tyler Lyle leads off my favorite tracks of August with ‘The Golden Age & The Silver Girl’ off the album of the same name, an absolutely brilliant and eerie reclamation of Paul Simon’s hallmark 2nd self-titled release from 1965 (i.e. if you wanted to enjoy this year’s Paul Simon album but were confused as to why he was singing about cooking gumbo on SNL in this second clip down, buy Lyle’s album off bandcamp for $6, I did).
- ♦ Overall this month I gravitated more towards simple indie-pop and slower piano-driven numbers, with standouts in the form of Zach Condon’s baroque chamber-crooning on Beirut ‘Goshen’(his style always makes me feel as though I’m an extra in that Amadeus movie), Matt Berninger’s plaintive baritone on The National ‘Exile Vilify’(his style always makes me feel as though I’m an extra in someone’s intensely personal therapy session), and the complacently pleasant Air Review ‘Waiting Lessons’ (which made me feel like an extra in that Oh Brother Where Art Thou scene where Alison Kraus took over the soundtrack and nearly made me start attending mass again).
- Butcher Blades and Voltaire Twins both emerged as two of the newest names from Australia’s indie-electronic hype machine, both earning this vaulted exclamation through original material and remix production chops. Some argue Butcher Blades essentially create and produce Donkey Kong Country video game beats a la Super Nintendo, but I err on the side of The Little Mermaid Soundtrack. These are good things. Voltaire Twins follow in the footsteps of one of my favorite and possibly most underrated bands Mew (I mean, listen to that guitar build), crafting their own brand of shrouded, haunted-house dance music with ‘Animalia’. Along a similarly awesome vein, Niki & the Dove continue their rapid ascent to my favorite new group with a twisted, pan-flute driven synthesis of The Knife, Kate Bush, and Cyndi Lauper. I like to think this is dark-basement pop for the point of the night where you don’t need to play any more Katy Perry. There, I said it.
- ♦ Last, at some point sit down and play Wise Blood ‘Loud Mouths’ very loud. It’s a disturbing, funky and occult blur, a religious hymnal hijacked by some sort of succubus. That is fun to type. On the other side of the spectrum / world, I wanted to end with Spirit Sisters ‘He’, a warm, nostalgic junction of strings, vocal samples, and faded electronic blips that undulates and churns over 3 minutes of calm. A song built for the repeat button, not to measure time spent listening but to lose any reference or care for it.
If you want an e-mail reminder of when I get my sh*t together and actually post these mixes sign-up here. I’m posting music videos about twice a day on the Bempology Facebook Page below as well and once in awhile my roommate comments on them. Enjoy the Oh Land video below, it’s trippy in all the right ways and Nanna Øland Fabricius dances inside a chair.