A gorgeous new song here from Roísín Murphy, the Irish musician with the velvety croon and a track record of adventurous dance music. Fans of what we used to call “electronica” may recognize her as the voice of Moloko, whose 1999 hit “Sing It Back” achieved global ubiquity with its inspired juxtaposition of minor-chord guitar […]
Okay, I’ve been told I have a particular weakness for electronic music duos with female vocals, particularly those from Toronto. (In fact, I’m at work on a book about Martha and the Muffins, the prototype for this sub-subgenre.) But that doesn’t diminish the impact of Etiquette. Their single “Outside In” wraps placid vocals, water-colored keyboards, […]
When you’re a bartender, you develop a thick skin to handle the drunken idiots and jerks who can make your job hell. But if you work at a Mission District dive bar to support a career as a singer-songwriter, it really helps to develop added immunity against the artifice and superficial novelty, musical or otherwise, […]
Oh hell yes — this is how I like my rock’n’roll in 2015: a clash of hot and cold, sweat and brains, adrenal glands and parasympathetic nervous system, in-the-moment abandon and knowing craftsmanship, explosive sound, a refusal of tidy resolution, drowned in reverb, more more MORE. This is the trick that Northern California garage-rockers Male […]
Ahh, the deathless sound of sexy cool female vocals atop a driving electronic beat. It draws a line through forty years of pop music, starting from its Eurodisco origins in Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” (from which came the description “Moroderesque”); on into new wave exemplars the Human League and Yazoo; Italo disco and its […]
Two things happen when Moon King play “Apocalypse” straight into “Roswell” in this live performance video. First, the songs reveal themselves as variations of each other. “Apocalypse” is the one with the extended introduction, “Roswell” the one that ends with the extra chords, but both convey the same exuberant motion, drawing out a few chords […]
Holy hell, what is this? My friends, this is psychedelic music as you may not have heard in years or (if you’re young enough) at all. I’m not talking about the exercises in feedback, drone and repetition associated with “psych rock”; the 1960s-inspired noodling of jam bands and their indie-rock counterparts; or the inevitable mindf–kery […]
Look, I have no space left in my iTunes for another “Beach” group. Beach House, Dirty Beaches, Beach Fossils, Nude Beach — when is this going to stop? But… I’ll make an exception for the Brooklyn group Beech Creeps, and not just because they tweak the usual “beach” spelling. As presented on the video for […]
Even in England, famous for its eccentrics, nutters and rabble-rousers, Julian Cope stands out. After establishing his neo-psychedelia bona fides with short-lived group The Teardrop Explodes, chasing the “120 Minutes”-era brass ring as a solo artist (“World Shut Your Mouth,” anyone?), and finding artistic vindication with 1991’s Peggy Suicide, he dropped off the radar of […]
I’m so jazzed that one of the 2015 releases I’ve been especially looking forward to is now in sight: Lower Dens‘ third album, Escape from Evil. The Baltimore quartet tease its release next month with “To Die In L.A.”, their first new music in three years. Lower Dens made their splash with an austere, icy […]