Posts in Music

I hope everyone is having a relaxing time as this year wraps up, here it is the last 25 to pair up with yesterdays post, what a great year for new sounds and musicians experimenting. I will have a honorable mentions list for tomorrow, let know your thoughts.

25. Minks – Ophelia
24. Flying Lotus – Recoiled
23. Games – Everything Is Working
22. Bvdub – No More Reasons Not To Fall
21. Salem – Trapdoor
20. Holy Other – Yr Love
19. Telefon Tel Aviv – Lengthening Shadows
18. Active Child – I’m In Your Church At Night
17. Emeralds – Shade
16. Portishead – Chase The Tear
15. Small Black – Pleasant Experience
14. Deerhunter – Helicopter
13. Loscil – Lake Orchard
12. Mark McGuire – Brain Storm (for Erin)
11. Caribou – Hannibal
10. Four Tet – Angel Echoes
09. Tame Impala – Alter Ego
08. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Round And Round
07. Benoit Pioulard – Tack & Tower
06. Oneohtrix Point Never – Where Does Time Go
05. The Soft Moon – Parallels
04. Com Truise – Slow Peels
03. Ducktails – Mirrorimage
02. Kisses – People Can Do The Most Amazing Things
01. Toro Y Moi – Low Shoulder

Purchase this music at any of these fine retailers:
iTunes / eMusic / Insound / Boomkat UK / Other Music

After weeks of going thru my posts and not looking at other websites end of year lists I finally finished the my favorite songs of 2010. We will release #25 – #1 tomorrow and honorable mentions on Friday, good news for all of us is that we get a big fatty playlist pretty much, joy! Now off to see what other sites put!

50. Small Black – Camouflage
49. Korallreven – The Truest Faith
48. Keep Shelly In Athens – A Tear In My I
47. Onra – Long Distance (Instrumental)
46. Prins Thomas – Nattonsket
45. Oriol – Coconut Coast
44. How To Dress Well – Ready For The World
43. Houses – Soak It Up
42. Anika – Officer Officer
41. Weekend – End Times
40. Sun Araw – Beat Cop
39. Gonjasufi – Candylane (Bibio Remix)
38. The Drums – Forever and Ever Amen
37. Motor City Drum Ensemble – Raw Cuts #6
36. Baths – Nordic laurel
35. Stellar Om Source – Island Best
34. Rangers – Golden Triangles
33. Actress – Hubble
32. The Radio Dept. – The Video Dept.
31. Bonobo – All In Forms
30. Real Estate – Younger Than Yesterday
29. The Beat Broker – Deep Sleep
28. Peter Broderick – Pulling The Rain
27. Sun Kil Moon – Alesund
26. Sepalcure – The Warning

Purchase this music at any of these fine retailers:
iTunes / eMusic / Insound / Boomkat UK / Other Music

I’m soo happy to hear these honest sounds from the new Dntel EPs, lets bury Postal Service in the backyard and pretend we never worked with Ben Gibbard. One listen all the way thru both EPs had me feeling like he really loved what the outcome was on these songs.

Have you asked yourself how the next Toro Y Moi album might sound like? well here’s a taste, a lot more funk and relying on his given talents, no smoke and mirrors just beautiful key work.

The intro to Painted Palms’ All Of Us is being played on loop, just those first few notes, I LOVE IT!

I don’t know much about Australian born Reuben Ingall but I do enjoy his loose structure and processing, a nice change of pace for both manipulated string work, not too avant garde and not too trendy.

DOWNLOAD THE EP HERE FOR FREE

A handful of talented musicians were kind enough to do a last minute holiday cover song for all of us. Beautiful Bells might have won my heart over with probably the best experimental beat holiday song ever made. While Sun Hammer and Direwires duel it out over Silent Night, both takes will hold your patient ears with warming results. Toronto’s Warren Hildebrand aka Foxes In Fiction does an impeccable job of covering John Lennon and label mate Weed takes on the ever popular All I Want For Christmas and roughs it up perfectly with his notable garage sound. Last but not least the duo The Depot-Tones:

“Attached is a cleaned up, restored version of The Depot-Tones covering “Wonderful Christmas Time”. This was from a 7″ culled from the 45 dollar bin from Cousins Records during a recent digging expedition. The true identity of the Depot-Tones is shrouded in question, and every answer leads to five more questions. The best I’ve been able to figure out is the lead singer lived near Prospect Park and the rest of the band were all employees of the Chick-Inn drive in. This was a holiday promotional item sponsored by the Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce and given away to customers. This is indeed excellence aged in cuban rum and virgin oak barrels and bottled in containers of crystal.”

I’ve been finding myself watching more fan made videos than the actual official videos I guess because I love all the found footage. Don’t get me wrong there are some quality directed videos out there but I just seemed to love both equally as much right now. Back in 2008 I shared my Top 5 favorite videos, the ones below i’ve recently enjoyed.

Stellar Om Source

Active Child

Memoryhouse

Small Sails

The Avalanches

NPR featured We’ll Never Stop Living This Way: A Ghostly Primer, you can listen to all these songs before the release on their site in 3 parts, it includes plenty of exclusives and some of the hit singles by the main crew of artists that have released on the label.

Tracklisting below:
1 GOLD PANDA – Peaky Caps
2 SHIGETO – Eternal Life
3 OUTPUTMESSAGE – Bernard’s Song
4 MATTHEW DEAR – Fleece On Brain
5 DABRYE – Jorgy (feat. Waajeed)
6 MOBIUS BAND – Multiply
7 TYCHO – Coastal Brake
8 DANIEL WANG – Berlin Sunrise (Diskjokke Version) [Unreleased]
9 SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – Half Asleep (Lusine Remix)
10 AEROC – My Love, The Wave Break
11 LAWRENCE – Five Leaves
12 CHOIR OF YOUNG BELIEVERS – Hollow Talk
13 TADD MULLINIX – Exchanging Modes
14 THE SIGHT BELOW – No Place For Us
15 LOSCIL – Union Dusk
16 BENOIT PIOULARD – Little A Strongly More Go I
17 PALE SKETCHER – Dummy (Bahnhoff Version)
18 CEPIA – Tape
19 MIDWEST PRODUCT – Clarity
20 OSBORNE – Outta Sight (Luke Vibert Remix)
21 LUSINE – Double Vision
22 SOLVENT – Loss For Words (Solvent’s CompuRhythm Mix)
23 JDSY – Horizon Line
24 DEASTRO – Tone Adventure #3
25 MICHNA – Redline Flights
26 THE REFLECTING SKIN – Traffickers
27 MUX MOOL – Crackers
28 KILN – Flycatcher
29 KATE SIMKO – The Creative Part
30 COM TRUISE – Cyanide Sisters [Unreleased]

Excuse this dark tone period i’ve been highly enjoying, it definitely has something to do with the winter and also wanting to listening to more than just drone, diggin deep for colorful and moody material. One of the less ambient pieces on this new A Setting Sun EP is this remix by Dial81, if you like it download it for free.

I fully support anything by Rafael Anton Irisarri but this one is an absolute gem, he needs to be scoring film on the highest level, he can grab sounds and articulate an emotion so well.

I don’t usually stream music like Swans on ISO50 but I can’t hold back on this one, too much passion behind their own sound, I can only share and sit back and be blown away.

The Soft Moon video for “Circles” premiered today, check it out:

Man, we haven’t had a good 70’s interior architecture photo in a while, had to let this one fly. Any info on the place or chair?

I was actually saving this song by Rainer Trueby as a secret weapon for a mix but it just needs to be out there, pure heat, one of the best deep house tracks I know about.

White Sea is the girl from M83, great producer that Benjamin Curtis turned me onto. I love the epic release of the backing vox(the ho’s and hums) they go off like bells.

One of the best video game commercial licensings of a song has to be this UNKLE usage for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, i’m not really into the song a ton but in the tv commercial its used almost as good as the Gears of War 2 usage of Devotchka. I know not a usual pick.

Some J Dilla for you.

I can’t find the right words for this stunning song by Kangding Ray, I haven’t been this excited about a singers voice in a song since I heard The Rip by Portishead. She comes in perfectly after 2/3rd’s of the song is done and she does minimal amounts but its an awesome marriage when it comes together, so subtle and you get off easy with only a slim 4 minutes.

This is one of the many reasons why Mark McGuire was on my Top 10 albums of 2010 twice.

Madlib drops off a remix for one of the best producers to live: J Dilla

David Lynch talking to The Guardian UK about his debut music release.

I’m a big fan of Alan Braxe when he does something right, he took this Pacifc! remix and set the pace perfectly in an epic way.

An OLD Kruder & Dorfmeister edit of Depeche Mode, classic downtempo.

Found this compilation that Mokira was on, I think the whole idea behind it was songs sampling birds, super lush and gentle, I recommend the track by Tape too.

If you work in music then should always peek in and see what Rastor Noton is doing right, they have been classy since the beginning, makes you feel like you running everything in your life like a lemonade stand, check out this sleek piece by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto.