Keeping with today’s theme of molasses-slow, euphoric, female-fronted dream pop, here’s Brooklyn-via-London duo Belle Mare with the lovely, haunting “The Boat Of The Fragile Mind” »
I tend to prefer schizophrenic, multi-layered compositions these days: the sort of music informed by the frenetic, overblown dissemination of information and culture that’s defined much of our globalized, connected world over the last twenty years. Perhaps that makes minimal gems like “The Boat Of The Fragile Mind” all the more compelling. It’s strangely disconcerting and comforting at the same time, with eerie-sweet vocal harmonies that swell the song’s otherwise empty space. “We could make it out alive,” Amelia Bushell croons, suggesting there’s a place for the delicate and intrapersonal in this world as much as the shared and interpersonal. An increasingly novel if not wholly foreign concept altogether.
Here’s a first listen from former Floridian (now Bostonian) Emily Reo‘s upcoming summer album. “Happy Birthday” is from that Elestial Sound compilation that everyone’s beentalking about. Love me some swooning, waltzy dream pop:
There’s some terrific stuff brewing in the center of the continental United States, something I found out first hand when attending Middle of the Map Fest. Kansas City has a crazy close-knit music scene and to say it’s thriving might be an understatement. The problem (or maybe this is beauty of it more than anything else) is that not many people outside of KC seem to know what they’re brewing. Soft Reeds were a group I came across during my brief visit, impressed with their choleric rhythmic rock that this group makes. They’ve got a gusto like Gang of Four but with richer overtones and vacillating vocals that are velvet enough to really bellow given the right atmosphere.
Because this is an excellent cover, even if the lyrics are wrong (which they mostly seem to be). If you’re living under a rock and haven’t heard the original:
Ever since dropping that ridiculous video+track combo in “All Ways” (featuring a greenscreen dude walking around a cityscape), Austin’s Corduroi has been high on my radar. If there weren’t an already abundant list of reasons why, here’s another… “Mainomai” is one of the most high-intensity, ADD-addled electronic tracks I’ve heard in a while:
