In case you need more adorable in your life (you do!), here’s the latest from twee softies The School’s still-wonderful 2010 debut, Loveless Unbeliever. Pajamas, shopping, going to the park, girl-group hooks: what more do you want? The I Love Everything digital single is out now on Elefant.
It occurs to me that I’ve never posted this, a wonderful Ned Collette cover of the very best Broadcast song. It was recorded for a Cokemachineglow podcast and possibly topped within the Ned catalog only by absolute heartbreaker “The Laughter Across the Street.”
Ned Collette and Wirewalker – “Come On Let’s Go”: mp3
(Buy Collette albums on Bandcamp)
Because what’s better than kicking out She & Him-style jams in the woods? Please keep this band and their wonderful He Knew EP in mind before you buy the charisma-hating Cults record.
Chalk and Numbers – “I Really Want To Work This Out”: mp3
Previously: Chalk and Numbers – He Knew EP
Most bands with guy-girl front-duos tend to improve when the guy stops singing: take Asobi Seksu or Camera Obscura. (The exceptions to the rule are generally Best Band Ever expectation-defiers like Yo La Tengo or, uh, the Velvet Underground.) On Elephant Parade’s Home, however, Estelle and Ido (who don’t list their surnames on FayBoo) share their duties with equal aplomb.
We hear Estelle’s first, on the album’s title track, and it arrives with breathy, waifish charm — Tracyanne Campbell in an East Village apartment. Ido’s tone is less pretty but no less affecting, as gravelly and sad as a wet dog dragged through a quarry on the pointedly titled “Happy.” Estelle matches his suicide-hotline readiness on the picked guitar ballad “Haystacks,” but a number of upbeat moments balance out the early ’00s Bright Eyes vibes: the title track bursts into a mini-Elephant 6 horn crescendo; “Crazy BF” borrows Postal Service synthesizers (and Ben Gibbard lyrical themes, though it’s a kinder, gentler heart possession); not to mention the ringing major chords and fine harmonies (!) of “Broken Fridge that Hums.”
You won’t make it through the record without a healthy tolerance for spare bedroom downers (two thumbs, this guy, etc.), but Elephant Parade offer a refreshingly capable spin on homemade sad-pop and sunnier efforts alike. Oh, and that battle of the sexes? Mission accomplished.
Elephant Parade – “Crazy BF”: mp3
Stream and buy the album after the jump via Bandcamp. Read the rest of this entry »
“My friend Scott Bartenhagen…” Micol Cazzell began in a recent e-mail, and, well, any friend of Scott’s is a friend of Rawkblog’s. Cazzell also makes delicate, tender folk, though his falls more in line with the airy, porcelain beauty of late-period Elliott Smith or Slowreader. On “Burnside,” his doubled vocals — just out of sync enough to make your hair stand on end — rise around a single finger-picked acoustic guitar, a cowboy song sung by ghosts.
Micol Cazzell – “Burnside”: mp3
(Spinner’s Yarn was released in 2010; stream it after the jump)
As proudly pop as it is fiercely raucous, Standard Fare’s The Noyelle Beat sounds like the Pretenders by way of the Promise Ring. The Sheffield act spends the album, its debut, successfully toeing the line between mathematical guitar aggression and twee softness, a marriage most prominent in sometimes-singer Emma Kupa’s unhinged but never unmelodic alto. It’s lo-fi but in the genre’s classic sense: low-budget and simply arranged and performed rather than buried in a trendy reverb-fuzz coffin.
The poppier moments lend heart to the guitar crunch and crashing drums, but even at its lightest, the band never slips below Speed Racer BPMs. Lyrically, Standard Fare stick mostly with love stories: an underage infatuation, a lover’s hoped-for return, narratives told with naivete and sincerity. On The Noyelle Beat, there’s plenty to fall for.
Standard Fare – “Dancing”: mp3
Related: Best of 2010
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The music of Demerit, Samuel harkens back to two of the best albums of 2004: On the one hand, the medium-fi folk anthems of Rogue Wave’s Out of the Shadow; on the other, the electro-acoustic dystopias of Chad VanGaalen’s Infiniheart. On “Organic Robots” and the rest of 2010′s Halfhearted Demos mini-album, the musician offers acoustic charm along with pre-chillwave bedroom beats — and despite the self-deprecating title, a collection of effort and craft in our age of nottryingveryhardcore.
Demerit, Samuel – “Organic Robots”: mp3
Hear the full set after the jump. (Photo via Facebook) Read the rest of this entry »
The Wrens, 2004 / photo by David Greenwald
In a better world, the Wrens would be co-headlining shows with Spoon and pumping out a new album a year. Instead, it’s been eight years since the band’s The Meadowlands, and we don’t have much to show for it. “Crescent,” a demo from the Dear New Orleans charity compilation, is one bright spot — a song that makes the band sound like they could lay down another five-star classic tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
