beat radio :: "Sunday Matinee" and "Sleepwalking"

I have a particularly bad habit of pointing out my favorite part of a song. Now, this is not irrational but it is probably pretty annoying as I look increasingly excited, raise my hand in a "stop, no, no, keep going" sort of way and say something like, "wait, this is my favorite part." It is reductionist. It is socially gauche. It is still what keeps me coming back to certain moments in music - my favorite part, maybe at your expense, but my favorite part.

New York's beat radio have a fuzzy pop-record with lyrics from the confessional and observational school of Ben Gibbard. "Sunday Matinee" is a back-loaded meditation on what it feels like to go see rock music with a girl that you're uncontrollably into. Perhaps more importantly, it's about finding that moment, in yourself or in someone else, where you say "stop stop, this is my favorite part." Finding transcendence in one moment, "when the bass drops out/and the singer screams and shouts/and you say, 'this is that song I was talkin' about,'" and meaning in a quieter one: "and when you lean in close/and tell me it's the part you love the most." Yeah, waitwait, this is it. Right here. Listen.

Listen :: beat radio - "Sunday Matinee"
Listen :: beat radio - "Sleepwalking"

Kurt Vile :: "Hunchback"

I am not always in the mood for slow-form, pissed-off rock and roll. But if I were in the mood for slow-form, pissed-off rock and roll, I would be listening to Kurt Vile's new record Childish Prodigy. Lead-single, "Hunchback" is the head-nodding, after-hours-in-a-bar-with-no-sign-in-a-city-you-barely-know, over-use-of-the-hyphen type of rock and roll. On the surface it's simple, but that's until the sun goes down. This is downtown bar rock. It needs no comparison and it needs no introduction. In fact, it doesn't particularly care for you. So you walk away or you nod along slowly.

Listen :: Kurt Vile - "Hunchback"

Digits :: "Nonstop" and "You're Going To Age"

Digits spin tight electro-pop out of Toronto in a way that makes you think Phoenix and the Postal Service got together on a new NAFTA (all free-market connotations aside). The arrangements are lush, pulsing and emoting from one moment to the next. There are moments in "You're Going To Age" that evoke the best parts of Plastic Operator and there are moments in "Nonstop" that substantiate a more organic side of Phoenix's last album. Whirring keyboard loops, shifts of pace and complex, yet not overly academic, bleeps and blips color digital soundscapes that might represent the best electronic record you've heard this year. Digits are for real, as is Hold It Close, his debut record. Check it out in long-form. It just might make you head north.

Listen :: Digits - "Nonstop"
Listen :: Digits - "You're Going To Age"

Editors :: "Papillion" [LAmour La mourge Remix]

Editors returned with a booming, synth-heavy new single "Papillion" a few weeks back. The usual critics stepped up to say the predictable things. Frankly, they've never much liked this band in the first place. But "Papillion" wasn't necessarily in existence to please the illuminati. It was dark, sounding halfway like Orgy's take on "Blue Monday" from 1999 and halfway like a lost Human League single from '85. With all these electronics and synths humming around, it was ripe for remix. Striking the balance between love and death (about right for a band with this sense of over-blown drama), the L'Amour La mourge remix throws some 90s house-piano behind a major-key take on the the original melody. With room for an oddly spacious breakdown, it turns "Papillion" from a synthesizer throw-back to a club-ready dance cut. If you didn't like Editors before, don't get ready to change your mind. But if you thought Bloc Party's "Flux" was fun and "One More Chance" was even better, this remix of "Papillion" might set you on fire. And if you don't like it, the fake crowd-noise as we come out of the bridge will make sure everyone thinks you did.

Listen :: Editors - "Papillion" [L'Amour La mourge Remix]

On The List :: Rural Alberta Advantage @ Bowery Ballroom [10.7.09]

This review runs in full on Bowery's Houselist.

"... In all fairness, the band played the set they’ve been touring with for months. “Don’t Haunt This Place” and “Frank, AB” were lodged firmly in the middle. A cover of ABBA’s “S.O.S.” appeared unexpectedly and Cole explained, “Our first show was a cover show and no one came, so now, to be at The Bowery Ballroom….” She kind of trailed off but Edenloff added how lucky he felt to be there with us. Of course, we felt lucky to be there with them. The band closed with its best song, “In the Summertime,” and “Deathbridge in Lethbridge,” the most upbeat. The lyrics echoed out from “Summertime” as Edenloff said the things that make us sway. This was the moment where things went unexpectedly well. And we smiled because we couldn’t help it."

Listen :: The Rural Alberta Advantage - "Don't Haunt This Place"
Listen :: The Rural Alberta Advantage - "Frank, AB"

Temper Trap :: "Sweet Disposition" [Alan Wilkis Remix]

The Temper Trap album didn't quite deliver like we thought it might. Maybe the fall from grace started at SXSW 2009 when a series of A&Rs told us the band looked a huge future in the face and blinked. This was terrible timing. They were only a few months away from an enormous feature spot in a hugely disappointing summer movie, 500 Days of Summer. In fairness to the band, "Sweet Disposition" was a massive piece of arena-pop and it was used somewhat inappropriately in the film. At the critical moment, we needed to hear the band's erupting chorus, a series of half-statements, "won't stop 'til it's over/won't stop 'til we surrender." Instead, it was chopped-instrumentals and a few vague illusions. And when things don't turn out exactly like you expect, you can always fashion them back together like any number of discarded pieces. This is when we get a remix. This is when we try again.

Listen :: Temper Trap - "Sweet Disposition" [Alan Wilkis Remix]

Vampire Weekend :: "Horchata"

Yesterday, around the middle of the afternoon, Vampire Weekend descended from a nearly three year lay-off (let's remember when those songs were really recorded). What stumbled out of the speakers was something confident and glistening, thumping and primal, mercurial and wilting. "Horchata," a piece of pop music destined crush backlash like a whispering paper tiger, is a statement of purpose, a return to Ithaka to lay waste to all the impostors who dressed like you but never could string your bow. So we wait for Contra this winter and warm our fall with "Horchata" and its signature lyric, "here comes the feeling you thought you'd forgotten." Now, you remember.

Listen :: Vampire Weekend - "Horchata"