There won't be another Postal Service record, the delicate opening keyboards of James and Evander's single, "Constellating" informs us. A bubbling - and here, I mean figuratively, like watching carbonation work its way up the side of a glass - analog synth progression enters second, as the advance guard of a swelling arrangement, thudding drums, and one of those glittering second movements that are the raison d'etre of electro pop. This is the Oakland duo's first foray into making music with lyrics, in this case regarding human connections, all these invisible threads so easily forgotten. And here we assume they've divined their title, a cosmic connect-the-dots, taking individual balls of incandescent gas and forging them into shapes; one of those silly and desperately important projects that we carefully practice losing after our youth.
A mixture of longing and lust, wrinkled like the last items in the bottom of a duffel, come blithely to the surface in Sun Airway's latest single, "Wild Palms". Dulcet strings form the backing loop and the backbone of the song, in the spirit of the work that Her Space Holiday did back in 2005. Glittering synths enter the frame, adding a dose of unbridled wonder before the band's trademark lo-fi vocals nearly trip over each other to find a shabby but brilliant chorus, as a packaged eighth note high hat bleeds urgency. The arrangement swirls and bobs like a drifting and nearly lost beach toy in the surf and tide. Then, it is not coincidence that Sun Airway's central lyric is the barely deciphered, "just to reach you ...", a receding moment and only that.
No one does mournful, dignified orchestral pop better than Zach Condon's work with Beirut. A suitably sweeping, ukele-based single, "East Harlem" represents Condon's first product since 2009's March of the Zapotec EP and the singer's baroque, Stephin Merritt-style baritone lilts around lyrics like, "Another rose wilts in East Harlem." The second movement, the final 90-seconds, is a horn-rich, figure-eight melody that glides into the distance with serious ease and grace.
Bring your sunglasses, brothers and sisters. It's going to be bright, whether the sun comes out or not. Plus, your Wayfarers, your women's sunglasses (re-appropriated and turned ironically and definitively male), your aviators, your five dollar gas station glasses, all just look so damn cool. Light Vibes, a Swedish outfit, testing the limits of brightness settings turn up the the treble to the highest of high-fi, turning an angular, blinking series of riffs into the most ear-splitting bit of brilliance since you sawPassion Pit on the Chunk Of Change tour. It's almost too much, and suddenly you're back on the playground in 3rd grade with your teacher telling you not to stare directly into the solar eclipse, handing you a shoebox with a pinhole and saying, "Here, now look." Of course, you're not a child anymore and the shoebox is now a pair of sunglasses, ironic or not, to both guard you against and allow you to see such absolute, rare brilliance. You do look cool too, staring directly at "Wish We Had", a slow drive anthem about something lost (for this metaphor, your childhood), something found (here sits your troubled post-adolescence) and something too bright to see. And we'll call that the future, tomorrow.
A very young and very snappy duo from LA, Bad Lamps have lead single, "Never Know The Difference" that is both pleasantly shabby and undeniably taut. Perhaps, this tension is appropriate, given that the band essentially recorded the songs live to DAT, only adding some backing vocals later on. The lyrical motif, "she's just a little spotty British girl" rips as a bit of understated staccato, like the looping drums that clap insistently at the back of the mix. The title lyric is backed by an elevating progression of guitar chords, the kind of thing that sticks in your head immediately and demands to be replayed. From an unexpected source, one of the songs of the summer plays rough around the edges and completely riddled with hooks.
A floral dress confidently above a tanned knee offers both an abstraction and a definitive tableau of a coming summer season. Whoever this girl is, whatever this next turn brings, it will be seen with the impressionists' squint at perfection, utterly blurry and entirely scintillating. Letting Up Despite Great Faults made no mistake with the cover art on their woozy new EP, Paper Crush, or new single, "Teenage Tide". The sound washes some of the color back into the picture, trafficking dizzy melodies and feedback while still discovering a late back beat and soaring guitar lines that wouldn't be uncomfortable in Robert Smith's notebook. The band's song writing has here jagged away from some of their early chillwave flirtations, choosing instead the twee-post-punk direction of another wordy band, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The soft focus of LUDGF's obvious influences take nothing away from "Teenage Tide", one of those finger-tapping, windows down singles in the spirit of "In Between Days", "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" and "Young Adult Friction". You know, the songs you put on the mixtape for the girl in the cover art.
Return to your childhood home, the dare goes, and see how small everything is; how small you must have been for all this to seem so large. This nostalgia grows metastatic on the most delicate heartbreak, played out over a lush five minutes and 18 seconds, as Typhoon spins one of those unforgettable anti-anthems, "Summer Home". Far from a battle cry, lilting guitars and mournful horns open an arrangement that fits in the soft center between the horns of Beirut and the festival folk of Local Natives. The topic, nostos, reflecting, "Can you ever be home again?" The question in this case contains a promise, the bridge reflecting a weepy prediction, "That's how we start over." This is about lost family, contained in metaphors about candles burning down and the tombs of childhood, with the promise of a coming summer and the hope of a lost and returning sister. The second-floor landing isn't nearly the height you remember jumping from, and the attic steps, warm and musky still, contain less of a mystery. The final organ chord, only a resolution by half, full of rosy memories and new rips in the fabric.
