Electronic/Ambient
Listen: Pussy Wizard – “Brave Horatius (2001-2011)”
“I started playing music under the moniker Brave Horatius in 2001 when my parents got me a digital 8-track recorder. My mom had given me a book called Opal. It was the diary of a 6 year old orphaned girl. Brave Horatius was her dog and constant companion. I made a couple of really embarrassing tapes and gave them to a few friends. My punk band had broken up and I was sad because I got dumped for the first time. Typical early 2000’s late-teenage post fuck the system angst all encompassed by the depression of beginning to enter adulthood to a soundtrack of Fevers and Mirrors on repeat. College came with confusion and drinking and smoking and other not-so-hard drugs and more heartbreak and reading Bukowski and thinking “oh I get it now.” Whatever. I made a little zine/CDR EP thing, had a song on a compilation, put out a split, and did a few tours. Moved to San Francisco in 2008. Recorded songs with a 4-track in a vacant apartment above mine. Moved back to South Carolina in 2011 and decided the moniker was exhausted and boring. I worked a decade on trying to capture songs how they were imagined and never got it the way I wanted and I wanted to move on. So I made Pussy Wizard to avoid the seriousness that often leads to huge expectations that often lead to huge disappointments. But here is a time capsule of attempts at making a record I unrealistically imagined for far too long.”
Listen: Julia Brown – “to be close to you”
To support the band, you can buy the album on their Bandcamp page on a “Name Your Price” basis or you can buy the tape version from Birdtapes. The download of the album comes with a fifteen page lyric zine, which is common with Ricky Eat Acid releases and the tape version comes with a sticker by a friend of the band Brad “brohloff”. From the band about the album, “any money paid for this music/donated to us goes towards funding the studio time we have booked between february and april, as well as helping us get the touring setup we need for the summer. please don’t feel obligated to pay, and feel free to grab it for free, but know that if you do donate, the money is helping us make more music.” You can stream the album below and more information about the band can be found on their Tumblr, and Facebook pages.
Listen: R.L. Kelly – “Life’s A Bummer”
Listen: Ricky Eat Acid – “I can hear the heart breaking as one”
In Ray’s own words about the track, “i’ve been having this dream that spans a few weeks and each night in my dream it grows less and less dark until the last few nights it stays completely light out even though there’s no sun and at that point i just stop sleeping and on the last night i go outside at 4 am and the sky is blue and i go inside to grab my camera because of the way the trees look against the blue sky and my dad is in my room reading the bible on my bed with my cat sitting on his lap and he tells me that the end is coming soon.”
Listen: Julia Brown – “library”
You can download one of the songs off the upcoming release called library. It was released through a friend of the band, Mat Cothran’s (Coma Cinema/Elvis Depressedly) blog. Compared to Teen Suicide this track has a much more pop aesthetic with both male and female vocals creating a completely different sound and an all together beautiful track. Fans of any of the bands affiliated with the Unlimited Free Milkshakes Label or part of the 420 Love Songs compilation should definitely check this band out. You can listen to a Julia Brown B-side song titled dizzy below.
Track Listing:
1. ‘im falling in love’
2. library
3. how i spent my summer
4. i will do this for the rest of my life
5. 5/21/11
6. i was my own favorite tv show the summer my tv broke
7. virginia
8. to be close to you
Stream: Unknown Mortal Orchestra- II
Their new record II, is available for streaming exclusively through NPR and can be preordered from their website. They begin touring February 2nd, all of their February dates are available below, the dates to the rest of their tour are also available on their website.
Tour Dates:
Feb 02 – Zepp Divercity (Tokyo, Japan)
Feb 06 – Trix Club (Antwerp, Belgium)
Feb 07 – Paradiso (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Feb 08 – Prince Charles (Berlin, Germany)
Feb 13 – Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA)
Feb 14 – Constellation Room (Santa Ana, CA)
Feb 15 – Echoplex (Los Angeles, CA)
Feb 16 – Beauty Bar (Las Vegas, NV)
Feb 18 – Lowbrow Palace (El Paso, TX)
Feb 19 – The Korova (San Antonio, TX)
Feb 20 – The Mohawk (Austin, TX)
Feb 21 – Fitzgerald’s (Houston, TX)
Feb 22 – One Eyed Jacks (New Orleans, LA)
Feb 23 – 529 (Atlanta, GA)
Feb 27 – Rock & Roll Hotel (Washington, DC)
Feb 28 – Bowery Ballroom (New York, NY)
Mar 01 – First Unitarian Church (Phildelphia, PA)
Listen: Pill Friends – “Forgetting You”
Next week Pill Friends will release their EP Murder Me For My Sins. Pill Friends is a three piece lo-fi band out of Philadelphia, incorporating cello, drums and guitar. While their number of releases are limited, their style varies greatly from song to song. They recently released Forgetting You, one of the featured tracks on the new EP. The track has a very ambient feel to it, which is a completely different direction compared to songs like Bummertime and Pillspillspills. Despite lack of a completeness factor to each release, Pill Friends are admirably something different to add to your music library. The punk/lo-fi feeling is energizing and catchy. Stream or download Forgetting You below and be sure to check out the full EP sometime next week and download their previous EP for free on their Bandcamp.
Listen: The Arab Springs – “Radost Moya”
The Arab Springs, Ross Devlin’s ambient experimental pop project recently unveiled their debut album Radost Moya. Devlin known for his work under the Wolf Fluorescence moniker, crafts drone-filled numbers with the vocal stylings of Ellery Roberts formerly from the now deceased WU LYF. Similarly Devlin uses his voice as an instrument to compliment the tracks’ layers swapping between airy and impassioned vocals. Combining drum loops, a variety of synthesiser melodies, and surreal lyrics Radost Moya floats seamlessly from track to track in a dreamlike sonic journey.
In Devlin’s own words about the release, “I recorded everything myself – some digital and some analog – mostly over this past summer. I was inspired to not really care if there’s a little bit of ugliness in my music which is always something that I’ve been conscious of. If you read any of the lyrics, the songs are mostly pretty gloomy, but there’s hope in them, and that’s where the name The Arab Springs came from.” You can download the album on a ‘Name Your Price’ basis from The Arab Springs’ Bandcamp and stream it above. For more information follow their Facebook page.
Watch: A Year With Armin van Buuren
Armin van Buuren, the number one DJ for a consecutive 4 years from 2007 – 2011, gives his fans a 1 hour documentary about his life right now as a superstar producer/DJ. The documentary humanizes Armin van Buuren, even though we think of him as a huge idol. It shows his personal life with his wife and daughter, while juggling the dates and months that he will be on tour for his massive fanbase. This could easily be one of my favorite documentaries about a DJ right now as it captures the personality of a great DJ. Another great documentary to watch is Take One, which is a documentary about the Swedish House Mafia.
Listen: Sultan & Ned Shepard feat. Sia, Usher, Martin Solveig – Walls (3LAU Vocal Edit)
3LAU, a producer/DJ and one of the best mashup artists in the EDM scene right now, gives a free track for his fans. Adding vocals to Sultan & Ned Shepard hit progressive house song, Walls. 3LAU adds a perfect blend of vocals for the song, 3LAU always delivers good music and gives us a single track after releasing his mixtape, Dance Floor Filth 2 that came out a couple months ago. 3LAU also produces his own music, he has released his own remix to James Egbert‘s Back to New, and he has a new track coming out soon with the duo Paris and Simo.
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