Wild Nothing

Here are two tracks from Wild Nothing, the one-man band project of Virginia's Jack Tatum, both due to appear on the forthcoming LP, Gemini.

DOWNLOAD: Wild Nothing - Summer Holiday
DOWNLOAD: Wild Nothing - Confirmation

Trouble Books - Gathered Tones

One of the most overlooked albums of 2008 for me was The United Colour of Trouble Books; The eponymous debut of an Ohio three piece who craft little home made elegies using tape hiss, battered old keyboards and introspective lyrics. Trouble Books are intriguing in that it's difficult to categorise them as anything other than ambient pop, and yet there's nothing particularly pop about any of their songs either. You'll find little in the way of neat rhyming couplets, verse chorus structure or even recurring melodies here, just occasional glimpses at fragmented versions of the latter.

Their pop tendencies are clearest on lead single Past The New Parking Deck, with it's bubbling synths and vocal hooks it's the track most likely to ingrain itself in your mind and demand repeat listens. Though pop elements also come to the fore with the driving beat on Tropical Islands despite the melody being obscured by scratches of poly synth. This melts away as fuzzy noise engulfs the song until it fades away with just a few chimes of light intact. This is something common to quite a few of the tracks, it also happens on Night Indoors and Ascending Kidney. Really it's the ambient element that the group excel in and although these tracks might not linger in your head as much afterwards they are the most enjoyable whilst listening. The cyclical humming drones of Dazzle Ships which sounds like a patchwork of Hammock and Brian Eno is a particular highlight.

Trouble Books Myspace

Baptism - Crystal Castles

Outragous Banger



DOWNLOAD: Baptism - Crystal Castles

Team Ghost

Debut EP from this Paris band, led by former M83 member Nicolas Fromageau



LISTEN: Team Ghost - You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me

The Radio Dept

Sweden's Radio Dept. endear by filtering traditional indie and dream-pop sounds through an electronic haze. They've admirably honored their genre's history every step of the way, incorporating elements of vintage Slumberland noise-pop, sadder 80s UK indie sounds, and the kind of romantic, low-key dance-pop typically associated with Saint Etienne, or more recently, the Tough Alliance.

Lissie - Lady GaGa - Bad Romance Cover

Caribou - Odessa

“Odessa,” the first single from Caribou’s upcoming LP Swim, is sexy. “Elctropop” and “disco” are often used in the description of the song, and, indeed, “Odessa” is more reminiscent of bands like Hot Chip or Hercules and Love Affair than Caribou’s previous material. A prominent bassline, a little house vibe that would make the good people of Jersey Shore proud, tender vocals, production tricks – all wrapped up into one synthy, eighties-y package. “Odessa” sounds like it is emerging from a dark place, coming to smoke a cigarette out on the street in the rain. It would have to be summertime, it would have to be sweaty, there would have to be a flickering streetlight somewhere.

Like Hot Chip and Hercules and Love Affair, Caribou’s new disco bent doesn’t focus on that hot club ecstasy so much as a weird, strangely melancholy sensuality. Added to the video – a woman stumbling and driving through fog, smoke, and ghostly, disconnected memories – “Odessa” tells a strange, captivating story of love, loss, and escape. And it works like a charm.

DOWNLOAD:
Caribou - Odessa (LINK OFFLINE DUE TO COPYRIGHT)
Caribou - Odessa (Nite Jewel Remix)