Gundelach – Spiders

Gundelach starting cementing himself into the Oslo club scene at 16, but he wasn’t there to party. He was there to learn. He spent night after night observing the DJs, time that would eventually pay off in an opportunity to spin records himself. Yet while he was doing this, Gundelach began teaching himself a new aspect of music: writing and singing songs of his own.

“Spiders” is our first real taste of this hard work and it’s an impressive one at that. Effortlessly toeing the line between pop and electronic, Gundelach shows an incredible knack for writing and producing introspective material. With delicate vocals and throbbing electronic beats, “Spiders” is an effective first offering that hooks us just enough, while also emphasizing Gundelach’s huge potential.

Read the rest of this article at Pigeons & Planes

Trevor Powers released his latest record as Youth Lagoon, Savage Hills Ballroom, back in September. The effort featured 10 highly revealing tracks, but not every song recorded during the album sessions in Bristol, UK made it onto the final release. Today, Powers has revealed a new, non-album cut entitled “I’ve Seen”.

The track opens with a clatter of silverware while Powers sings in his uniquely pinched voice, “I see you hunger but still share/ I see you risk without a dare/ So why now do I talk and no one’s there?” Piano plods on in the foreground before it’s all whipped up by a frenzy of indie rock noise. There’s a dreamy, determined drive throughout the rest of the song as it rises and falls through a number of musical shifts, from grooving bass parts to heavily reverberating guitar moans. There’s a daring, sturdy energy that clearly dances in the same ballroom as Youth Lagoon’s latest full-length release.

Read the rest of this article at Consequence of Sound

The Brinks – Temporary Love

The Brinks have been making a name for themselves since the release of their title track “Temporary Love.” Like Father John Misty coiling into the west coast vibe of early Neighbourhood releases, The Brinks’ lo-fi sound quickly caught the attention of Pusha T and Salaam Remi who in turn executive produced the EP. The EP’s title track “Temporary Love” ebbs and flows like a deep blue wash of beachy melancholy. “Hide Your Love” offers a brighter spot of candle-cracking backbeats and late-night revelry. The EP culminates with the acid-tripped out track “Stoned,” offering the duo’s scuzziest sound yet that’s fated to get you lit.

Read the rest of this article at Complex UK

NZCA Lines is Michael Lovett, a London synthpopper who recently spent time as a touring member of Metronomy. His debut album Infinite Summer is coming out next month, and we already posted his single “Persephone Dreams.” He’s following it up with “Two Hearts,” which is not a Phil Collins cover. Rather, it’s a piece of sweeping, romantic electro-pop, a prime soundtrack candidate if anyone ever makes a more-hopeful sequel to Drive.

Read the rest of this article at Stereogum

Earlier this month, Santigold announced her new album 99¢, the follow-up to 2012’s Master Of My Make Believe, and shared its groovy lead single “Can’t Get Enough Of Myself.” Now she’s given us a video for another track, the promised iLoveMakonnen collab “Who Be Lovin’ Me,” which was produced by Toronto electronic duo Zeds Dead. “We met Makonnen on the Mad Decent Boat Party last year and knew he could kill this beat,” Zeds Dead said in a press release. “He hit us up and said he and Santigold both were jumping on it. We’re big fans of hers, so when he brought that back to us it was a no-brainer. The record just came together really naturally and the final cut is something we’re all really happy with.” The video, which Santigold directed along with Trouble Andrew, was filmed back in September at this year’s Made In America festival in Philadelphia. Watch below, and watch out for cameo appearances by A-Trak, Big Sean, De La Soul, DJ Mustard, Earl Sweatshirt, Fabolous, Justine Skye, Meek Mill, Vic Mensa, and more.

Read the rest of this article at Stereo Gum

Alanis Morissette: from queen of alt rock to Guardian advice columnist

Alanis Morissette remembers the moment she sensed that music – writing and performing songs, packing out stadiums, selling millions of records – might not be enough to get her point across. It was the mid-1990s and she was one of the biggest stars on the planet. Her album Jagged Little Pill was on its way to becoming a cultural touchstone, a distillation of anger and heartache that seemed to speak for a generation.

And yet, barely into her 20s, the Canadian queen of alt rock felt her message was not getting through. “I was made fun of on the cover of a magazine,” she recalls. “‘Stadium therapy rock’ or whatever it was. And a lot of people would write, ‘Oh, Alanis and her psychobabble’.” And, of course, there was criticism of Morissette’s use of the word ironic, to describe a black fly in your chardonnay and a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break.

Sitting in the conference room of her production company’s office in Brentwood, a swish part of Los Angeles, on a breezy, sunlit afternoon, Morissette can laugh about the I-word now. She recently recorded a duet with James Corden on the Late Late Show – an updated, very funny version of Ironic that went viral (“It’s like swiping left, on your future soulmate. It’s a Snapchat, that you wish you had saved”). But, for a long time, the song haunted her. “I’ve certainly had my ass kicked for a very long time over the malapropism of it all,” she smiles.

Read the rest of the story at The Guardian

An insider’s look behind the making of David Bowie’s secretive ‘Blackstar’ album

Tony Visconti was trying to get off the phone. “I have to go in few minutes,” the producer said, speaking from New York. “We have 10 hours of rehearsal today. I’m playing bass. We’re doing ‘The Man Who Sold the World.’ That album was never played live after we finished it. But we have played it live now, about 22 times in the U.K. and Japan, and now we’re bringing our show to New York and the East Coast.”

The “we” was drummer Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy, an all-star gang that was preparing to play the High Line in New York on Friday night. Fronted by singer Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 and led by the drummer David Bowie worked with for a five-year span, including the Ziggy Stardust moment, the band is touring Bowie’s 1970 album, along with a handful of his standards. But the artist is still writing his own history — the new “★” album (“Blackstar” when said out loud), co-produced with Visconti, comes out on the same day as the Holy Holy gig in New York. It is representative of Bowie’s unique place that while he is releasing new music, he also approves of longtime collaborators performing music from his past. Bowie’s present involves his transformation into a character that isn’t even a word.

Read the rest of the story at Los Angeles Times