I'm in such a good mood today. To make it even better Jamie Lidell released the video for the first single of his upcoming album, very originally titled "Jamie Lidell."
Even though I'm a big fan of Jamie's more pure R&B offerings, I'm kind of digging the over produced 80s vibe here. Very Prince-like and totally danceable. Plus the video is pretty, love the play on the electric mime box thing.
Just when I was getting tired of the North Carolina folky-country-gospelly-poppiness that Merge Records loves to sign, I stumbled upon Mount Moriah. Heather McEntire (previously of Bellafea) has a voice that fills up whatever space she's in. Total swoon.
Here is "Bright Light" off their upcoming album and a video for "Plane."
Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a rock group from New Zealand and the NorAm. Their debut, self-titled album was released two summers ago to much acclaim. You'll probably recognize the track Ffuny Ffrends and can you name that intro drumline? "answer" They've got a new album coming on Feb 5th and they're playing Mohawk in Austin on 20th Feb. Below is Ffuny Ffrends and the newly minted first single from the forthcoming album So Good at Being in Trouble. I think Last Choice considered that for a blog name too. Hope we see you there.
Pretty Heart is Morgan Holliger, a 20 year old from Ohio. Beautiful voice with a dark streak, takes me back to the late nineties listening to Portishead on my Sony Discman. She's got a few songs on her Soundcloud and Bandcamp and just released her first video for "Toy."
Don't know if she's planning to make the trip for SXSW, but I hope she does.
Day Joy is a band from sunny Orlando, Florida. But their music is certainly not sunny or joyful in any way. I'm totally ok with that. As a happy person that prefers his music depressing, Day Joy has released the perfect single for me: sad as all shit, with themes ranging from addiction to family disfunction. Yay!
Also, I welcome myself back to posting. Sorry for the lack of love, Internet.
Not surprisingly Torres is tough to track down on the internet. To be more specific, el nino, _Pedro Torres_, and Honey Torres' facebook page are not hard to track down, but the musician Torres_ is. What I've been able to sort out is that she's living in Nashville and just self-released a track called Honey. Maybe the Honey Torres Facebook thing makes more sense now. Apparently, and a bit like Cat Power minus the initial phase of international fame, she recently switched from an acoustic to an electronic sound. Torres would have been a nice addition to our PJ Harvey playlist, but honestly I think she's got more going for her than another sound-a-like. Hopefully more is on the way, but a soundcloud account with the song Honey was all I could find. If more surfaces I'll post it to the facebook page. Here's Honey by TORRES_
Wax Tailor, the french trip hop king, is coming to Austin. He's playing Red7 on Jan 29th. You do not want to miss this show. As seems to be the case with hip hop acts, busdriver, aesop, etc, I'm going to be out of town. But, you can join Pete and Bob. To warm things up, here's a new one (Time to go, from the new album) and an old one (Que sera).
Dan the automator, of "...yo it's three thousand thirty, I want y'all to meet Deltron Zero, and Automator..." fame, and Emily Wells, self-described classic hop violinist and singer, are working on a new collaboration called Pillowfight. Both have a flair for the epic, which certainly comes out in the first single "Get your shit together." An EP is coming and I wouldn't be surprised to see a Sx appearance.
New names appeared today in the ever-growing list for the next SXSW. I haven't looked at the list, I just started feeling preemptively overwhelmed. It did get me thinking, though, how it's time to start our own little tag for next year, and how this could be the perfect chance to get me back into posting.
Then I went to GvB and played the most recent video on it:
Empress Of playing a sweet acoustic version of "Don't Tell Me" for Yours Truly. Super easy sell. The original version (side B of her debut 7" Champagne -- free download) was great, but certainly not this lacrimogenous.
née Lorely Rodriguez lives in Brooklyn. But the last name, use of Colombian rythms (see #2 below) and lyrics in spanish (see #13) lead me to believe there's a richer story there.
Listen to all of her 15 "Colorminutes"down here.
Download "Champagne".
Visit her Craigslist-inspired website.
Keep an eye open for her when she comes next spring.
In Dec 2010, Last Choice first heard Made in Heights. Like a junky searching for the same high, I waited for another album. When no sophomore effort appeared, I went out searching for something that gave me that the same dead pigeon, deep winter feeling. Lorine Chia of the Cameroon doesn't really sound like Made in Heights, but she is similar. So not unlike Swayze helping with pottery, I was reminded of Made in Heights. Chia's self-titled, soulful first album dropped last week. The video for he first single, Crazy Things, is below. I couldn't glean from her online presence whether a tour is coming, but if she heads towards Austin I'll let you know.
