I love soft and dreamy lady pop vocals, and this band, Yumi Zouma are really good at pairing them with fun and easy little beats. Their EP is coming out on February 11th and then hopefully I'll be able to hear a little more than the two songs they have on SoundCloud! I wanna crank up the song below and drive somewhere. But in a convertible. And on a winding road. Kay?
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Cupid Deluxe
I am completely obsessed with Cupid Deluxe by Blood Orange. I think that's the only way I could start out this blog post, plus I'm super rusty after neglecting my little baby blog for so long. I got this album after hearing so much about it, and then forgot about it for a few weeks. Which was definitely for the best, I started listening to it right when I needed to. It's the type of album that I immediately need to put limitations on and tell myself, "Listen, Al. You can listen to it in its entirety, twice, otherwise you're gonna wear it out." However with this album its so easy for me just to keep looping it over and over that I would unintentionally break my rules, and end up listening to about four or five times in a row. Who's a bad girl ;)
Devonte Hynes is the genius behind Blood Orange. This dude looks like he rolled right out of the early 90's with his shitty mock neck shirts, shitty hats and shitty high waisted pleated pants, and crrrrrazy slithery slippery dance moves! Anyway, he plays the keyboards, guitar, bass and drums on Cupid Deluxe. Of course. Cause he's so great. And he has tons of awesome guests singing with him too! The lady singer from Chairlift, Caroline Polachek and his girlfriend Samantha Urbani sing on tons of songs. The dude from Kindness, Clams Casino, bro from Dirty Projectors, a British rapper named Skepta, and another awesome rapper, Despot. I also feel extremely overwhelmed trying to tackle writing about this album, cause its so good and weird and there's so much going on with it, so I figured I'd just do a lil bit on each song.
"Chamakay" starts off the album with Caroline Polachek singing with Hayes. It's one of the more serious songs on the album and it has an incredible video that you should watch (below). Devonte visits Georgetown, Guyana for the first time, which is where his mom is from, and you get to see the first time he meets his grandpa!
"You're Not Good Enough" has the most awesome and hilarious bass guitar I've heard since Seinfeld--it's hard to not air-bass along with this one. Its the albums' first intro to Samantha Urbani and Devonte Hayes singing together, which is pure magic, just like their super cool and stylin relationship is. Devonte and Urbani (I know I should use his last name, but with a name like Devonte....) have such a romantic way of singing together, even if the lyrics aren't warm and fuzzy. I have a hard time listening to lyrics, and it took me a minute to realize that this song is actually pretty cold: "I never was in love/you know that you were never good enough"...You'd never know it if you were just listening to the way they sing together though.
Uncle ACE was the first song that I would specifically put on and it has been my main shower song for weeks. Its definitely the disco jam of the album. With guitar so funky, saxophone so sassy, singing so cheesy, and bass so slappy, this song is just insanely good. At 2:50 the keys come in and the song changes a bit. Then, these horns come in, and you just try and tell me you can sit still during this ending bit. Or at the very least try and tell me that your neck and shoulder area doesn't do something special. Cause it does.
The female vocals on Cupid Deluxe, done by his girlfriend Samantha Urbani of the band Friends, are so important to the album. When she comes in on "No Right Thing" with Dirty Projectors dude, it just makes the song a little bit funny in the best way possible. I remember us "Loling" at that part the first time hearing it. This whole album, for me anyway, is super humorous but in an incredibly well done way. Slap bass everywhere, 80's sounding guitar bits, cheesy vocals. The 90's beat in most of these songs (Especially 'Time Will Tell') makes me think of those movies, y'know, where the white teacher is transferred to an inner-city school, with no student respecting them until eventually the teacher cracks the code on how to reach the hearts of the hard ass kids that don't give a fuck.
Urbani's vocals in "It Is What It Is" are some of my favorite of hers. In the middle of the song, it all slows down and the steel drums take a little break. There's some Twin Shadow-esque guitar playing and looping and then at 4:02 when the beat comes back in, it's just... Ugh. Bah. No words. Just shoulder dancing and saucy looks at a cute boy or something.
"Chosen," is one of the prettiest songs on the album. Sax heavy, sassy beat, funny little speaking bit at the beginning with an adorable French accent.. This song is so romantic to me, even though there's only two or three lines of actual lyrics. Must be that sax. My favorite part is when he repeats "Baby let me take you home." OKAY.
"Clipped On" should be playing while two break dancers battle it out on a big ol piece of cardboard. The beat and Despots rapping are so old school and amazing. When trying to make people love Blood Orange as much as I do this is the song that I play first. It's so lovable!
The beginning to "Always Let U Down" doesn't do it for me. For some reason when the initial female vocals start out with "I can only disappoint you, cause I always let you down" it makes me feel like the songs gonna suck, but den dat beat comes in, the shoulders get going and Samantha Urbani's voice just is all beautiful and soulful and awesome and the song rules again! Weird!
"On The Line" is probably my favorite song on this album. But that's like picking a favorite out of Devonte Hynes' dance moves: I'm sure it will change in a few days. Devontes singing on this song is so great, and there's a little Solange bit at the end, from her song "Some Things Never Seem To Fucking Work" that Hynes co-wrote, where they just repeat "So baby is that all you got, Baby are we on the line" over beautiful keys, and it's magical. Look at them up there. Jesus fuck they're cute.
Skepta is the UK rapper on "High Street." Man, British rappers sound amazing. And who else can say "Put Your Pinot Grigio high, This one's for my G's on the Norff Side" and sound that cool? Now I wanna drink white wine all day.
Then comes the song ending it all, "Time Will Tell." Y'know, the one with the extra amount "He taught them a thing about calculus, they taught him a thing about the street" piano. This song also has one of my favorite lyrics on the album, "Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom." If you want to see a great example of Devonte Hynes' weird ass awesome dance moves, watch the video below. It's great.
This album came out in November 2013 but I didn't give it a proper go until January, so this is absolutely gonna be the album that carries me through all of the shitty -50 weather and into spring. And I'm excited for this album to have a whole different feeling to it when I'm sitting outside with a big ol glass of sangria and slutty shorts on!
Devonte Hynes is the genius behind Blood Orange. This dude looks like he rolled right out of the early 90's with his shitty mock neck shirts, shitty hats and shitty high waisted pleated pants, and crrrrrazy slithery slippery dance moves! Anyway, he plays the keyboards, guitar, bass and drums on Cupid Deluxe. Of course. Cause he's so great. And he has tons of awesome guests singing with him too! The lady singer from Chairlift, Caroline Polachek and his girlfriend Samantha Urbani sing on tons of songs. The dude from Kindness, Clams Casino, bro from Dirty Projectors, a British rapper named Skepta, and another awesome rapper, Despot. I also feel extremely overwhelmed trying to tackle writing about this album, cause its so good and weird and there's so much going on with it, so I figured I'd just do a lil bit on each song.
"Chamakay" starts off the album with Caroline Polachek singing with Hayes. It's one of the more serious songs on the album and it has an incredible video that you should watch (below). Devonte visits Georgetown, Guyana for the first time, which is where his mom is from, and you get to see the first time he meets his grandpa!
"You're Not Good Enough" has the most awesome and hilarious bass guitar I've heard since Seinfeld--it's hard to not air-bass along with this one. Its the albums' first intro to Samantha Urbani and Devonte Hayes singing together, which is pure magic, just like their super cool and stylin relationship is. Devonte and Urbani (I know I should use his last name, but with a name like Devonte....) have such a romantic way of singing together, even if the lyrics aren't warm and fuzzy. I have a hard time listening to lyrics, and it took me a minute to realize that this song is actually pretty cold: "I never was in love/you know that you were never good enough"...You'd never know it if you were just listening to the way they sing together though.
Uncle ACE was the first song that I would specifically put on and it has been my main shower song for weeks. Its definitely the disco jam of the album. With guitar so funky, saxophone so sassy, singing so cheesy, and bass so slappy, this song is just insanely good. At 2:50 the keys come in and the song changes a bit. Then, these horns come in, and you just try and tell me you can sit still during this ending bit. Or at the very least try and tell me that your neck and shoulder area doesn't do something special. Cause it does.
The female vocals on Cupid Deluxe, done by his girlfriend Samantha Urbani of the band Friends, are so important to the album. When she comes in on "No Right Thing" with Dirty Projectors dude, it just makes the song a little bit funny in the best way possible. I remember us "Loling" at that part the first time hearing it. This whole album, for me anyway, is super humorous but in an incredibly well done way. Slap bass everywhere, 80's sounding guitar bits, cheesy vocals. The 90's beat in most of these songs (Especially 'Time Will Tell') makes me think of those movies, y'know, where the white teacher is transferred to an inner-city school, with no student respecting them until eventually the teacher cracks the code on how to reach the hearts of the hard ass kids that don't give a fuck.
Urbani's vocals in "It Is What It Is" are some of my favorite of hers. In the middle of the song, it all slows down and the steel drums take a little break. There's some Twin Shadow-esque guitar playing and looping and then at 4:02 when the beat comes back in, it's just... Ugh. Bah. No words. Just shoulder dancing and saucy looks at a cute boy or something.
"Chosen," is one of the prettiest songs on the album. Sax heavy, sassy beat, funny little speaking bit at the beginning with an adorable French accent.. This song is so romantic to me, even though there's only two or three lines of actual lyrics. Must be that sax. My favorite part is when he repeats "Baby let me take you home." OKAY.
"Clipped On" should be playing while two break dancers battle it out on a big ol piece of cardboard. The beat and Despots rapping are so old school and amazing. When trying to make people love Blood Orange as much as I do this is the song that I play first. It's so lovable!
The beginning to "Always Let U Down" doesn't do it for me. For some reason when the initial female vocals start out with "I can only disappoint you, cause I always let you down" it makes me feel like the songs gonna suck, but den dat beat comes in, the shoulders get going and Samantha Urbani's voice just is all beautiful and soulful and awesome and the song rules again! Weird!
"On The Line" is probably my favorite song on this album. But that's like picking a favorite out of Devonte Hynes' dance moves: I'm sure it will change in a few days. Devontes singing on this song is so great, and there's a little Solange bit at the end, from her song "Some Things Never Seem To Fucking Work" that Hynes co-wrote, where they just repeat "So baby is that all you got, Baby are we on the line" over beautiful keys, and it's magical. Look at them up there. Jesus fuck they're cute.
Skepta is the UK rapper on "High Street." Man, British rappers sound amazing. And who else can say "Put Your Pinot Grigio high, This one's for my G's on the Norff Side" and sound that cool? Now I wanna drink white wine all day.
Then comes the song ending it all, "Time Will Tell." Y'know, the one with the extra amount "He taught them a thing about calculus, they taught him a thing about the street" piano. This song also has one of my favorite lyrics on the album, "Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom." If you want to see a great example of Devonte Hynes' weird ass awesome dance moves, watch the video below. It's great.
This album came out in November 2013 but I didn't give it a proper go until January, so this is absolutely gonna be the album that carries me through all of the shitty -50 weather and into spring. And I'm excited for this album to have a whole different feeling to it when I'm sitting outside with a big ol glass of sangria and slutty shorts on!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Reflektor
It's the end of the summer and I am sick of all of the music I normally listen to. I haven't heard anything amazing lately and I feel too lazy to search. Why can't someone just giiiiiive me a bunch of music without having to looooook for it. Wah.
Well, the sweet angels from heaven, Arcade Fire, released this little teaser for their next album, Reflektor. It's coming out at the end of October, and one of the things I really like about the Arcade Fire is that they release their albums at the most perfect times. For me.
Funeral came out in September 2004, and although I can't explain exactly why that was the best possible season /time for it to come out, but it was. It worked for me. This is right when I moved to Victoria as a little 18 year old and they would play "Rebellion (Lies)" at the bar and I was blown away that a nightclub was allowed to play something besides "Yeah" by Usher and Lil Jon.
Neon Bible came out in March 2007, which was a little darker of an album, was great for the end of the winter weather that I was experiencing in Victoria -- pissin' rain everyday and I was temporarily living in "The Sheeted Area" in a friends shitty basement, sharing a bed with my gal pal Kat. For two months. I like to think that Neon Bible helped me get through that.
The Suburbs came out early August of 2010 and I remember Katy and I listening to it constantly, as we were recently reunited and this was the best BFF album 2 gals and a big ass blue Lumina could hope for.
So, since I love the Arcade Fire sooo much and they always put out albums that I cannot stop listening to for months and months, I'm anticipating that Reflektor will be the perfect album for me to listen to, on repeat, from October 29th and into 2014. I feel confident in this, as the trailer looks and sounds amazing!
Well, the sweet angels from heaven, Arcade Fire, released this little teaser for their next album, Reflektor. It's coming out at the end of October, and one of the things I really like about the Arcade Fire is that they release their albums at the most perfect times. For me.
Funeral came out in September 2004, and although I can't explain exactly why that was the best possible season /time for it to come out, but it was. It worked for me. This is right when I moved to Victoria as a little 18 year old and they would play "Rebellion (Lies)" at the bar and I was blown away that a nightclub was allowed to play something besides "Yeah" by Usher and Lil Jon.
Neon Bible came out in March 2007, which was a little darker of an album, was great for the end of the winter weather that I was experiencing in Victoria -- pissin' rain everyday and I was temporarily living in "The Sheeted Area" in a friends shitty basement, sharing a bed with my gal pal Kat. For two months. I like to think that Neon Bible helped me get through that.
The Suburbs came out early August of 2010 and I remember Katy and I listening to it constantly, as we were recently reunited and this was the best BFF album 2 gals and a big ass blue Lumina could hope for.
So, since I love the Arcade Fire sooo much and they always put out albums that I cannot stop listening to for months and months, I'm anticipating that Reflektor will be the perfect album for me to listen to, on repeat, from October 29th and into 2014. I feel confident in this, as the trailer looks and sounds amazing!
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Untrust Us
SO. I stumbled upon this clip this morning. I know kids choirs covering modern indie songs are kinda corny, but they give me crazy goosebumps and unfortunately since large groups of people doing nice things makes me cry, I'd for sure tear up if I saw it live. These kids sing "Untrust Us" by Crystal Castles. The tweenagers have the vocals and synth sounds while the lil kids make all the drum beats and other weird Crystal Castles sounds. It's super cute how all the little kids make the beat on their chest and on their neighbors back at the same time. D'awwww! Watch for the one kid that has his arm shoved up his sweatshirt so he just has one flappy sweatshirt sleeve.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Bring The Noize
MIA is BAAAAAACK!
We've got netted hair, pink hair, sweet dance moves, chunky gold nails and a sweet ass song! Also excited to hear if any dope remixes or edits come out!
We've got netted hair, pink hair, sweet dance moves, chunky gold nails and a sweet ass song! Also excited to hear if any dope remixes or edits come out!
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
MajiCloudz
Holy hell, does Devon Welsh aka Majical Cloudz have the best voice. I first heard his name when Grimes' Visions came out and he was featured on her song "Nightmusic." Then I blogged about his cute little friendship song called "What That Was." And now his album titled Impersonator is out so I just made a midnight snack to it, (a salad with goat cheese and tuna with home made miso sesame dressing, weirdly ambitious and healthy for this time of night) and have fallen deeper into the Majical Cloudz.
While I was listening to "Bugs Don't Buzz" tonight, I had the sudden urge to dramatically fall to my knees with a paring knife in one hand a red bell pepper in the other, to then just close my eyes and listen to the music. Maybe melt a little further into the floor. I didn't. But that's how his music makes me feel. Like Katy and I say (grunt?) when we talk about handsome men or great songs, "Uhhhhgggnnnnnn."
Another amazing song from MC is called "Childhood's End" and is directed by one of my favorite directors that I like to blog about, Emily Kai Bock who has directed amazing videos for the likes of Grimes and Grizzly Bear. Now lets throw another twist in there. Devon Welsh's (Majical Cloudz) father is staring in this video. And who is his father? Kenneth Welsh, who played Windom Earle on Twin Peaks. Now, upon some light research, I don't think I had gotten to the point in Twin Peaks where he enters the plot. Katy and I unfortunately petered out after the second half of the second season. But either way, all of this information is pretty cool. Check out this song and awesome video!
Also, if anyone who likes Majical Cloudz and reads this, he's apparently playing Winnipeg August 14th at the "Union Sound Hall" whatever that is. I've never heard of it so I hope it's a typo and that it's really at The Pyramid or something but either way, seeing this show live would be amazing.
While I was listening to "Bugs Don't Buzz" tonight, I had the sudden urge to dramatically fall to my knees with a paring knife in one hand a red bell pepper in the other, to then just close my eyes and listen to the music. Maybe melt a little further into the floor. I didn't. But that's how his music makes me feel. Like Katy and I say (grunt?) when we talk about handsome men or great songs, "Uhhhhgggnnnnnn."
Another amazing song from MC is called "Childhood's End" and is directed by one of my favorite directors that I like to blog about, Emily Kai Bock who has directed amazing videos for the likes of Grimes and Grizzly Bear. Now lets throw another twist in there. Devon Welsh's (Majical Cloudz) father is staring in this video. And who is his father? Kenneth Welsh, who played Windom Earle on Twin Peaks. Now, upon some light research, I don't think I had gotten to the point in Twin Peaks where he enters the plot. Katy and I unfortunately petered out after the second half of the second season. But either way, all of this information is pretty cool. Check out this song and awesome video!
Also, if anyone who likes Majical Cloudz and reads this, he's apparently playing Winnipeg August 14th at the "Union Sound Hall" whatever that is. I've never heard of it so I hope it's a typo and that it's really at The Pyramid or something but either way, seeing this show live would be amazing.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Manhattan
Yay Cat Power came out with an awesome video for one of my favorite songs off of her album Sun!
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