Jack Deezl

MF Parm & EuniQ DJ

DirtyDave

Nomster

Night Kids

The slow, electronic pace of Peaking Lights “Tiger Eyes” matches with the video’s slow-moving, sensual clips that hold a distinct throwback feel due to hazy camera filters and Technicolor movie sets. Both the music and video stand alone on their own but together they prove a hypnotizing combination.

By: Stephanie Glass

Airbird: Part of The Game

Airbird out of good ‘ol Brooklyn continues the trend of tribal beats mixed with synths and faded out vocals. Providing a unique electro cover of The Beach Boy’s Surfer Girl, Airbird transfers the feeling of a face full of sunshine as you lay on a warm, sandy beach with his lilting echoing vocals and dancey beats. A track to defiantly pull out when those mid-winter blues hit. Part of The Game provides a heavy pounding drumbeat mixed with a more rock jazz keyboard and a deep tenor creeps in. Defiantly a track to put on when feeling a bit down and contemplative.

‘The End’ has always frightened me. It feels so definitive. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. A conclusion without the Q/A. So when Impose reported that These Are Powers had played their finale show with the series Death By Audio, a memorial for Ariel Panero, ending dramatically with flame and smoke as merchandise t-shirts caught a blaze, I naturally grew disheartened. After all, it felt as though These Are Powers had provided some kind of clarity in a genre often purposefully confusing. You encounter your art-school experimental acts all too often, those eagerly vague artists with little to no idea of the picture. Yet These Are Powers, or Powers as they were entitled in their final months, had actual direction in their music, a momentum of cross genres that weirdly seems inspired by Deerhoof and the very same sound that Deerhoof has lost and has tried to pursue now. The list of bands that have followed in These Are Powers‘ footsteps are numerous, with Ponytail, Crocodiles, and Black Dice ringing in my mind, yet for all the doom and gloom, we have to realize that this is hardly the end. After all, the group only started going by Powers when Bill Salas pursued an individual career as Brenmar. What I am trying to get at is that look out for these musicians in the coming months. They will come back with their own sounds, their own projects, and their own visions. Do you believe in resurrections?

The track ‘Watussi” by Harmonia is a supreme soundscape, truly beautiful and harmonic. Other tracks on  Harmonias s/t 1974 release  explore the  potential for experimental madness. Harmonia is a ambient wonderland that truly takes you somewhere nice, its truly serene. The dissonance gathered in the noisescapes are like that of sigur ros, explosions in the sky, and maybe even tycho. the tracks have a simplicity that reminds me of avril 14th by aphex twin.

Houses-Reds

According to their website, Chicago based Houses created their beautifully comforting album All Night not in the coldness of a midwestern winter, but in the warmth of the Pacific Island sun and it shows through the albums’ warm sounds. Houses is the project of one man, (with some help from his girlfriend on Soak it Up) and his creativity put Houses on par with the best artists coming out of the current ambient scene (hedging my bets that 2011 is the year ambient takes center stage).

Muscle Drum-Sashay

Muscle Drum is a psycho synth duo out of San Fransico California. The heady experimental electronica displays a auditory landscape straight from Blade Runner. Shoegazing Between The Doors and Joy Division tossed into a post apocalyptic world. This down in the dumps kind of pop is squeezed through chopped melodys and sequenced gates to create a chaotic rhythmic unit.

by alex auclair

Crystal Castles – Doe Deer (preview)

Crystal Castles – Birds (preview)

Crystal Castles – Year of Silence (preview)

Crystal Castles – Baptism (preview)

After being discovered on Myspace by happenstance, Alice Glass and Ethan Kath, the Canadian duo known as “Crystal Castles“ have been touring madly around the US and Europe.  They’ve released their second self titled album, labeled “II” for reference purposes, just in time for the holidays and it has already been voted “Best New Music” by Pitchfork.

Samps new 12″ pictured above

James Pants fashions loop-based, often eccentric electronic tracks. Well known in some indie circles, his label Stones Throw Records calls him the “purveyor par excellence of that unmistakable ‘Fresh Beat.’” He samples heavily from early 80’s genres, combining them with his own instrumentals to create heavy, hazy experimental dance tracks.

Highlights include “I Live Inside An Egg,” a charmingly strange track with an infectious beat and off-kilter synth tunes, reminiscent of Aphex Twin at his weirdest. Check out his two LPs, Welcome and Seven Seals for more.

Blanche Blanche Blanche is one of many indie bands around mixing quirky tonality and odd time signatures with catchy tunes and synths. Few bands, however, are as quirky or as catchy, which is quite an accomplishment. Blanche Blanche Blanche lets the contour and timing of their melodies dictate the flow of the music, even (especially) when this creates off-putting gaps in their chord progressions or skips in the time. At first listen they’re off-putting, but they age extremely well.

Liek might be dead. This was information passed on from Liek himself. Unfortunately the project is musically dormant. He has morphed into a shadow, disappeared under colorfalls, and possibly fell under the spell of the forest of skreeing trees. While Liek may be on an adventure to the undying lands of Aman, its creator Hektor Fontanez is flourishing. He can be found between being a core member of New York’s classical guitar themed Twi The Humble Feather, to the newly formed hard hitting psychedelic rock project Imaginary Weapons. All these projects show various flips and twists that Fontanez is capable of preforming in his eclectic career. He was even the voice of Matt on MTV’s animated show Downtown! In the long run of it all, Hektor Fontanez loves music.