Peggy Sue: “Idle”

Tragic events have afflicted my hometown this past week, one hitting closer to me personally, but both just as heartbreaking.

It’s the small things in life that we don’t pay any attention to until it’s too late, and often not even then, that help us become whole. We all work. We all look for […]

GEMS: “Medusa”

Oh yeah. I am feeling GOOD about this song. “Medusa” is the title track off GEMS’ forthcoming EP and it is instantly mesmerizing. The juxtaposition of the strong-bodied female alto with the deep male bass is near perfect, and even more so when the falsetto harmony rings out.

(In other news, there was […]

Fossil Collective: “Half Light”

Fossil Collective is in the midst of a strong run of single releases lately as they prepare to officially release The Water EP. The Leeds duo knows not to add extraneous noise to their enchanting vocals. The piano and acoustic guitar are all we need for the delicate, magnetic track. Simple is better.

The […]

Colorful Electricity: The Naked and Famous

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In 2011, New Zealand’s The Naked and Famous released their synth-pop debut Passive Me, Aggressive You; which included the sugary electro-pop anthem “Young Blood,” which hit the radio like a runaway train carrying a cargo of starburst choruses, metallic synths, and soaring vocals. With comparisons to early MGMT floating around the blogosphere (which wasn’t fair, if you ask me), The Naked and Famous established themselves, rather quickly, as the electro-pop outfit you’d expect to hear on video game soundtracks and cable TV.

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Then something happened: Thom Powers (vocals/guitar) and Alisa Xayalith (vocals/keyboard), toured the world on some 200 blistering dates, settled down in Los Angeles (Hollywood, to be exact), and began to get a bit melancholic in the process. The overwhelming amount of tourists, the constant feeling of being trapped in a giant theme park, and the bro’d-out anthems at Hollywood nightclubs were a bit much for the artsy New Zealanders. So they packed up their bags and headed over to the Laurel Canyon, a place of rock ‘n’ roll legend, to began working on new material under the influence of raging emotions, alt-rock tendencies, and the kindred spirits of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon.

But before landing in L.A., the endless tour dates sharpened the organic elements in their sound, and allowed them to create a live show that now includes a psychedelic explosion of lights, industrial flourishes, and a loudness of sound that rivals early shoegaze pioneers like My Bloody Valentine (just the volume), and brings all the dazzling stage show of a massive touring pop machine.

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[soundscape] and here, instead.

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photo: ‘for everything.’

song: secret players society – “keep me”

‘now rushed into this brightness,
as if by a shutter
that, once opened,
can never be closed.’
— billy collins

it’s something i think about regularly, whether the smoke from a cigarette i inhaled two years ago on the beach in california, or the mountains in denver, or the coffee-stained, nicotine streets of chicago is still floating around inside my body.

like one atom of tar and smoke, one atom of time, one atom of a booze- and coffee-fueled night is a part of my body now. attached to the walls of my heart, coursing still through my blood, around and around and around again. always. and when i exhaled its brothers in a final sweep of movement from my body, stamping out a cigarette on my boots or crushing it on the sidewalk, one particle of smoke remained, trapped in the canals of my being. and now he is joined by a new family of fellow atomic smoke — the last cigarette smoked in the golden sunshine of a perfect day, the break up cigarettes, the after-sex cigarettes, the early mornings and late nights and too-far drives.

have they joined together in a band of orphan smoke particles, or did they resign themselves to a life of solitude? a life of lonely rhythmic cycles, accompanied by the heavy sound of blood pulsing through my veins. accompanied also by the memory of where they came, the significance they held at the time of my life.

Continue reading [soundscape] and here, instead.