AA Loves: James and Evander

As a Bay Area native myself, I’m always happy to hear from artists from the Bay. So when I got an email from James & Evander, entitled “Greetings from Oakland,” I knew I was in for a treat.

The sounds of their dreamy electro synth pop have been airily floating from my speakers for the past several days. Imagine a less aggressive version of Crystal Castles, but equally as Atari video game inspired. It’s not so much the pulse pounding epileptic fit kind of video game as it is the relaxed exploration of strange new worlds kind. Perhaps, it’s best summed up in their own words as "weed-wave electro-pop."

Check out their recently released EP Sunlight and Circuitry, available on their Bandcamp now. Following the Radiohead model, they’ve offered up their EP for free, however if you’re feeling generous you may pay as much as you like.

Particular favorites of mine include “Turtle Two” and “Smoke This Glove.” While it may appear outwardly calm, just lurking below the surface of “Turtle Two” is a violent undertow that sucks you under in a tranquil yet deadly swirl of synth laden melodies. On “Smoke This Glove,” it’s all about a slow methodical mellow vibe that speaks of a languid curiosity and exploratory inquisitiveness of someone high enough, as the title says, to smoke this glove.

Listen to the album below, and be sure to head to their Bandcamp to get your copy.

AA Loves: The Pass

The Pass is kind of the most danceable band that I’ve heard in a while and that’s a pretty big statement to make.

If pure exuberant good times fun could be packaged into a band, it would be The Pass.Kind of like Passion Pit, but not – it’s just damn good indie electro pop.

They dropped their debut LP “Burst” at the end of September, so be sure to pick that up.

Stream the album below, or head over HERE to pick up your copy. Also don’t forget to check out the amazing video for “Vultures” and “Treatment of the Sun” below.

AA’s Frivolous Wants: Vinyl Clocks

Check out these amazing clocks made from old records.
Estonian designer Pavel Sidorenko, has cut old records into various shapes like people, penguins, pianos, or even city scapes, to inject a little life into your wall.

The only downside is that you’ll have to pay in euros and extra on shipping if you don’t live in Estonia, but I’d say that these are pretty damn worthwhile.

Check them out here.

AA Loves: Childhood

Check out London based Childhood’s latest single “Blue Velvet.”

Delicious light pop melodies unfold slowly over undulating guitar chords, while a soft voice coos. The perfect sounds for a lazy summer day as you trail your fingers in the water and watch its wake slowly ripple outwards.

Now that the first snows have hit NY, the retro guitars and echo-laden vocals are perfect for helping shut out the cold of winter.

Enjoy. Oh and don’t forget to listen to “Paper Waves” below.”


Childhood - Blue Velvet by Apathetic Arousal

Childhood - Paper Wave by neumagazine

Griffintown Interrupted: Half Life

So a good buddy of mine just sent me this fantastic architecture project that he’s been working on. He’s entered a competition to help revitalize Griffintown, one of Montreal’s earliest industrial neighborhoods, and he needs your vote.

While this could be seen as a shameless plug – which it is – it’s also a fantastic idea and the competition itself is really quite thought provoking in terms of how we imagine our urban space.

Taking a unique approach, this community has created an international ideas competition to help create temporary structures.Griffintown is undergoing some growing pains where sleek high rise condos are being built in the midst of old low level industrial buildings and empty lots that house artist studios. Naturally, not everyone is in love with the Wave of the Future while others find this opposition a nuisance.

Eschewing these two sides altogether, “Griffintown Interrupted proposes a third focus for the debate: neither past (restoration) nor future (redevelopment), but present. How can short term projects expand the existing community?” There are five sites that are up for grabs, and participants submitted a plan that details how the site will be disassembled, dehabilitated, and eventually disappear at the end of the short lease.

My buddy’s project, “Half Life” focuses on the old Police Station which currently houses a theatre company as well as many of the town’s ghosts. With such a macabre history and drama literally unfolding inside, there’s so much potential in this project.

He and his partner have turned the demolition of the building into an interactive performance piece. The inhabitants interact with the building as it is destroyed, while the building interacts with its surrounding environment and the changing seasons. The building is slowly destroyed in stages that correspond with the seasons, as the actors continue to host plays for the next 6 months in the decaying husk of the building, “an unorthodox and visceral” venue. All the while, the decay of the building itself offers up a theatrical performance in itself.

To borrow their phrase, “the theatre of demolition begins.”

Check out their project HERE and be sure to vote for it. Oh and don’t forget to tell all your friends.

Beady Eye – I Bring The Light

In case you guys missed it. Oasis is back…kind of. Several members of Oasis Liam Gallagher, Andy Bell, Gem Archer, and Chris Sharrock – basically everyone but Noel Gallagher – have gotten together to form Beady Eye.

After the whole Oasis/Gallagher brother implosion last year, Liam is back with a band that’s “bigger than Oasis.” According to him, “it's proper rock'n'roll," and that "Oasis was a pop band compared to what we're doing."

In reality, they’re not all that different from Oasis. Although, there are some noticeable differences. The energy is a bit more raw and draws heavily from the swinging psychedelic pop of the 1960’s. They’ve also got some snazzy new haircuts, back up vocals, and a lot of the old angsty shit-head edge back in Liam’s voice.

Within days of announcing their first European tour, tickets have sold out. With this much attention, it might even catch the eye of Noel, who is apparently taking a break from music and "doing nappies and all that malarkey.” But Liam is confident that Noel will return, perhaps to Beady Eye or Oasis. In an earlier interview, Liam simply stated "Noel will come crawling back very fucking soon."

In the meantime, check out their first single “I Bring the Light Below.”

AA Loves: She Keeps Bees

Every now and then you come across a band that has such an emotionally raw sound that it just knocks the wind out of you. She Keeps Bees is definitely one of those bands.

Despite what you might think from the name, they are a bluesy rock duo based in Brooklyn that is somewhere between the Kills, The White Stripes, Howling Wolf, and Cat Power.

Heavily rooted in blues, it’s got a gritty feel that is loud and raw garage rock at its best. With a voice like Debbie Harry if she were the daughter of a poor southern sharecropper, Jessica Larrabee sings and plays guitar while Andy LaPlant beats time on the drums.

Larrabee’s voice adds a bold intensity to their sound, as she sings with such unadultered dark sensuous emotion. What’s more impressive is that all of their records have been recorded and produced by themselves at home.

Check out New Seed from their 7” release SKB-005.

Find more artists like she keeps bees at Myspace Music