NEW ARTIST: Voyager - Midnight Fang (2013)

You may also like: Youth Lagoon,The xx

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A dear friend of mine is currently travelling the long roads of Canada and I guess that I just stumbled over the perfect soundtrack for her being on the road: it is simply found on Midnight Fang by Voyager, a four-piece band heading from far back south, id est Alabama. Their music would’ve also been well allocated on the soundtrack of films such as Into The Wild or, if it would not have been all about the Jazz, it would have been the perfect musical background for the imagery of On The Road.

As we all know, the music of those roadmovies is always quite touching. It will mostly infect your musical heart with an urgent, strong need for freedom, fresh air and endless, beautiful landscapes. Et voilà, exactly what happens here.

God knows what these lads have done until now, but their first record Midnight Fang is devilishly brilliant. It sounds like a long journey itself, making all the way from the bedroom pop (Youth Lagoon) over the tender beat-infused minimalistic sound (The xx) to the shoegazy beats in Night Eyes which somehow even slightly remind you of some of the earlier pieces of Band Of Horses or even the rather subtle moments of early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Meanwhile, No Hibernation is blinking with a heavy yawn and still sleep-dosed eyes while gently waking up with beats which could’ve also been found on Youth Lagoon’s  debut LP The Year Of Hibernation.

Many influences and lines could be drawn, nonetheless Voyager rest in their own characteristic space, forming an unique sound which, besides naming all its possible ingredients, is hard to be described. Except of maybe saying that yes, this record is brilliant. Somewhat magnificently brilliant.

As a logical consequence: Highly recommended!


PS: Check out their bandcamp here.


Voyager - No Hibernation

Voyager - Riviera

FREE DOWNLOAD: Nicolas Jaar & Theatre Roosevelt - The Ego (2012)

You may also like: Connan Mockasin, Pantha Du Prince, Matthew Dear



When it comes down to Nicolas Jaar, i don’t want to use the term Wunderkind anymore. Just because it has been used to much, which, obviously has a good reason as it is - just true. Anyway, as not only he but also his label Clown & Sunset is quite brilliant and very sympathique, they offer us a wonderful weekend and thanksgiving gift aka a free download of Jaar’s cooperation with Theatre Roosevelt which’s outcome was a song called The Ego. The latter, you should maybe leave it aside when sitting at your family’s thanksgiving table and not being satisfied with your gifts. Thanksgiving and peace, you know (We don’t even have thanksgiving here).

Anyway, the outcome is, as always, an amazing piece of subtle yet so energetic electronic music, layered in the well-known dark yet so intense beats of Jaar’s music. And once again, the Wunderkind strikes. So then.

NEW VIDEO: Beach House - Wild (2012)

Beach House published their new video for Wild, another one off their great this year’s album Bloom. 

It is probably the most destructive Beach House video I’ve ever seen. Society’s abyss in its center, it is bedded in dark, cold imagery, showing off harshly the aggressive emptiness (sic!) of its protagonists. If you are in a state of “everything’s bright and jolly”, you should probably not watch this.

NEW SINGLE + ALBUM: Local Natives - Breakers (2012)

You may also like: Beach House, Beirut, Grizzly Bear, the National

I remember stumbling over Wide Eyes by accident a few years back in time (which will probably be three) - what a moment. These melancholic, yet so featherless guitar melodies, a drum rhythm as weightless as it is pushing forward the song. All woven through by vocals, decently placed and leaving space for this fantastic melody.

Local Natives were a fantastic discovery - which was once more proven by their debut LP Gorrila Minor, also published in 2009. Which makes it three years since we wait for new material to come, and finally, recently, the band announced during an interview with Pitchfork that they were working on a new LP which will be named Hummingbird and which apparently was close to its finish.

And now there it is, finally some new material of the new LP to come up soon! Breakersis a great song, which from the drums remind me a bit on those of The National, still the LA-based group keeps up its unique dreamy, melancholy yet not heavy style. Nonetheless you have the impression to find some more festivity-esque sounds in this song which will remind you of the humble likes of Arcade Fire. The built-up of the melody is lovely made, pushing in new percussions as the song proceeds.

Short: A great new single which works more than well as a pretaste of the new album, to come on January 29th 2013!

According to indieshuffle, the apparent tracklist will be as follows:

1 You & I
2 Heavy Feet
3 Ceilings
4 Black Spot
5 Breakers
6 Three Months
7 Black Balloons
8 Wooly Mammoth
9 Mt. Washington
10 Colombia
11 Bowery

NEW VIDEO: Bon Iver - Beth/Rest (2012)


Bon Iver published a video for the probably most unlikely Bon Iver song you will find, still it rests a pretty beautiful piece. The imagery for Beth/Rest was produced by Justin Vernon himself and is a pretty blurry, airy, almost fantasy-like piece. The song himself is just heavily drowned in an endless bottle of sweet eighties poison. At least that’s how it sounds like.

A geek would ask: “Anyone else watching this video feels like there is a heavy colourful glitter storm coming down on a scene of Lord of the Rings while Sting and Bon Iver make musical love?”

NEW SINGLE: Solange - Losing You (2012)

You may also like: Blood Orange, Rhye, Beyoncé

The Knowles. Two sisters who are blessed with an unbelievable musical talent. We don’t have to talk about Beyoncé’s success which seems to be behind human consciousness, and even if her music does not really hit my personal taste spot, it is undeniable that this woman possesses an incroyable lot of talent.

Her younger sister though is not less talented than Ms. Jay-Z herself. After taking a break from music business for quite a while (she released her last single two years ago), Solange comes back - and how she does it!

An ever soulful song, which was produced by no one less than Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes and perfectly underlines her magnificent capabilities as a singer. And a video which stands for its own. According to herself, Losing You was influenced by 80s soul and african percussions. How fitting that the video for the first single of her new album (which neither has a name nor a precise release date yet) was placed in the Souther African capital Capetown. Directed by Melina Matsoukas, who also already produced videos for Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, the video has quite a vintage-summery touch.

But its most special touch is given to the video by Les Sapeurs: Being a fascinating Congolese subcultural movement, the Sapeurs are men dressing up in clothes inspired by the colonial times, putting them in bright colours and combining them with expensive designer gimmicks - whilest living in the deepest slums of Congo. If you want to check out more of this movement, you can do so in a photo book  “Gentlemen of Bacongo”, made by the photographer Daniele Tamagni.

Because these men give the video this somewhat special touch, I include some pictures of them.

Concerning Solange’s upcoming new album, not only Dev Hynes but also Pharrel Williams will be involved as a producer.

NEW VIDEO: ON AND ON - Ghosts (2012)

You may also like: Beach House, Broken Social Scene, Pixies



Roll Call Records is a small label - but we all know that quality counts more than quantity, and in this case this institution from California is a prime example.

One of their artists which clearly stole my ears away as lovers steal each other’s hearts are ON AND ON. I already wrote about them a while ago, now they released their first video for their first single Ghosts - which, still even if the band already made quite a lot of ‘noise’ in the independent hood, stays the only available piece of their work. Nonetheless, its greatness speaks for its own. A huge portion of feathery melancholy, packed on the back of powerful yet so nicely interleaved guitars which are enwrought by the singer’s voice - and the bridge at the song’s middle. This bridge. The softly built up culmination at the end. These slightly fuzzy sounds. If you ever looked for a soundtrack to run somehwere in slow-motion while weaving a sparkler, here you have it. I will start enthusing too much again, but I cannot say how much I am looking forward to hear more from this still quite freshly formed group.

Nonetheless, we have to wait a bit as ON AND ON’s album Give In is not getting to be released before January 29th 2013. Until then - check out their new video, directed by Joe Carsello and filled with scenes of 1970’s movie Threats of Technology.

You can check out Roll Call Records and its other artists here.

NEW ALBUM: Moon Duo - Circles (2012)

You may also like: Wooden Shjips, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Angels, Brian Jonestown Massacre

One of the most common musical platitudes: No other art, at least imho, evokes emotions in a way as music is able to do. Maybe dance. Which is once again closely related to music. Anyway. Music is somehow able to make you feel all kinds of way - sad, happy, joyful, angry, it can somehow transport those emotions along.

And there is music which just bursts of coolness. Of bloody, somehow dirty, feisty coolness. Back in time, there were the very first works of the Rolling Stones, a bit less back in time, those were the first two albums of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I guess there is no song like Stop and the corresponding video which somehow represent coolness in any better way, if you haven’t watched it yet - do so, you will feel yourself like one of these badass, yet so talented rocking heroes afterwards. Somehow.

Spiced with a heavy dose of psychedelic, the same thing is applicable to Moon Duo, a half San Francisco half Berlin-based duo consisting of Erik “Ripley” Johnson, also member of Wooden Shjips and Sanae Yamada. Their droning sounds will hum their way into your ears and probably not escape too soon - they are somewhat catchy, which is once due to its psychedelic / krautrock origins, yet to the sassy and somehow, as it all started of with this, unbelievably cool sounds. All pourréed together in a pot, there is an amazing work coming out.

One of my favourites is the powerful, forward-pushing Sparks, which is coming along on a broad carpet of humming guitars and a fuzzy bass line and basically sounds like the car ride in the Stop-musicvideo of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club looks like. Another great piece is Dance No.3, which seems to make sounds rotate like a kaleidoscope plays with light. Not to forget about the LP’s opener, Sleepwalker which is in its very own way such a subtle yet so marvellous masterpiece of psychedelic rock.

The Circumflex is highly convinced, thus: Highly recommended!

NEW EP: Rhye - The Fall (2012)

You may also like: Radiohead, OutFit, Wild Child

The douce and smoky soulers of LA-based Rhye are back! After they seduced our ears earlier this year with their big hit Open, which was even put down to mainstream listeners as it was used in the commercial of the probably most well known American underwear brand, they now come around with a new EP called The Fall, which was released via Innovative Leisure/Seven Four (Polydor) today, October 9th.

Rhye’s sound comes around as trademarky as ever: An immaculate male voice aka Mike Milosh, floating softly over a suave and gentle melody, in this case characterised by a piano line which reminds me a bit, and some of you may forgive me this following combination, of French weirdo-genie Sébastien Tellier’s earlier work and some of the softer tunes of Radiohead. Which basically means: The high quality of Rhye’s recordings is more than continued.


Rhye’s debut LP is presumably going to be released in February 2013.