The lives we lead can feel like a simulation as the line between our reality and augmented futures continues to blur. Following the ever-emotive Boo Boo, Toro Y Moi’s new album Outer Peace is a time capsule that captures our relationship to contemporary culture into one comprehensive, sonic package.
Shortly after the release of his 2015 record What For?, Toro Y Moi (also known as Chaz Bear) packed up his belongings, leaving the comfort of his Oakland base for the relative solitude of Portland to write Boo Boo. Apart from the familiarity of his surroundings, Bear focused on what would become his next sonic statement. In doing so, he was struck by the reign that technology holds over our day to day lives and its ability to obscure the consumption of creativity. His change of envi- ronment resulted in freedom from disturbances and, in those quiet and tranquil spaces, the creation of music acted as a protest in favor of peace.

Having now moved back to Oakland, Bear’s new record Outer Peace is a response to the lessons gleaned while making Boo Boo — a response to the expendable state of art that is a product of instant grati cation. Bear’s ingenuity reveals a multifaceted expression of his universe on this record. It’s the space be- tween the accessible and unconventional where he invites us to experience Outer Peace, which is rooted in nding peace in antithetical conditions: being stuck in traffic, hustling for your next check as a freelancer and all other chaotic moments in life that require digging beneath the surface to nd solace.

As both a producer and designer, Bear utilizes abstract sound pairings with recognizable samples for his most pop in uenced record to date. This is no de- parture from his funk and disco roots, which can be heard on “Ordinary Pleasure”, later fusing into variations of house with tracks like “Freelance” and “Laws of the Universe.” Smooth interludes melt into fast paced beats, paralleling the feeling  of driving through the Bay Area, where Bear spent most of his time writing the album.

Outer Peace is duality. It embodies whatever form you choose to inhabit in the moment. Listen and let your imagination become the universe. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another great LP from Toro Y Moi, with pulsing beats and smooth synths all wrapping comfortably around the machinated vocal delivery. Working it's way between the dancefloor and home listening, there’s enough activity to keep you moving, but the whole thing is imbued with the kind of languid beats and euphoric basses that a more horizontal position can benefit. Perfect.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fading
2. Ordinary Pleasure
3. Laws Of The Universe
4. Miss Me (feat. ABRA)
5. New House
6. Baby Drive It Down
7. Freelance
8. Who Am I
9. Monte Carlo (feat. WET)
10. 50-50 (feat. Instupendo)

“Don’t wanna move to Southern California / I wasn’t really meant for LA...” So sang Dent May once upon a time, now he’s eating those words with a side of avocado toast in his new Los Angeles bungalow. What made the lifelong Mississippi boy pull up stakes and head west? “No one looks at you funny if you wear a tuxedo to the supermarket.” What he means is he moved there to shake up his surroundings, clear his head, and write the most accomplished record of his young career, the magical mystery tour de force Across the Multiverse.

Following the lead of musical-polymaths-with-LA-ties before him like Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Harry Nilsson, Dent’s style on Across the Multiverse will be familiar to fans of his previous work. Yet there’s something more refined about this collection... Stately strings mingle with boogie piano like old friends. Synths weave a celestial backdrop throughout. Every verse, bridge and chorus in its right place, giving it the unmistakable feel of a true songwriting craftsman at work. Lyrically Dent has never been sharper, musing on themes like modern romance (“Picture on a Screen”, “Face Down in the Gutter of Your Love”), existential dread (“Dream 4 Me”, “I’m Gonna Live Forever Until I’m Dead”), and the distance to the moon (“Distance to the Moon”) as he searches for meaning among the infinite scrolling feeds of our 21st century augmented reality.

The title track, a duet with Frankie Cosmos, is a deep space love song about finding love beyond impossible boundaries. Across the Multiverse was written and recorded in a sunny bedroom in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood, with Dent producing and playing nearly every instrument himself. The tracks were selected from dozens of songs written after the LA move, a gold rush of productivity inspired by late nights DJing rare disco funk cuts at local watering holes. It’s his first record for new label Carpark. Dent May is a self-described hotel bar lounge singer and aspiring daytime TV talk show host - has been charming his way into the hearts of music fans since the release of his debut album The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele on Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label in 2009.

The Mississippiborn, Los Angeles-based songwriter, performer, and Dolly Parton enthusiast has since released two more acclaimed records, Do Things (2012) and Warm Blanket (2013), dropped the holiday smash “I’ll Be Stoned For Christmas”, and played hundreds of shows from Shanghai to Chicago. His latest album, Across the Multiverse, is an interstellar voyage of mythic proportions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hello Cruel World
2. Picture On A Screen
3. Across The Multiverse (Feat. Frankie Cosmos)
4. Dream 4 Me
5. Take Me Heaven
6. 90210
7. Face Down In The Gutter Of Your Love
8. A Little Bit Goes A Long Way
9. Don't Let Them
10.I'm Gonna Live Forever Until I'm Dead
11.Distance To The Moon

“After 7 years of touring and recording, I found myself becoming self conscious about my position in life as a “famous” person, or at least my version of whatever that is. My dreams had become my reality, yet I was somehow unable to accept this new environment. I couldn’t help but fall into what might be described as an identity crisis. A feedback loop of fearful thoughts left me feeling confused. I felt as though I no longer knew what it was that I actually wanted and needed in and out of life, and at times I felt unable to even tell what was real.

During this time of personal turmoil, I turned to music as a form of therapy, and it helped me cope with the pain that I was feeling. I’d listen to the same ambient song over and over again, trying to insulate myself from reality. I fell in love with space again.

By the time I felt ready to begin working on a new record, I knew that this idea of space within music would be something that propelled my new work forward. The artists that were influencing what I was making included everyone from Travis Scott to Daft Punk, Frank Ocean to Oneohtrix Point Never, Kashif and Gigi Masin. I recognized that the common thread between these artists was their attention to a feeling of space, or lack thereof. I decided that I wanted to make a Pop record with these ideas in mind.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: By far, Mr. Y Moi's most accessible album to date. Throbbing bass, glistening FM keys and shimmering Balearic percussion. Packed with catchy vocal melodies, neon synths and riding high on the feel-good spectrum. Sure to be the hit of the summer.

TRACK LISTING

Mirage
No Show
Mona Lisa
Pavement
Don't Try
Windows
Embarcadero
Girl Like You
You And I
Labyrinth
Inside My Head
W.I.W.W.T.W.

The beginnings of Young Magic’s new album, Still Life, coincided with singer Melati Malay revisiting her own, in her birthplace of Indonesia. Having lost her father the previous year, she returned to the island of Java to reconnect with her family, dig up stories, and begin work on a new collection of music.

“My father had been somewhat of a mystery to me,” Melati says. “How did a boy from the Midwest end up in the jungles of Borneo during the 60s, trading his watch and a carton of cigarettes for the gravestones of the indigenous headhunters?”

The search led Melati deep into her family history. She rented a small shack by the water for a month, and with just a backpack and microphone, began recording – unraveling a past of superstition, black magic, and ties to the Javanese royal family.

“I’ve always felt torn, like some kind of hybrid existing between two worlds,” Melati says. “Born to a Catholic father and a Muslim mother, growing up bilingual, attending an international school in Jakarta where all my friends were from different countries…in a city of 30 million people where the clash between poverty and affluence is extreme.”

Still Life is a deeply personal and idiosyncratic record, somewhere close to the enchanted electronic pop realms occupied by Björk and Broadcast, yet unique to Young Magic. Found sounds and textures feature prominently across Still Life, including the Javanese gamelan, blossoming into ecstatic bursts during the climax of “Lucien.” Melati grounds the textured sonic world with arrows direct to the heart, like the arresting “How Wonderful” where the singer overflows with regret for “all those things I never said.” This is as deeply personal as the group has ever been.

“In a way, Still Life became a kind of antithesis to a world where people tell you who to pray to, what to buy into, and who your enemies should be. It’s my reaction. Still Life is my way to celebrate music from all corners…my home without borders.”

Upon returning to New York, her home of 10 years, Melati put together a group of musicians and began reimagining these new musical works inspired by her personal metamorphosis. She enlisted NYC-based cellist and composer Kelsey Lu McJunkins, Detroit producer Erin Rioux, Bolivian percussionist Daniel Alejandro Siles Mendoza, and Australian producer/songwriter Isaac Emmanuel, her longtime collaborator.

Young Magic met in New York City in 2010 and began collaborating above a speakeasy in Brooklyn. Alongside original member Michael Italia, the trio signed to Carpark Records (Toro Y Moi, Beach House, Dan Deacon) on the strength of one single (Sparkly/You With Air) and a wave of positive press. Touring in Europe and North America began after a series of limited edition 7" releases in 2011. The following year brought new visibility, acclaim, and artistic achievement with the release of the group’s full-length album debut, Melt, which was followed by sophmore album Breathing Statues.

Still Life inhabits a gorgeous, kaleidoscopic world, as delicate and intricate, as it is expansive and immersive. It walks the line between organic and mechanic, where dusty field recordings weave between warm Moogs and Prophets, where jazz breaks bump next to broken drum machines. It’s meticulously crafted outsider pop, made by obsessives, for obsessives. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Valhalla
2. Lucien
3. Sleep Now
4. IWY
5. Held
6. Default Memory
7. How Wonderful
8. Homage
9. Sky Interior
10. Valhalla (Reprise)

Outer Heaven is a massive leap forward for Toronto post-punks Greys. Delivering on the promises made on 2015’s Repulsion EP, the band tempers their trademark onslaught of discordance with new textures and subtle dynamics, building a more spacious and melody-driven environment atop their noise rock foundation. They fearlessly explore every extreme, simultaneously delivering their most intense and accessible moments, often within the same song.

“We never want to do just one thing,” says frontman Shehzaad Jiwani. “We want to incorporate as many disparate sounds as possible, yet still have it sound like the same band.” This bold approach saw them return to Montreal to record at the hallowed Hotel 2 Tango studio (Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) with longtime producer Mike Rocha, giving the songs unprecedented atmospheric depth while never compromising the band’s characteristic cacophony.

Each song contains a sweet-and-sour earworm that brings singer-guitarist Jiwani’s characteristically self-aware, often satirical lyrics to the forefront, and his serrated shout is almost entirely swapped for a more tuneful approach. Almost. Lyrically, his focus has sharpened, moving from inward to outward. This is best evident on first single “No Star,” wherein Jiwani addresses the aftermath of the shootings at Bataclan in Paris by declaring, “Don’t shoot/I’m not the enemy.”

Outer Heaven filters its subject matter through Jiwani’s wryly incisive perception of those topics, from a news story about a group of teens barbarically murdering their classmate on album opener “Cruelty,” to the advent of technological singularity on closer “My Life As A Cloud.” Elsewhere, on “Blown Out,” the frontman confronts his own mental health by painting it in the context of a relationship with a partner who doesn’t fully understand the unrelenting complexities of depression. The climax of the song sees him wailing, “I want you to see/There’s something wrong with me,” which would be a harrowing moment if it wasn’t the single catchiest song Greys have ever written.

The young quartet stretches its limbs like never before on more delicate tracks like “Erosion,” where Jiwani sings softly over Cam Graham’s delicate guitar, recalling the dream pop qualities of early Deerhunter or late-period Unwound. Elsewhere, on “Sorcerer,” bassist Colin Gillespie and drummer Braeden Craig launch an unrelenting yet hypnotic assault that falls somewhere between Swans and Portishead. With ten tracks at just under forty minutes, Greys raise the bar for what is expected of a punk band in the 21st century.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Equal parts indie and sneering punk, Outer Heaven has elements of Emo (Rival Schools come immediately to mind) and new-wave post-punk. Righteously indignant in parts, and downright aggressive in others, head-nodding melodic sections are immediately morphed into anthemic 'Oy' choruses. Though this should make me wish Hot Water Music were still around, what it does is make me glad their influence still resonates and progresses to this day. This is a distillation of all the best elements from post-hardcore, emo and skate-punk but amped up and injected with a vitality and ingenuity that is both refreshing and nostalgic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cruelty
2. No Star
3. If It's All The Same To You
4. Blown Out
5. Erosion
6. Complaint Rock
7. In For A Penny
8. Strange World
9. Sorcerer
10. My Life As A Cloud

TEEN’s new album, Love Yes, explores the disharmony and empowerment that both sexuality and spirituality can create within the modern woman’s psyche. Universal ideas of loyalty, pleasure, purity, power, aging, and love are confronted with a knowable specificity. There is a quality of wholesomeness, but also an edge—a kind of wise anger and electricity.

After extensive touring following their breakthrough release The Way and Color (2014), the band had to keep traveling to find Love Yes. The group first went to Woodstock in the dead of winter to write new material. Here, keyboardist and singer Lizzie Lieberson created the stunning, autobiographical “Please.” But the band, and especially lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Teeny Lieberson, felt a crushing lack of creative energy. Recognizing the need to recharge, they took some time off. Teeny moved to a small lakeside cabin in Morehead, Kentucky. Surrounded by rolling hills, sparked with sudden thunderstorms, and inspired by the musical joy of uninhibited late-night bluegrass jams and barn parties, Teeny immediately began writing again. Here she felt a new freedom in her songwriting; drawing on themes important to her identity as a woman, and exploring love, sexuality, and the tension between desire and the construct of desire that can exist within oneself, in relationship, and within society.

After three weeks in Morehead, Teeny returned to New York to workshop with rest of the band, including drummer Katherine Lieberson and bassist Boshra Al-Saadi. Acknowledging the benefits of being creative in a cocoon like the lakeside Kentucky country, the band decided to record at the Old Confidence Lodge, in secluded Riverport, Nova Scotia. Leaving the noise and relentless energy of the city behind, TEEN retreated into the nurturing stillness of Nova Scotia, the Lieberson sisters’ childhood home. Situated on the La Have River, the studio was hidden in a perpetual mist while the band recorded day and night. Fueled by new material, a change of place, and creative collaboration, the lull of the winter lifted and the band came together in a new way. Teaming up once again with producer Daniel Schlett, TEEN wanted to capture the energy of full band recording. Rather than multi-tracking, Schlett worked with the band as they played the songs relentlessly, waiting to achieve the right energy and take as a group.

The result is a beautiful, detailed album about womanhood and the embodiment of the sensual, played by a group fully in step with one another. Love Yes bursts into the static air with a vibrancy recognized by its confidence and power.

On the album cover, the quartet is bejeweled in crystals and bathed in Venusian red. This red is the colour of vitality and pulsing life — unmistakable traits of Love Yes. It is the iconic red of Dorothy’s slippers and Eve’s apple — potent with society’s tales and notions of innocence lost. In Love Yes, something else more mysterious and tender is gained.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tokyo
2. All About Us
3. Gone For Good
4. Another Man's Woman
5. Example
6. Animal
7. Free Time
8. Superhuman
9. Please
10. Noise Shift
11. Love Yes
12. Push

Speedy Ortiz said they would get the flowers themselves. What a lark! What a plunge!

When considering Massachusetts' Speedy Ortiz, that line from Virginia Woolf comes to mind. Not only for the obvious echoes to DIY, a form and function that's characterized the band's nascency, but in the proto-feminist undertones driving much of their sophomore album, Foil Deer. "I'm not bossy, I'm the boss," Sadie Dupuis sings on "Raising the Skate," invoking in spirit one half of the Carter-Knowles clan and echoing the other's wordplay. And wordplay makes sense, considering Dupuis-the band's songwriter, guitarist, and frontwoman-spent the band's first few years teaching writing at UMass Amherst. She's drawn to the dense complexity of Pynchon, the dreamlike geometry of Bolaño, the confounded yearning of Plath-all attributes you could easily apply to the band's 2013 debut Major Arcana, which fans and press alike have invested with a sense of purpose and merit uncommon in contemporary guitar rock.

The group, including Mike Falcone on drums, Darl Ferm on bass, and new addition Devin McKnight of Grass is Green on guitar, have spent the last year on an almost endless cross-continental touring jag, tagging along with the likes of The Breeders, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, and Thurston Moore. That shift into full-time musicianship brought with it an attendant reordering of priorities when it came to songwriting, and the band members' lives in general. They would get the damn flowers themselves.

Dupuis wrote much of Foil Deer at her mother's home in the Connecticut woods, where the songwriter imposed a self-regulated exile and physical cleansing of sorts, finding that many of the songs came to her while running or swimming alone. "I gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn't have my back," she says. "Listening to our old records, I get the sense I was putting myself in horrible situations just to write sad songs. This music isn't coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger." Many of the songs deal with a similar sense of starting over, editing out the unnecessary drama. "Boys be sensitive and girls be, be aggressive," she sings on "Mister Difficult."

And while their debut album was recorded on the fly, Speedy Ortiz spent almost a month in the studio on Foil Deer. Falcone's drums are taut, mechanistic; Ferm's bass ranges from the aggressive rattle of an AmRep classic to smoother, hip-hop inspired lines. McKnight, meanwhile, lends spacier, textural riffs to complement Dupuis' wiry, melody-driven guitar style. "The demos for our songs have always had tons of small details and production experimentation, but we never had any money to pay for more than a couple days in the studio, so the songs came out very live-sounding and guitar heavy," Dupuis says. It was recorded and mixed at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room with Nicolas Vernhes (Silver Jews, Enon, Deerhunter), with the record mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, Haim, Beauty Pill), lending a more polished sound and a pop sensibility that will stand out to existing fans and new converts alike. For all the lyrical complexity and guitar-based excursions Speedy Ortiz have built their reputation on to this point, Foil Deer has a sense of light-footed fun. What's the point of doing things yourself if you're not going to enjoy the trip?

TRACK LISTING

1. Good Neck
2. Raising The Skate
3. The Graduates
4. Dot X
5. Homonovus
6. Puffer
7. Swell Content
8. Zig
9. My Dead Girl
10. Ginger
11. Mister Difficult
12. Dvrk Wvrld

Never one to stand still and fresh from a scheduled intermission whilst working on a dance record as Les Sins, loaning his vocals to Chromeo and starting his own record label, producer, songwriter, singer and melodic mastermind Chaz Bundick is all set to resume his Toro Y Moi guise with brand new album What For? And whilst most would think there were no genres left to play with, the intrepid musical explorer is about to throw one hell of a curve ball into the mix.

“I’ve done electronic R&B and more traditional recorded R&B stuff. I just wanted to see what else was out there,”Bundick says of the record’s new direction. “It’s all coming from the same mindset and point of creativity. It’s just me trying to take what I already have, then taking it further asking, "OK, what can I do now?" or "What haven't I tried yet?"

As mastermind and ringleader of the smeared electronic production sound that defined and established ‘chillwave’ before hipsters rode it within an inch of its life (see 2010’s Causers of This), an explorer of motorik space-age funk (2011’s Underneath The Pine), smoky 4/4 house-tinged pop, electro-funk and late-night electronic soul (2013’s Anything In Return) all to critical acclaim, What For? is where Toro Y Moi’s story continues - albeit one that leaves its true meaning only to imagination. “The album’s main themes are love and nature,” he hints. “I wrote about personal experiences but intentionally left them vague. I‘ve always felt that good songs should heighten your mental awareness.”

Written and recorded over the course of eight months at his home studio in Berkeley, California,What For?draws inspiration from Big Star, Talking Heads and Todd Rundgren, as well as the psychedelic soul of Brazil’s Tim Maia and ‘70s-era jazz-funk of France’s Cortex. Unknown Mortal Orchestra guitarist Ruban Neilson appears on the album, as does multi-instrumentalist Julian Lynch. This time, meticulous production of stereo-panned guitars, buzzing synthesizers, funky keys and live drumming has paved the way for the feel of a rock band playing together in the same room; “A studio should keep changing and all of the gear should be out and exposed or else you'll never remember to use it. With this album, I'd just walk up to an instrument somewhere in my house and start writing,”Bundick recalls.

Having spent his formative years playing in punk rock bands and studying graphic design at the University of South Carolina, Bundick began making bedroom recordings under the name Toro Y Moi in 2001. Those early demos made up the seeds of his distinct retro-future sound ahead of a brief stint in New York before relocating to California in 2012. It’s a move that has given Bundick time to reflect on what’s important, allowing him the freedom to create whilst also embarking upon new exciting projects such as establishing ‘Company’ records;
“Having a label has been a goal for a while. I want to be a part of this generation,”tells Bundick. “I'm aiming to take Company as far as it can go. I'm helping artists with each release from production to the design of the album cover to make something timeless.”

Whether recording and creating another album, or assisting with someone else’s work in progress, Bundick continues to prove to be as prolific as he is diverse. In the process he is constantly pushing the limits to point Toro Y Moi in new directions, yet never sacrificing his melodic sensibility or keen ear for arrangements and texture.

What For? - Why Not...

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Ace change of direction for Chaz Bundrick. This record reminds me of Teenage Fanclub in its retro pop directness: Big Star meets power-pop melodiousness. However, there's also a slightly wonky Todd Rundgren flavour mixed in to keep things fresh. Superb stuff!

TRACK LISTING

1. What You Want
2. Buffalo
3. The Flight
4. Empty Nesters
5. Ratcliff
6. Lilly
7. Spell It Out
8. Half Dome
9. Run Baby Run
10. Yeah Right

Fortuna, the second full length from New Zealand trio Popstrangers, trades the grunge revivalism of the band's previous releases for buoyant hooks and '60s pop. Pairing their minor-key riffs with pervasively melancholic songwriting, the band's refined sense of melody is on full display on Fortuna, which echoes the classic guitar pop of their homeland's Flying Nun Records.

Recorded over five days in London, Popstrangers' warped tales of infatuation and aggression are anchored by Joel Flyger's tactile vocals, which steep in subterranean effects before ripping clean through the album's choruses. The band's pop sensibilities are at their best on standout "Country Kills," where Flyger shrugs off his looming demise with a wink and an indelible riff. "My country will kill me now, but whatever." The band is quick to tamper Fortuna's catchy strains with atonal guitars and a nervous pace, the record's building sense of anxiety concluding with the psych comedown of "What's On Your Mind?"

Eschewing the squalling guitars that propelled their debut album Antipodes for clear-headed production and lush choruses, Popstrangers hit their stride on Fortuna, crystallizing their influences into a succinct record of indie psych that never lingers too long.

Popstrangers are Joel Flyger, Adam Page and David Larson; three native New Zealanders who make “pop” music that is hard-driving, punk-influenced, and sonically inimitable.

The band formed in 2009, after the three members connected over their shared histories of bad day jobs, stints in other bands, and most importantly, their desire to create music with like-minded people. With a name conceived minutes before their first official show, Popstrangers’ ambitions have grown since their days of playing local gigs around Auckland. They have developed a strong following in their native New Zealand for their heavy yet accessible sound, and are set to export their noisy melodies to the rest of the world. Popstrangers has released two well-received EPs and a full-length, Antipodes, which houses their lauded single “Heaven.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Sandstorm
2. Don't Be Afraid
3. Distress
4. Country Kills
5. Violet
6. Tonight
7. Her
8. Destine
9. Right Babies
10. What's On Your Mind

Reigning in the melodic chaos of their previous works, the dystopian beats on Young Magic’s second release were conceived in a new series of experiments. Producer Isaac Emmanuel and vocalist Melati Malay pieced together the album over the past year while on tour – recording in Morocco, France, Czech Republic, Australia, Iceland and their home studio in New York.

As a result, Breathing Statues unfolds in labyrinthine fashion, its surreal lyrics and ghostly harmonies emphasizing the record’s otherworldly intimacy, growing darker as the album progresses from the agile “Fall In” to the lurching chants of “Mythnomer.”

In the spirit of the album’s spontaneity, the band invited a harpist to improvise over their songs, layering celestial fragments over the record’s cavernous beats. The album operates in these extremes, with the airiness of Malay’s vocals set in sharp contrast with the claustrophobic doom of Emmanuel’s warped percussion.

With Breathing Statues, Young Magic’s series of audio experimentations coalesce into a new holographic landscape, showing a band progressing with ambition towards a sound uniquely their own.

Young Magic is the sonic pairing between Indonesian vocalist, Melati Malay and Australian producer, Isaac Emmanuel. Although currently based in New York, the eclectic outfit has recorded music whilst traversing the four corners of the earth.

After debuting a series of 7” releases on Carpark Records in 2011, the band took the stage at Iceland Airwaves and began touring globally, including main support tours with Youth Lagoon and Purity Ring. February 2012 saw the release of their full length, Melt with the likes of NPR, BBC, New York Times, XLR8R and a plethora of other publications and blogs singing the album’s praises. The group’s immersive visual show continued to expand throughout 2012 and 2013 with performances at Berghain, Austin Psych Fest and The Brooklyn Museum.

This year, the duo present a new gift from their explorations in their sophomore release, Breathing Statues. The album navigates through a labyrinth of phantom harmonies and crystalline beats, with cover artwork by longtime collaborator Leif Podhajsky. Breathing Statues is a lush and distinctive collection that colors the world a new soundscape.

TRACK LISTING

1. One
2. Fall In
3. Foxglove
4. Something In The Water
5. Ageless
6. Cobra
7. Holographic
8. Mythnomer
9. Waiting For The Ground To Open
10. Captcha

On Speedy Ortiz’s Real Hair, the band sets a course between the knotty discord of debut album Major Arcana and the pop bonafides of the preceding Sports EP. Recorded and mixed by Paul Q. Kolderie (Pixies Radiohead), the new EP finds them subtly adding new techniques to their songbook. Guitarists Sadie Dupuis and Matt Robidoux bring on additional guitar effects to color the roundabout feel of “Oxygal,” while bassist Darl Ferm and drummer Mike Falcone hit hard to deliver the jump-in-the-pit urgency of “American Horror”.

From the vocal melodies to the no-nonsense guitar turns, this is Speedy’s catchiest outing yet, drawing inspiration from contemporary Top 40 and R&B radio in addition to their regular arsenal of guitar rock. Dupuis’ lyrics continue to address concerns about identity, representation, and their misalignment, this time from a new angle: “While the last album was kind of a breakup jam, these songs are a lot more introspective—myself dealing with and talking to and making sense of myself,” she says.

With Real Hair, Speedy Ortiz once again taps into the four-part chemistry that brought their prior outings praise. They’re still equal parts noisy and poetic, and now merge those channels more seamlessly than ever.

8.4 ON PITCHFORK: Speedy Ortiz wear their love of the 1990s on their torn, flannel sleeves, which makes this particular round of Spot the Influence about as challenging as a game of teeball: there’s the squalling, guitar-on-guitar carnage of Archers of Loaf, the grungy mysticism of Helium (Dupuis lifted the title Major Arcana from a book she was reading on black magic), and of course the deadpan wit of vintage Liz Phair (“I was never the witch that you made me to be,” Dupuis tells a burnt-out old flame on “Plough”, “Still you picked a virgin over me”).

9/10 LEAD REVIEW IN NME: “One of the reasons 'Major Arcana' works so well is because it's addictive and fun. The guitars and bass sound incredible, like the last Deerhunter album without the Yankee Doodle Dandy”

8/10 Drowned In Sound : “We’re tipped off to Dupuis’s capability on ‘No Below’, the most lucid and brilliant of Major Arcana’s consistently high-quality cuts. In another Elliott Smith-studied quirk of technique, it flips a loner-finds-lungs chorus with revealing modifiers: “(Yes I once said) / I was better of just being dead / Better off just being dead... / But I didn’t know you yet”. From such nigglingly touching moments surface nigglingly great songwriters, and despite the glum facade, Speedy Ortiz are way too euphoric and glorious to suffer for their artfulness. Stripping away the frills, at heart Major Arcana is a mournful treasure that asks to be celebrated.”

NME RADAR FEATURE: “What's miraculous, though, is that Major Arcana doesn't sound at all self-pitying; it's torrid Slint-meets-Pavement rattle bolsters Sadie's relished words so that yelling along is an exercise in gleefully exorcising your own demons”

Earlier this year, Atlanta’s Dog Bite found themselves with downtime in Los Angeles between a successful tour with labelmates Toro Y Moi and shows at SXSW in Austin. The four-piece that makes up the touring group started messing around with different sounds and came up with their first full-band release, the LA EP.

This document of the road-tested crew is a stunning sequel to Velvet Changes , the band’s debut LP, which showcased the talents of singer-songwriter Phil Jones and bassist Woody Shortridge.

The LA EP begins with “Warm, Wake Up,” a song that captures the bliss of a sunny day in the palm tree-dotted landscape and the romantic intrigue of Hollywood’s studio lots. Motoring back down that winding road, we hear “Hunting Seasons" where mid-20th century boogie haunts the track’s guitars as the reverberating beat floats us back up to the clouds.

A feeling of melancholia drifts throughout the EP’s songs. But the saddest part about this collection is its 13-minute length. It flies by like a short vacation or a cool breeze. But much more than sorrow for its passing, the LA EP inspires excitement for the next gust of wind.

TRACK LISTING

01 Warm, Wake Up
02 Hunting Season
03 Cold Weather
04 LA Sounds

On their debut full-length, Western Massachusetts’ Speedy Ortiz manages a bit of magic by conjuring the spirits of classic American indie rock, while twisting those ghosts into new shapes. It’s easy to hear the influences of Helium, Jawbox, and Chavez on this album, as well as nods to their contemporaries including Grass is Green, Pile, and Roomrunner. Sweet vocal harmonies run up against gnarly distortion, aided by basic, chunky bass parts and heavy, fillladen drums.

The album was recorded in a few days in November at Justin Pizzoferrato’s (Dinosaur Jr., Chelsea Light Moving) studio, Sonelab, a huge space in an old factory in Easthampton, Mass. The sessions went from very early in the day until very late at night, with the band taking its time to experiment. Pizzoferrato’s collection of old distortion pedals were utilized on both the record’s guitars and vocals.

The theme of the occult and the supernatural runs deep through Major Arcana, inspired by singer-guitarist Sadie Dupuis’ reading on black magic. Dupuis’ sometimes knotty and abstract lyrics bring to mind fellow wordsmith Stephen Malkmus, while referencing horror film tropes, chemistry, and neuroscience. Major Arcana’s literal translation is “major mysteries,” a phrase from tarot cards. “I don’t write in a narrative way and am more concerned with use of language than meaning,” Dupuis says, “so I like the open-endedness of the title and the way it invites interpretation.”

After too much time freelance writing and watching re-runs in a windowless Brooklyn basement, guitarist and songwriter Sadie Dupuis left New York City for the wilds of Northampton, MA in order to pursue a master’s degree in poetry. In doing so, she began Speedy Ortiz, a self-recorded lo-fi project named after a minor character from the Love and Rockets comic series. Speedy Ortiz soon became something else entirely as bassist Darl Ferm, guitarist Matt Robidoux, and drummer Mike Falcone teamed up to form a full band, balancing abrasive noise with infectious earworms. The newly minted Speedy Ortiz quickly found an audience in the Boston DIY scene, playing frequently with their friends Pile, Grass is Green, Fat History Month, Sneeze, Krill, and Arvid Noe.

Almost immediately, the band recorded a two-song single, “Taylor Swift” and “Swim Fan,” with Paul Q. Kolderie (Pixies, Hole) and Justin Pizzoferrato (Chelsea Light Moving, Dinosaur Jr.), and self-released it in March of 2012. Shortly thereafter they spent a few weekends at the dingy yet atmospheric Sex Dungeon Studios in Philadelphia recording the Sports EP, a five-track, loosely conceptual 10” released that June on Exploding in Sound Records. The creation of Major Arcana, their full-length debut, marks the evolution of Speedy Ortiz into a wholly collaborative effort. Darl leans toward basic, chunky parts, while Mike, a talented songwriter in his own right, helped arrange while also providing aggressive, boisterous drums. And Matt is a classically trained guitarist, but his experience in noise and experimental music comes through in his anti-melodic guitar solos, which counterbalance Sadie’s angular, scalar guitar riffs and poppy vocals.

The end result is a band able to distill their influences and creative impulses into something at once dissonant and melodic, noisy yet undeniably pop.

Empire is GRMLN’s album for the crusin' world: Upbeat rock ‘n’ roll with the feel of ‘90s pop-punk. The new tracks are much more rock-driven than Explore’s gentle, dreamy tunes. Wanting to capture the sound of a live band, Yoodoo Park—the born-in-Japan Southern Californian behind GRMLN—recorded the album with his brother Tae San Park on bass and friend Keith Frerichs on drums. Album standout “Hand Pistol” is a catchy mix of polished-up Superchunk and poppier Jimmy Eat World. There’s “Cheer Up” with its ‘50s-style chord progression and climactic, fiery plea of “Don’t break me down!” Empire’s quietest number is the closer “Dear Fear,” an acoustic strummer about the damage time can do. The record’s energy and brevity translated to a concise recording process. The nine songs (all but two are under three minutes) were recorded and mixed in a span of five days at Different Fur Studios in San Francisco with Patrick Brown and Sean Paulson (Toro Y Moi’s Anything In Return).

Lyrically, Empire is a look into 20-year-old Yoodoo’s head as he deals with growing up and how that complicates relationships. “I see the world going by without me/ it’s just the way that I’m moving back to you,” he sings on “Blue Lagoon.” Yoodoo notes that while writing the album he matured out of a phase of naïveté, consequently becoming disillusioned with love.

The album was mostly written the months preceding and during Yoodoo’s sophomore year at the University of California Santa Cruz. When the fall semester began, Yoodoo would either write in between classes or just ditch the day’s lessons all together in pursuit of a song.

TRACK LISTING

1. Teenage Rhythm 
2. Blue Lagoon 
3. Hand Pistol 
4. Coastal Love
5. Do You Know How It Feels?
6. Summer Days
7. 1993
8. Cheer Up
9. Dear Fear

For Adventure’s 2011 album, "Lesser Known", mastermind Benny Boeldt dived deep into pop songcraft. Unlike Adventure’s self-titled debut, this record was full of earworm vocal hooks - a big leap from the chiptune-indebted songs of his first album.

Boeldt’s third Adventure LP, "Weird Work", remains in the same sonic space as "Lesser Known" but abandons its sing-alongs. The album veers from a Square Enix-style video game soundtrack (“Alone”) to a strange lecture leaking from a high school’s ceiling PA (“Constantly”). The frenzied "Laser Blast" and the smooth "Nervous" encourage dance floor crowding. Weird Work is the result of Adventure’s 8-bit tendencies running free in an IDM landscape built on Aphex Twin and early Warp Records.

Stepping back from the strictures of pop music, Boeldt was once again free, with only an allegiance to his creative muses. “This record is about taking away any restrictive guidelines to the way I play or compose,” Boeldt says. “It's about isolation, confusion, doubt, growing up, growing out, losing control.” Despite the lack of deliberate confines on the music, there is still a feeling of control to these tracks. The music came into existence freely, but has found order.

In today’s digital age, when so many try to find definition with online tools and seek identity in downloadable content, it’s nice to know that Adventure has it figured out with Weird Work. “This record is about recognizing myself again,” Boeldt says.

“This record is about realizing who I am as a musician, and what I sound like. For better or for worse.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Days Off
2. Laser Blast
3. Nervous
4. Flower
5. Reality Shift
6. Alone
7. Constantly
8. Catching Up
9. Happiness

Popstrangers are Joel Flyger, Adam Page and David Larson, three native New Zealanders who make “pop” music that’s hard-driving, punk-influenced and sonically inimitable. After releasing several singles on fabled New Zealand label Flying Nun, the band arrives with their debut album Antipodes . Recorded in the basement of a 1930’s dancehall, Popstrangers’ first full-length features dissonant, claustrophobic melodies, anchored by the languid affectations of Flyger’s vocals, that bring a vintage feel to their decidedly contemporary garage rock. Channeling early Radiohead and kiwi indie bands of yore like the Gordons, 3Ds and the Chills, Antipodes further develops the band’s nuanced, distorted “pop” created and cultivated from years spent honing their craft live.

Antipodes begins with a wavering chord from a classic rock organ in “Jane,” over which the band layers gently oscillating bass, a razor-sharp guitar riff and the faintest hint of a tambourine, until the song rotates on its axis with the introduction of Flyger’s shadowy vocals enveloped in noise. Popstrangers revel in this conflict, playing with dynamics and tempo to whip their droning melodies and tightly wound riffs into utter frenzy. Antipodes ’ storm breaks for “Heaven,” a song that contrasts Flyger’s moody lyrics about imprisonment and escape with a serotonin hit of snappy guitars and infectious hooks. Drawing the album to a close is seven minutes of slow-burner “Occasions,” anchored by a murky bassline that eases the album to its end. Antipodes operates within a claustrophobic world of depression, captivity and dark matters of the heart, but Popstrangers anchor their debut LP’s hazy gloom with earnest anticipation for contentment.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jane 
2. In Some Ways 
3. Witches Hand 
4. What Else Could They Do 
5. Cat's Eyes 
6. Full Fat 
7. Heaven
8. Roy Brown 
9. 404 
10. Occasion

The product of a move from South Carolina to Berkeley, CA and the subsequent extended separation from loved ones, Toro Y Moi's third full-length, Anything in Return, puts Chaz Bundick right in the middle of the producer/songwriter dichotomy that his first two albums established.

There's a pervasive sense of peace with his tendency to dabble in both sides of the modern music-making spectrum, and he sounds comfortable engaging in intuitive pop production and putting forth the impression of unmediated id.

The producer's hand is prominent- not least in the sampled "yeah"s and "uh"s that give the album a hip-hop-indebted confidence- and many of the songs feature the 4/4 beats and deftly employed effects usually associated with house music. Tracks like "High Living" and "Day One" show a considerably Californian influence, their languid funk redolent of a West Coast temperament, and elsewhere- not least on lead single, "So Many Details"- the record plays with darker atmospheres than we're used to hearing from Toro Y Moi. Sounding quite assured in what some may call this songwriter's return to producer-hood, Anything in Return is Bundick uninhibited by issues of genre, an album that feels like the artist's essence.

Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Chaz Bundick has been toying with various musical projects since early adolescence. Having spent his formative years playing in punk and indie rock acts, his protean Toro Y Moi project has been his vessel for further musical exploration since 2001. During his time spent studying graphic design at the University of South Carolina, Chaz became increasingly focused on his solo work, incorporating electronics and allowing a wider range of influences- French house, Brian Wilson's pop, 80s R&B, and Stones Throw hip-hop- to show up in his music. By the time he graduated in spring 2009, Chaz had refined his sound to something all his own. Music journals across the board touted his hazy recordings as the sound of the summer, and he released his debut album, Causers of This in early 2010.

Since then, Bundick has proven himself to be not just a prolific musician, but a diverse one as well, letting each successive release broaden the scope of the Toro Y Moi oeuvre. The funky psych-pop of 2011's Underneath the Pine evinced an artist who could create similar atmospheres even without the aid of source material and drum machines. His Freaking Out EP, a handful of singles and remixes, and a retrospective box-set plot points all along the producer/songwriter spectrum in which he's worked since his debut, and Anything In Return is another exciting offering that shows he's still not ready to settle into any one genre.

Toro Y Moi’s first commercial release, the “Blessa" single, introduced the world to Chaz Bundick’s brand of introspective, atmospheric pop music, and while the A-side wound up laying the framework for his debut, "Causers Of This", backing track, "109”, hinted at a side of his music having more in common with the oddball pop of Ariel Pink than any of "Causers"’ reference points.

As it turns out, around the same time he was experimenting with music software and sampling, Bundick was recording a slew of short and sweet lo-fi tracks chronicling his version of college grad indecision. Now, after two albums, an EP, loads of tour dates, and a move to Berkeley, CA, these songs still mean a lot to him, and they’re collected on the retrospective "June 2009".

Originally part of the tour-only CD-R of the same name, "June 2009" feels like a peek inside the mind of an artist not knowing where to turn once stripped of the structure of school life. He struggles with good friends moving away (“Sad Sams”), the pressing feeling that a move to New York is a necessary career move (“Take The L To Leave”), and the fear that simple pleasures have become a thing of the past (“Ektelon”). But more than nostalgic yearnings for the recent past, the songs are like journal entries - as commemorative as they are therapeutic. Elsewhere, tracks like “Girl Problems” and “Dead Pontoon” show how his first album might have sounded if “109” had been that first single’s A-side, with reverbsoaked, angular guitar riffs serving as focal points of the power-pop periphery.

Also included is an early version of "Causers" standout track “Talamak”, one of his first cuts to make the blog rounds and an interesting insight into the process of reformatting his work to fit with the album. Closer “New Loved Ones” sees Bundick in a rare, intimate environment, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar and in the throes of love lost. With songs varied in style but bound together by their personal subject matter, "June 2009" is a portrait of a young man unknowingly on the cusp of a fruitful career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Philippa says: Toro Y Moi looks back to the short and sweet lo-fi pop tracks he recorded back in the day chronicling his version of college grad indecision. One for fans of the oddball pop of Ariel Pink.

TRACK LISTING

01. Best Around
02. Take The L To Leave
03. Girl Problems
04. Dead Pontoon
05. Ektelon
06. Drive South
07. Sad Sams
08. Talamak (First Version)
09. Warm Frames
10. New Loved Ones