SOD: Cayucas -- High School Lover

Spring is coming, or so I've heard. This brings the promise of trail running and shorts. It only follows that I've been looking for happy music recently, and lately I've been missing the combination of humor and pop sensibility that was so great in the Clinton-era releases by Beck and Weezer. When I heard "High School Lover" by sleepy seaside town, San Luis Obispo, California band, Cayucas, it immediately put a smile on my face and there was much dancing.

Cayucas will be at SXSW on Thursday, March 14 at 3pm on Radio Day Stage Austin Convention Center.

SOD: Jackson Scott -- The Awful Sound

I keep digging for info on this dude, but brass tacks is that Jackson Scott has a damn fine psych-pop tune in "That Awful Sound". I listened to this track 5x after the first play and kept discovering fresh bits that I liked about it: the practically implied drums, the MBV wash of electric guitar at 1:28, and the warbling pitch at 2:13 like the singer's about to go into a freak out but instead shuts the song down at a mere 2:26 of pop economy. More, Mr. Scott!

SOD: Telekinesis -- Ghosts and Creatures

The new Telekinesis album, Dormarion, will come out in a few months (March?), and if this lead single, "Ghosts and Creatures", is any indication of its direction, this album is going to be a welcome shift in sound for Telekinesis. 

Michael Lerner, who is the man behind Telekinesis, has written dozens of tunes that can be described as pure pop goodness on previous releases, but this song is much darker, almost suffocatingly so. The keys at one end sear and the other end rattle and buzz, pulling the song apart and driving its satisfying resolution.

The lyrics float over the top, so you only pick up on some of the striking images: a ship on a lonely sea, something being electrified, another thing being cut down. It's not clear exactly what he's talking about, but the song carries a very strong sense of longing and desperation. Which always makes for a great pop song.

3/19/13 Update. Telekinesis released this brilliant video for the song, wherein Lerner falls in love with a girl stuck inside an old computer.

SOD: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis -- Thrift Shop

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's 2012 record, The Heist, has been on heavy rotation in my ears for the past month, and the horn jam, Thrift Shop, has been blasted early and often. 

And the video is hilarious. It's the first video I've seen in many years that's actually as good as the song. I laugh my ass off every time I see Macklemore in the thrift shop jumping from beat up couch to couch wearing a fluffy long coat.  In slow motion. 

The rap duo is on fire right now. They've been selling out shows for months, both US and in abroad (dang, I missed them at St. Andrews in Detroit). The Heist has sold 200,000+ copies. Damn good sales for today.

I love the horns on this song, and the dopey "what what?" at the opening over tinny casiotone sounds makes the actual beat and horn line drop in heavy and sound crazy. I probably wouldn't listen to a whole record of Thrift Shop type songs, but the record has sober, introspective moments as well, making this song all about the fun.

Fun times:
Your grammy, your aunty, your momma, your mammy
I’ll take those flannel zebra jammies, second-hand, I rock that motherfucker
The built-in onesie with the socks on that motherfucker

Best Albums + Songs of 2012

It's list making time, my favorite time of the year. This music has made me happy, sad, messed up, introspective, and insane sometimes all at once. I can see some of these shifting places, but it's a good snapshot of bands and recordings that are right on point right now.

Albums:

1. Dirty Projectors -- Swing Lo Magellan
2. Beach House -- Lazuli
3. Cloud Nothings -- Attack on Memory
4. Tame Impala -- Lonerism
5. Passion Pit -- Gossamer
6. Shins -- Port of Morrow
7. Tallest Man on Earth -- there's No Leaving Now
8. Japandroids -- Celebration Rock
9. Metz -- Metz
10. Yeasayer -- Fragrant World

Songs:

1. Lotus Plaza -- Monoliths
2. Langhorne Slim -- The Way We Move
3. Cloud Nothings -- No Future / No Past
4. Beach House -- The Hours
5. Grizzly Bear -- Yet Again
6. Japandroids -- Fire's Highway
7. Tame Impala -- Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
8. Alabama Shakes -- Hold On
9. Dirty Projectors -- Dance for You
10. Passion Pit -- Constant Conversations

Song of the Day: Passion Pit -- Constant Conversations

This entry needs a better title if it's going to be a regular thing.

Anyway, I listen to a lot of music.  One metric ton of music in fact (not an actual fact).  And I love discovering new bands, songs, albums, sounds, and genres. I'm a non-partisan music listener.  Hank Williams?  Hell yeah. Kendrick Lamar? Definitely.  So I had this idea on my run today that every day I'd post one short blog about a song that has captured my ear, with the youtube video included.  Let's kick the tires on this idea.

Passion Pit -- Constant Conversations

On Gossamer, Passion Pit's 2012 electropop release, Michael Angelakos hones in his prototypical song type -- manic-dance-beat-meets-dark-introspective-lyrics -- with fantastic songs like "I'll Be Alright" that build on "Sleepyhead"'s sonic bi-polarism from Passion Pit's first LP, Manners.  But what I find even more intriguing about Gossamer is the inclusion of tracks like Constant Converstaions, a slow, swinging, intimate R&B song that is today's song of the day.

Favorite lyric:

I never wanna hurt you baby /

I'm just a mess with a name and a price /
And now I'm drunker than before /

They told me drinking doesn't make me nice