future us will be performing this Friday night (11/9/12) at The Connecticut Yankee in support of Spidermeow. The duo is comprised of singer/songwriter, Megan Heavlin Ochoa and electronic artist Daniel Durrett. The two cutting edge artists are fusing the classic storytelling of folk, with the soundscapes and beats of electronica. Make sure to hear their innovative sound first hand this Friday night. Half price tickets are available here.
Listen to “On My Mind” below to get a taste of what you’ll hear on Friday night.
Sally is full of indie-pop fun. Based right out of New York City, this group creates bouncy, bubbly pop that pulls from acts such as Nighttime Adventure Society and The Moldy Peaches. The band offers up a new six-song EP We Are In A Car that smartly distills their cutesy ethos.
Opener “We Are In A Car” features an intricate and fleet drum line bellied up with jangly guitars and singer Kristen Gudsnuk’s honey-dipped voice, and will leave you smiling. “A Summer Song”, eloquently composed with textures similar to the first track’s, speaks to the heartache from the loss of summer romance. Here, songwriter Jordan Cooper is mining a powerful pop sensibility.
But it is on the third track, “Friends Are Foes,” that Cooper really hits his stride. With a scratchy vocal filter, Gudsnuk lets her inner punk out with distorted guitar wails to match, making this one of the most fun moments on this release. “Head On Your Neck” channels 1960s girl-groups with its dance-ready composition. Take this one to the beach for sunbathing weekends.
The EP wraps up with “Another Lesson,” putting a bow on the bubblegum folk that Sally has curated through the six songs. While this release doesn’t offer a huge variety or particularly unique instrumentation, it rides on the strength of Gudsnuk’s honest vocals and Cooper’s cheery songwriting. The EP is unique in its execution, with the longest of six songs being under three minutes, and the majority of them under two. Writing these short pop songs is unique in the landscape of current indie music, with too many bands unleashing sprawling and dragging epics. With We Are In A Car, Sally proves that you don’t need much to craft beautiful indie pop. If you’re looking for something spunky for your summer playlist, look no further than Sally.
The EP can be purchased on CD Baby, or iTunes. You can also stream it on Spotify.
Ed Sheeran is easily the most talented Singer/Songwriter I’ve heard in many years. His soulful voice and knack for wordplay are so striking that his songs have an immediate effect. I’m sure we’ll all be hearing plenty from this 21 year old Brit as his meteoric rise has really just begun. Listen to “The A Team” below.
We’ll conclude the week with another banger from a group with a strong female presence. Just like St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs and Yukimi from Little Dragon, the vocals sung by Dirty Projectors‘ Amber Coffman on “Stillness Is The Move” are heavily influenced by 90′s R&B. Even the beat is distinctly influenced by R&B and Hip-Hop from the 90′s, but when juxtaposed with Dave Longstreth’s inventive West African tinged guitar riff the result is shockingly strange yet mesmerizing. When Talking Heads frontman, David Byrne, is your #1 fan you know you’ve stumbled upon something brilliant. Former members include Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig of current Vampire Weekend fame.
The band recently announced they’ll be touring the U.S. this summer, with dates in 33 cities. See the dates here.
It’s been awhile since I listened to this song, and the video is just as good. Brooklyn based Grizzly Bear are an Indie-Folk band, with a song sense of Pop arrangement. “Two Weeks” is a very subtly trippy video, where the band member’s faces morph ever so slowly. It somewhat reminds me of a similar effect used in Soundgarden‘s “Black Hole Sun” video. While that’s a classic, I think I like this song/video better. The light from within intrigues me.
Today’s pick, “Rain On”, comes from Brooklyn based lo-fi, psych-folkies, Woods. We’ve finally followed the thread back East, but this band sounds just as influenced by the natural beauty of the old growth forests out in California as any we’ve touched upon over the last few weeks. The jammy tendencies lend to that organic feel that places their sound firmly in the roots of the psychedelic movement. There’s no video, but this band is so unassuming that the music is all they want to present to the audience anyway.
