Thanks to Casey for calling attention to the new video for Frightened Rabbit’s single, Swim Until You Can’t See Land, which you can also stream (along with the B-side) at Fat Cat Records.
Frontman Scott Hutchison’s lyrics continue to touch an emotional nerve, perhaps showing signs of a recovery from the gut-wrenching breakup anthems from The Midnight Organ Fight. On Swim, he seems to have resolved to move on:
“Let’s call me a baptist, call this the drowning of the past.
She’s there on the shoreline
Throwing stones at my back
So swim until you can’t see land.”
And wouldn’t you know it: Stones Throw released a new video today for the Mayer’s Green Eyed Love, the closer on his excellent debut A Strange Arrangement.
The video coincides with the release of a six-track 12-inch EP – on green vinyl, of course – that features remixes of Green Eyed Love. Stones Throw is offering one of them, by Classixx, as a free download.
A few weeks ago, I downloaded the digital single for the new jam from People Under the Stairs – Trippin’ At the Disco – and completely forgot to post about it until Weiss offered up the video for the track today.
PUTS continues to be one of the most prolific but overlooked acts in hip-hop. Their new album and second in as many years, Carried Away, drops today. I’ve always felt Thes One, who is living the dream, and Double K offer the perfect blend of West Coast cool and underground ethos. It’s a shame they’re not more popular.
Just a couple weeks after the proper release of his once-shelved album Kamaal the Abstract, Q-Tip is back with a new video for Life is Better from The Renaissance, his critically acclaimed return that was one of my favorites of 2008.
Much like the revered Midnight Marauders album cover(s), this is Q-Tip’s ode to hip-hop – his predecessors and peers – and he shouts out some of the best: Kool Herc, The Furious Five, Run-DMC, J Dilla, Nas, Rakim and so on. I mean, I think we’ve all used the whole hip-hop-as-love metaphor. I can’t be the only one.
Anyway, the video offers a fluid storyboard-like animation that keeps the action swirling around Tip and Norah Jones.
My anticipation for next Friday’s Sunny Day Real Estate show at Marquee Theatre continues to build, and the band’s performance on Jimmy Fallon’s show only contributes to my excitement.
In the Fallon performance, William Goldsmith – who’s started a new project called Brawley Banks – again proves why he’s one of my favorite drummers: He’s so locked in and intense, giving every drum crash the attention and power it deserves.
Since seeing them in Tucson last week, I have been devouring all things by The Twilight Sad, whose stunning new album, Forget the Night Ahead, possesses all the emotion and feeling sorely lacking in a mostly underwhelming year marked by dull synth-pop and a hyped-up lo-fi scrap heap.
I was distressed that it took until almost October for a true album-of-the-year contender to reveal itself to me. Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone; The Cave Singers’ Welcome Joy and Mos Def’s The Ecstatic were the worthy front-runners for me. But Forget the Night Ahead is pulling at me, begging for repeat listens. Granted, I’m probably still riding the high from the show, but the album has challenged me in ways others have not — lyrically, emotionally and musically. The charged-up catharsis from Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters has simmered slightly, a huge distorted wall of sound making James Graham’s lyrics this time around more mysterious but equally compelling (though he sheds a little light on each song from the album here).
Seattle’s KEXP further enables my fix by offering videos of a live performance by the group from Musicfest NW.
Though I came away mostly stunned by The Twilight Sad in my first time seeing the group, young upstarts WWPJ delivered a raw and energetic set with the sort of abandon you’d expect from guys in their early 20s. It was loud and exciting, a group whose potential appears pretty boundless.
Singer Adam Thompson possesses a booming voice that’s on full display in this amateurish video I shot on my digital camera part way into the song It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning, the leadoff track from the debut These Four Walls.
Here’s an official video for the single Roll Up Your Sleeves:
One of the year’s catchiest songs, Hi-Fi Goon by Throw Me the Statue, gets a video accompaniment in which the guys go on some sort of urban safari, tracking down escaped animals from a zoo while getting martial arts lessons along the way. Works for me.
Between buying the Diary and LP2 reissues on vinyl today and interviewing bassist Nate Mendel (more on that later), I’ve been reliving all things Sunny Day Real Estate of late, gearing up for the reunion show on Oct. 9 at Marquee Theatre.
So it only seems appropriate that singer Jeremy Enigk would release a new video for the first single off his excellent (perhaps overlooked) 2009 album OK Bear.
I’m not sure I’m grasping the artistic connection between young kids skating and the song, but it seems to work pretty well. “I am pleased that it’s not a traditional video in the sense that there are no obligatory cuts to me on the guitar interrupting the flow of imagery,” Enigk told Spinner.
I haven’t listened to the new Swoon, the new Silversun Pickups album, as much as I would like so far.
But what better inspiration to spend some time with it than a video featuring pretty girls playing a catty game of musical chairs? Oh, the song is pretty good, too.
And here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the video, including an interview with one of the directors:
