Last week we had Spanish Gold in the studio with us, in between soundcheck and coffee, I got a chance to sit down and ask Dante one song that he can’t stop listening to, he obliged and gave us a gem. Of course, we have four songs of our own too. Check them out in the link below to get the whole package, and browse below for more listening.
TV Girl- Birds Don’t Sing
For me summer used to start when my mom made the first batch of electric blue kool-aid. It would just happen one day unannounced. My brother and I would come home from fishing with my dad or something, we’d open the fridge and there it’d be. In a jug far too big for our little refrigerator, with beads of sweat forming from the heat, and a glowing blue luminescence from the backlight of the fridge.
And that was it. Summer had begun. A season of warm weather, long days playing with friends, good music, Brewers games, and lots and lots of kool-aid. Let this song be your first long drink of the good stuff. Summer has arrived.
TV Girl’s debut album, French Exit, was released on June 5 th, 2014.
Listen if you like: The Avalanches, bossa-nova electronica, the sound of summer
Antlers- Surrender
We change. As people. We read a book or watch a movie or do something or experience something that makes us change the way we see the world. And in some respects, that’s the point of art. And the point of learning. And the point of knowledge. It’s improvement and growth. It’s change.
But sometimes we don’t want bands to change. We want them to have the same ideas that they did with one album that they made when we had those same ideas. And that’s not fair. And not only that, they have to carry those ideas with them. And they have to perform them. Every night. Even if they change. Even if they said they would never get over something. And they got over it. And then they have to sing every night that they didn’t get over that thing. It’s lying.
That’s what this album is about. It’s holding the mirror up and seeing their past selves as they grow, and change.
The Antlers’ new album, Familiars, is out this Tuesday (June 17 th.)
Listen if you like: Sigur Ros, The National, delicate vocals with accenting horns
Moon Martin- Nite Thoughts
Last week we had Spanish Gold in the studio. As they were sitting in the green room, eating the Erberts and Gerberts, and sipping coffee, I started talking to their lead singer, Dante, about music. After recalling listening to Michael McDonald as a kid while his mother vacuumed the living room and bumping LL Cool J’s “Loungin’” at their after party the night before, I asked if he had a song that he couldn’t stop listening to. Excitedly he told me about “Nite Thoughts” by Moon Man. I asked if he would step in a recording booth with me and we recorded a monologue together. Hear what he said about “Nite Thoughts” in the soundcloud link at the top of this article.
Moon Martin’s album, Shots From A Cold Nightmare, was released in 1978.
Listen if you like: Spanish Gold, the way Mississippi John Hurt sings the blues, somewhere between folk and country
Shamir- I Know It’s a Good Thing
It’s a dance tune, but not a club thumper or butt grinder. It's got piano keys on this track sound like they are from an old children’s piano that you would find at an antique store in the third ward.
This song is like a girl who walked into the dance with a busted heel and a little tear in her dress, she made it because she wants to be on the dance floor, but her date says he’s got two left feet, so she’s standing in line for punch just because it’s something to do but her hips are bouncing and her toes are tapping, and finally she says, screw that jerk, I’m going to dance, but when she finally gets to the dance floor, the hook has moved into the verse and it’s fading out before she even got a chance to bring her arms above her shoulders.
Shamir’s album, Northtown, came out on June 11 th.
Listen if you like: Vocal androgyny, antique store pianos, dance songs that you can’t dance to
Gold-Bears- Yeah, Tonight!
This song is a Friday night that we spent alone and thought about someone that we wanted to spend it with.
When we think about what this person is doing our imaginations turn for the worst. We imagine them just having the greatest time without us. Some kind of wild night, laughing with friends, drinking in bars, singing at the tops of their lungs in some kind of idealized “perfect night” that pop stars sing about on top 40 stations.
It seems like our night and theirs are different songs.
But one thing we never imagine is that they are sitting at home, thinking the same thoughts about us.
In this song they are. Each voice is at home, singing a song about the other person, and although they feel alone, they are really together, in this song.
Gold-Bears album, Dalliance, was released June 3 rd on Slumberland Records.
Listen if you like: Jaill, fast paced lo-fi lullabies, in some way that can’t quite place: The Decemberists