Slow Magic – ◯

Posted on August 25, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

I just did a Slow Magic post the other day and already they have another great song out. “◯” is a song they made specifically for the Goldrush Music Festival, an “autumnal music festival” out of Denver, Colorado that takes place September 16-17. 20 bands contributed brand new songs to a compilation for the festival and many of those songs are just as good as this one. There’s a free download link for the compilation here, as well as a link to pay whatever you feel the album is worth, if you are so inclined. They recorded the song live for the video, as you can see. I really want to learn how to use one of those things he’s playing there.

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jj – Die Tonight (Young Eagle version)

Posted on August 25, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

This video isn’t really a video, it’s a song put together with a picture that moves slightly as time goes on. That usually automatically disqualifies me from posting it here on my blog, but have you listened to this song yet? It’s amazing! In this case I’ll make an exception.

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No Ceremony/// – Hurtlove

Posted on August 24, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

“Hurtlove” is my favorite kind of dance song, one that starts off quietly with just a simple piano melody and a throbbing bassline and then progressively adds more and more elements into the song until you’ve got a spontaneous dance party on your hands. There’s not much to the video, but in a way that kind of goes with the minimalistic nature of the song.

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Still Corners – Cuckoo / Wish

Posted on August 23, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

This London based five piece with an American singer makes some of the prettiest cinematic dream pop out there right now. “Cuckoo”, their newest single off of their upcoming debut album ‘Creatures Of An Hour’, would make for the perfect song for making out with a girl at a party in someone’s basement. There is her voice, which is soft and seductive, to ease you into making your move, with a just propulsive enough beat to get things hot & heavy in no time.

You can download an MP3 of “Cuckoo” for free by joining Still Corner’s mailing list.

“Wish” is a quiet little song, soft and delicate like a feather floating in the wind. I think the video embodies the tone of the song perfectly with its dream-like visuals, summer afternoon picnic setting, and warm, washed out color pallet.

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Slow Magic – Corvette Cassette / Sorry Safari

Posted on August 23, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

Even as the month draws to a close, bringing along with it fall, summer’s still going strong (it actually hit 80 in Seattle the other day) and that deserves a good summer song to send the season out right. I think Slow Magic’s “Corvette Cassette” is up to the task. It’s chilled-out Balearic vibe reminds me of a slowed down Delorean or Beat Connection.

Check out this video for “Sorry Safari”. The song feels like you’re in synth heaven. It’s too bad not much else is known about Slow Magic at this point. The only information you can find on them is this one sentence on their Bandcamp page: “Slow Magic is the sound made by an unknown imaginary friend.” Cryptic, but I think it’s appropriately mysterious. God, this music is sooo good.

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Lana Del Rey – Video Games / Kinda Outta Luck

Posted on August 22, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

Lana Del Rey refers to her music as “Hollywood Sad Core” and to herself as a “Gangster Nancy Sinatra”. I feel like those descriptions are pretty dead on. Not only is she a stunningly beautiful woman with Angelina Jolie’s bee-stung lips and Nancy Sinatra’s voluminous these-boots-are-made-for-walking hair, but she also has this amazing sultry voice straight out of a badass 60’s girl group. “Video Games” is her first single, a slow song with a lot of soul and a fantastic chorus that you’ll be singing along to in no time.

“Kinda Outta Luck” is much more upbeat than “Video Games” and gives her a chance to have a little fun playing the bad girl with lyrics like: “Is it wrong wrong that think it’s kind of fun when I hit you in the back of the head with a gun?” There’s images in the video of Jessica Rabbit and Rita Hayworth that give you a pretty good idea of kind of sexed up vamp she’s aiming for here. The song has a surf rock vibe with hand claps and everything. She even squeals out with glee at one point. I’d have no problem seeing this song used in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

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Marina And The Diamonds – Fear And Loathing / Radioactive

Posted on August 22, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

The beautiful and extremely talented Marina And The Diamonds has her second album, ‘Electra Heart’, coming out soon and she’s released two videos to help build some buzz around it. Part One, a song called “Fear and Loathing”, was released last week and it’s very dark and moody. As Marina wrote when she posted the video “‘Electra Heart’ epitomizes and embodies the lies, illusions and death of American ideologies involved in the corruption of self.”

So I’m thinking, ‘Electra Heart’ is going to be yet another slowed down, angst filled, and depressing sophomore effort that I’ve heard a billion times before. It’s going be nothing like the first album and the bouncy songs like “Oh No” that I fell in love with. Bye, bye dance beats.

And then Part Two came out. “Radioactive” still has some dark lyrics, but the beat is anything but depressing. This could be (and probably will be) a big club track, with its European-style club beats and trance melody. The best thing about the song though? No excessive Auto-Tuning. That’s right, Marina’s one of those rare pop starlets who can actually sing.

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Theme Park – Wax (continued)

Posted on August 22, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

OK, so I wrote up my Theme Park post last night, went to bed shortly later and then woke up this morning only to see first thing that Theme Park have made an official video for “Wax”. Oh well. Talk about bad timing. This video actually doesn’t do much for me. It’s basically just a shot of a cute girl looking through pictures of the band walking around all day. I kept hoping for some twist ending when she got to the end of the photos, but no. I actually kind of like the kissing video better, but I thought I’d share this one with you anyway, because “Wax” is such a cool song.

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The Weeknd – The Birds (Part 1) / Glass Table Girls

Posted on August 21, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

I’ve already posted a few songs by The Weeknd here, but “The Birds (Part 1)” is now my new favorite. Their brand of R&B is really sexy and soulful and while this song has all that in spades, it doesn’t sounds all dark and ominous like how some of their other songs can. “The Birds (Part 1)” can be found on their brand new mixtape, ‘Thursday.’

“Glass Table Girls,” is from their previous mixtape, ‘House Of Balloons’ and it has actually inspired quite a few fan videos. I’ve found one that uses footage from Soul Train and another one that uses scenes from The Girlfriend Experience, but so far my favorite one by far is the one I embedded below, which uses the coke-orgy-gone-wrong scene from Robocop with some really effective juttery edits. What’s really cool about that stutter effect, aside from it going perfectly with the song, is that it gives quite a few of those sections a 3-D look and feel. It’s trippy how they almost look like they are popping right off of your computer screen without any need for a pair of stupid 3-D glasses.

Make sure you pick up that ‘House Of Balloons’ mixtape because it has a lot of good stuff on it, including the title track, which is actually combined with “Glass Table Girls” in the song list to make one track. “House Of Balloons” uses a killer Siouxsie and the Banshees sample from “Happy House” that’s worth hearing. You can download both mixtapes for free off of The Weeknd’s website.

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Theme Park – A Mountain We Love / Wax

Posted on August 21, 2011 by ManeatingCow23

Put London’s Theme Park down on your list of buzz bands you should keep an eye on, because their first single, “A Mountain We Love” and its b-side, “Wax” are extremely addictive guitar dream pop. They’re getting a lot of buzz in the blogosphere right now, which is a good thing, because their band name is not exactly Google-friendly. Seriously, try it. I liked them on Facebook and I still can’t find them by typing Theme Park into the Facebook search engine. They should pop up as like the first suggestion, am I right?

Anyway, Theme Park have been getting a lot of Talking Heads comparisons, which I guess I can see, although their style to me sounds a lot more like that of a band straight off of the Labrador label. They created two promo videos for their debut single, the first of which you can see below. They both use found footage exclusively to create the video, and “A Mountain We Love” has the more abstract meaning of the two. I’m not exactly sure what the video is trying to say, but I’m having a lot of fun trying to figure it out.

Of the two videos “Wax” is a lot easier to follow (it consists entirely of iconic cinema kisses) but as a piece of music I actually like this b-side a lot better than the lead off single. It’s one of those love songs that’s sure to be an instant classic to hipsters everywhere. Definitely check this one out:

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