The Weekly…or for this occasion, “Monthly” Graboid is back once again after another lengthy absence. No excuses, but it’s here and there is more than enough new stuff to sample for the month of August. As of right now I can promise updates on TYS this week, and possibly beyond considering I renewed my hosting service for another year. It’s been extremely difficult to remain motivated with this site, but all the support from all of our readers is what makes me continue to push forward.
I’ve also created a Tumblr page that I find myself updating quite frequently over the past couple of weeks. It’s completely separate from this music blog, aside from a couple of random MP3 postings here and there. But if you’d like some kind of updates from myself, feel free to add me on there.
I’m not even sure where to begin, but a couple of albums I’ve been listening to that I can recommend include Ra Ra Riot’sThe Orchard, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin’sLet It Sway, Jenny and Johnny’sI’m Having Fun Now, Film School’sFission, Land of Talk’sCloak and Cipher, and Magic Kids’Memphis.
As always, feel free to recommend anything I may have missed!
Janelle Monáe isn’t even halfway through her 20s, but when you listen to her music, it seems like she already has a lifetime’s worth of ideas bursting out of her head. Trying to place her music into a genre will tend to lead to awkward combinations, like retrofuturistic-R&B-space-pop-funk-rock, that don’t to justice to her seamless blend of styles. And that music comes with the whole package- a great voice, a skilled and versatile backing band, guest vocalists ranging from Big Boi to Of Montreal, fancy footwork, and a visual style all her own. So, rather than try to describe her music, I will provide a few videos, and say that her debut album, The ArchAndroid, is not just as much fun as you will ever have listening to a concept album about a Messianic cyborg fugitive, it’s about as much fun as you’ll have listening to any album this year. These tracks just scratch the surface.
“Tightrope (feat. Big Boi)”
“Cold War”
“Many Moons” (From the Metropolis: The Chase Suite EP)
Between the many great albums out this week, coupled with those missed from last week, going to the record store would provide quite the headache in what to pick up other than Arcade Fire’s latest. Obviously, the band’s third album, The Suburbs, is what everyone will be primed to pick up today. Though, I would definitely recommend the new Autolux album, Transit Transit, along with some excellent releases from Best Coast, The Magic Numbers, Menomena, Young Galaxy, and Versus.
Feel free to recommend anything I may have missed, and since the Arcade Fire will more than likely be the hot topic today, what are your thoughts on it?
This week’s releases include new stuff from The Books (their first in about five years) and These United States. The former sets the tone of weird that I sampled from some of the albums this week.
There may not be a lot from artists you’ve heard before, which makes the discovery process that much more enjoyable once you take a listen to everything out today. A few choices that I particularly dug include Lower Dens, Mountain Man, and Richard Youngs.
If there’s anything I may have missed, please feel free to let me know! What new albums are you excited about?
It seems as though all of our past/current writers here at The Yellow Stereo have gotten married over the past few years. In 2007, Pablo tied the knot and in response I decided to hastily put together a mix of songs I would want to hear at a wedding.
It proved more difficult than I imagined, as every other song I could think of was from Magnetic Fields. That list is here if you wanted to see how that turned out; and oddly enough, it’s one of the first links that show up when you google “wedding mix” along with Taylor’s over at Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
Another of our former writers, Andy, was married last week and was kind enough to offer us his wedding mix. Even though it’s been years since he’s written anything for his blog, his opinion on music is one that I still trust and on top of that he’s one of the best people I’ve had the opportunity of meeting.
He wrote up an introduction as well as snippets for a couple of the songs. So without further ado…
Before heading out to Pioneer Park yesterday afternoon, I decided to give the new Cut Copy track a spin while driving around in the hot sun. It’s a great summer jam to let loose with the windows down; cruising around to the thumping beats, exuberant hand claps, and joyful harmonies. It’s actually a complete 180 compared to the unabashed dance mentality of 2008′s In Ghost Colours. Still, the guys know how to craft a good pop song, and I welcome any kind of change the new album brings to the table.
The wait for that new album might be a while, despite us getting a taste right now in the middle of summer. The still untitled album isn’t due until early next year, but in the meantime the guys have just begun a tour with dates around Europe followed by Australia.
After sitting around for a couple of hours yesterday putting together a Belle & Sebastian mix for a friend of mine, it only made perfect sense that this video had to surface of a brand new track titled “I Didn’t See It Coming” being performed live in Helsinki (video comes via Stereogum).
This also comes hot on the heels of news earlier in the summer that the band were currently in the midst of the final stages of recording the follow-up to 2006′s The Life Pursuit. There’s no concrete release date set, but I’m sure it’s a possibility of it coming out late this year. But there is solace in knowing that a new album will be out eventually.
Seriously, It’s been way too long since that album, and while we’ve had some bits thrown our way — the Stuart Murdoch project God Help The Girl, which if anything, kept the B&S frontman busy.
In the meantime, a ton of tour dates spanning the entire world have been announced, which also include several North American dates — with none of them remotely close to me! Take a gander at the dates after the cut.
I’ve been listening to Panda Bear’s (Noah Lennox) B-side, “Slow Motion” for several days now and have been enjoying it quite a bit. This track comes via a limited 7″ single from Paw Tracks, the first of a series of singles to be released on different labels. All of which leading up to the eventual release of Lennox’s next full-length titled Tomboy.
Other labels that are set to get a piece of the Panda Bear pie include the likes of Fat Cat, Kompakt, and Domino. The latter will be releasing the next single later in the summer.
Now I’ve never been much of a Panda Bear supporter in the past, nor did I ever jump on the bandwagon when Person Pitch suddenly found its wild success in 2007. That being said, in the years since the debut album’s release, I’ve come to appreciate what it brought to the table and have become more of a casual fan of Lennox’s work.
I think his unique vocal style and use of beats translated into me actually enjoying an Animal Collective album for the first time ever (last year’s Merriweather Post Pavilion).
This week’s new releases kicks off with two major releases in the form of M.I.A.’s/\/\ /\ Y /\ (or M A Y A? Whatever version you prefer.) and the collaborative album Dark Night of the Soul from Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (the late Mark Linkous). I’ve yet to listen to the latter, even when it was infamously sold as a blank CD-R. As far as the former goes, I’ve always enjoyed M.I.A., but I just wasn’t digging what I was hearing when I sat down to listen to the new record.
Other worthwhile releases this week that I’m looking forward to listening to include School of Seven Bells’Disconnect From Desire (I’ve actually listened to this and it’s great), Sun Kil Moon’sAdmiral Fell Promises, The Innocence Mission’sMy Room in the Trees, and Mystery Jets’Serotonin.
Ceo’sWhite Magic seems to be the hot album at the moment, at least as far as I’ve noticed when I came back to blogging a week ago. While I get the whole electro-pop aesthetic — akin to similar brethren like jj and Air France — the songs I’ve heard so far just haven’t managed to click with me. What do you folks think? I imagine I’ll come around on it soon enough, but for now I just don’t know.
Another day, another video from Pains — they seem to be releasing these at a torrid pace as of late. The single for “Say No To Love” was released last month on Slumberland, so go get it!
At this point, I just want to hear new details about the new album they’re supposed to be working on.
The Weekly…or for this occasion, “Monthly” Graboid is back once again after another lengthy absence. No excuses, but it’s here and there is more than enough new stuff to sample for the month of August. As of right now I can promise updates on TYS this week, and possibly beyond considering I renewed my hosting service for another year. It’s been extremely difficult to remain motivated with this site, but all the support from all of our readers is what makes me continue to push forward.
Between the many great albums out this week, coupled with those missed from last week, going to the record store would provide quite the headache in what to pick up other than Arcade Fire’s latest. Obviously, the band’s third album, The Suburbs, is what everyone will be primed to pick up today. Though, I would definitely recommend the new Autolux album, Transit Transit, along with some excellent releases from Best Coast, The Magic Numbers, Menomena, Young Galaxy, and Versus.
This week’s releases include new stuff from The Books (their first in about five years) and These United States. The former sets the tone of weird that I sampled from some of the albums this week.
After sitting around for a couple of hours yesterday putting together a 
I’ve been listening to 
This week’s new releases kicks off with two major releases in the form of M.I.A.’s /\/\ /\ Y /\ (or M A Y A? Whatever version you prefer.) and the collaborative album Dark Night of the Soul from Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (the late Mark Linkous). I’ve yet to listen to the latter, even when it was infamously sold as a blank CD-R. As far as the former goes, I’ve always enjoyed M.I.A., but I just wasn’t digging what I was hearing when I sat down to listen to the new record.
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