What – more wonderful tunes just a week after the last lot of luscious ear candy?!
Why yes I say (well type really but there’s music to listen to; let’s not get hung up on semantics shall we?).
So many tunes are tickling my ear worm that there was more than ample to fill up another post, and you just know there’s even more where they came from.
So kick back, turn the dancing llamas of joy loose and lose yourself in this sweet array of sonic bliss …
“Good For Me” by Julian Maverick
Melbourne-based producer Julian Maverick has come up with one of the smoothest, velvety-vocal tracks I have ever heard in quite some time.
Described as a “summer disco song about two cheetahs” – make of that what you will but it can only be a matter of time before Sir David Attenborough uses it in one his famous BBC wildlife documentaries – it’s all bright sunshine, relaxed vibes, and a heady sense that everything will be just fine.
Granted he’s singing about the one he loves likely being “too good for me”, but he also admits that while it’s “cheesy” to be “lost in you” he’s enjoying the experience and isn’t about to give it up anytime soon, despite the sense that he’s in over his head.
Julina has distilled the utter agony and ecstasy of being head over heels in love almost perfectly, both musically and lyrically, with the result that “Good For Me” simply glides across your ear canals and leaves you feeling like a million bucks.
If you’re looking for the perfect summer feel good song, with optional cheetahs, then this is the song for you.
“Shape” by Glasser
Starting with ethereal whispers, and building with a mix of bass-heavy instrumentation and sweetly agonised staccato backing vocals that sound coldly distant and up close and personal all at once, “Shape” is a welcome return to the musical world of L.A.-based electronic music artist Glasser aka Cameron Misarow, who first came to notice with 2010’s astonishingly creative album Ring.
The first single from her forthcoming album Interiors which debuts on 8 October via True Panther, it floats and soars upon a haunting melody that draws you in, then pushes you away but which is never less than totally compelling.
There is something arresting about her inventive use of layered vocals, and a melody that while pretty, sounds dreadfully alone and isolated.
Despite that though the song is never the alienating affair you might expect it to be with a warm confessional feel to it as Glasser sings ““My home has no shape/ Nothing to sustain me/ But it keeps me safe from imagined pain”.
She noted on her website that “Shape” is all about beginning and endings, both within and without ourselves, and it speaks to an artist who is as thoughtful and careful about what she says as the exquisitely constructed music that accompanies it.
“Dragon” by Fallulah
Scandinavia, specifically Denmark, has delivered unto us another pop gem.
Fallulah, who sings with the sort of punctuated urgency that you can’t walk past – and why would you want to? – has come up with a drum heavy, pounding beast of a track in “Dragon” (from her sophomore release Escapism, which follows 2011’s double-platinum The Black Cat Neighbourhood) that is the ballsiest kiss off to a lover that I have heard since Icona Pop’s “I Love It”.
The energy, all whirling melodies and discordant beats, never dips for a second, whipping you in a fervent, sweating ball of vengeful adrenalised action.
It is the perfect soundtrack to any situation where you need to fight back and fight back hard, possessing an almost tribal feel to it that is empowering and uplifting.
It is impossible to listen to sitting down and I predict many a bedroom-based, and for the gutsier of us, on the dance floor too, whirling dervish of a physical reaction that will pretty much carry you anywhere.
It is utterly absorbing and entirely enervating, a song impossible to ignore or forget, much like the artist herself.
“Nowhere to Run” by Swimwear
I will admit it.
I am way late to the party with this particular artist, whose home-produced EP the kissing machine came out nigh on 18 months ago.
The self-described “DIY recording alias” of Tim Derricourt, the guitarist from Sydney-based indie-rock band Dappled Cities, Swimwear makes dance fun filled with sweet melodies and the sort of perfect pop hooks that do just what they’re supposed to do.
Which is lodge in your brain and refuse to go away, and trust me, one listen to any of his songs, especially the captivating “Nowhere to Run”, and you will be happy to leave them just where they are.
It’s feel good, summery synth fun with warm, cascading vocals that will leave you swaying and gyrating with a blissfully happy smile on your face.
And when there is so much in the world to bring you down, soaking yourself in pop music this melodically rich and beautifully sung and executed is one of life’s real pleasures.
Glad I found Swimwear just in time for this year’s summer.
“Warm Water” by BANKS
She has been creating a buzz on the music blogosphere for quite some time now, and with good reason.
Banks, who like Glasser hails from sunny L.A., is the sort of thoughtful pop artist, armed with richly-detailed R&B-inflected indie electronic-influenced sounds and dreamy vocals, that brings joy to a music lover’s heart.
With production by the superlatively great Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, she has said that the songs she creates are a “cure to my helplessness”, a way for her to work out the sense that we all have to some degree that she’s lost in the midst of this confusing, noisy cacophony called life.
Perhaps because of that her songs have a robust quality to them, a raw accessible quality that somehow marries perfectly with her dulcet vocal delivery and smooth melodies.
Much like the artist herself who has taken the unusual step of giving out her mobile number on her Facebook page, in an effort to better connect with her fans, who have found a kindred spirit in this emotionally-honest artist:
“I’ve never really been into social media — I don’t have a Facebook, I don’t do Twitter or Instagram or anything,” she says. “But I still really want to be able to connect with people and have people make connections through my music, so I figured, ‘What a better way than to give out my number?'” (source: Billboard.com)
It’s an impressively fresh approach to real connectivity in a world abuzz with the often faux variety.
Banks’ London EP is out now.
Love to know who you liked the most or who you’re listening to at the moment?