Must Hear Tracks: "You Bet I Stare" "Drowsy" "Stay Away From My Baby" Just because it's recorded in a garage, doesn't mean it's garage rock. Exhibit A: Shane Blanchard. Under the moniker Bane's World, the 21 year old single handedly whips up self-described "dreamy, jazzy pop" in his parents' Long Beach garage. Musical aspirations aside,... Continue Reading →

Let's Eat Grandma is warming up, in songwriting and in sound. Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton's first LP, I, Gemini was dominated by tinny, meandering psychedlia. With their most recent single, "Falling Into Me," they move toward a more full-bodied sound, a trend kicked off by their first single "Hot Pink" (co-produced by Scottish DJ and synth master,... Continue Reading →

Hobo Johnson has a thing for the low key. If you've spent any time perusing his live videos on Youtube, you may have noticed a trend: he's often in a semi-public place, playing to no audience. The Live From Oak Park sessions find the Sacramento rapper covering his desire for fame, a broken marriage, and... Continue Reading →

If you have a Nintendo Wii, you know the song. Nintendo has a long history of unforgettable game soundtracks, and the Mii Channel song is no different. Lounge-y and absurdly catchy, it's almost as if Kazumi Totaka composed it to be the soundtrack of your daydreams. The Mii Channel song's catchiness manifests itself in the... Continue Reading →

You might not know a single Modern Lovers song. You might not know who Jonathan Richman it. It's perfectly understandable. History has a maddening tendency to distill things down to the popular and overlook the significant. Richman and the Modern Lovers could have been popular, though. They secured a recording contract with Warner Bros in... Continue Reading →

Hell hath no fury like two clowns in a porta-potty. If you don't believe me, watch for yourself. Clown Core is likely a side project for drummer Louis Cole (also in the band KNOWER) and saxophonist Sam Gendel, who has collaborated with KNOWER in the recent past. The live YouTube version of KNOWER's track "Overtime"... Continue Reading →

Must Hear Tracks: "It's All Good" "Something for Your M.I.N.D" "Nobody Cares" One email was all it took to launch Superorganism into the limelight. Orono received an instrumental from some musical friends in London. In her boarding school dorm room, she wrote and recorded a vocal track on her "shitty" Macbook Air. She sent it... Continue Reading →

Must Hear Tracks: "30" "Nip Tuck" "Just Shut the Fuck Up for Once, Please. . . Holy Shit" "I don't even need a pen, just adrenaline," Fukkit declares on his track, "Airplane Mode." It's a fitting way to describe his approach; his quicksilver, staccato delivery sounds spontaneous and full of youth. Despite his strong presence... Continue Reading →