Four Songs to Listen to Forthwith - 08/12/10

Flying Lotus has been around the experimental electronic scene for a few years. One of the major things that set him apart is he blends and has influences from jazz and hip hop. He adds sounds from many different places, samples and random recordings. Listen closely and you'll hear some remixed sounds from video games. This song, And the World Laughs With You is especially trippy. It seems to fly through and is over before you know it. Thom Yorke of Radiohead collaborated with him on this track. If you liked this, be sure to check out the rest of the album which came out in May. I really liked the execution of after effects on this fan made video, the worn look fits in nicely.

This song is by a fantastic Christian singer, Plumb. Her real name is Tiffany Lee and she lives in a nice house in the suburbs with her husband and three kids. Certainly not the typical artist featured here. It was recommended (and the next one) by my good friend and cousin, Chrissy. Congratulations to her and Drew on their wedding coming up in a few weeks. This song, Only You (Blush), is put together really simply. There’s a lot of yearning in this song, can’t you just picture her singing this with her eyes closed, palms facing out? “I want another kiss that’s always new. I want to be in love with only you.”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with becoming famous. There’s no direct connection to selling lots of records and suddenly your music will become less original, but there is something special about a band’s first album. It’s made before the band knows that this is how they’ll be remembered and this is how they will make a living. The album and songs are made to share with fans or as a strange experiment to see where their crazy dreams will take them. The Counting Crows are phenomenal, they started off strong with their first album, they’ve made many great songs since then, and are still together. For me, I can hear something special in their first album, a vulnerability that many bands have in the music. It can seem like it’s just the luck of the draw at this level, what bands will become huge, and which will remain tiny. The Counting Crows deserve their success, they’re entertaining and relentless in promoting of other artists. I hope you enjoy a sweet song called Round Here, a story inspired by one of the many troubled women singer Adam Duritz comes across. “She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land. Just like she’s walking on a wire.”

Gold Panda are an instrumental electronic group. They’re almost dubstep, not dance music, they love to mess with you or maybe they’re honestly experimenting. I can’t tell the difference with these guys, I know little about them. They have no wikipage, or decent bio anywhere. I’ve only seen them talked about at Pitchfork. They had a song in Pitchfork’s 2009 top 100 list (something I’ve listened through a lot) This song just showed up this week I like the sound and would love for them to have more fans. There’s also this fancy new embedded player to tryout. So here’s Snow and Taxis.

Snow & Taxis by Gold Panda