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Category Archives: Music

New House Of Tapes: Hopeless Peace

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I don’t need to lecture someone who listens to music all the time that your relationship to a song changes on your mood…if you’re happy, sad, blah blah blah. For me, a crucial way to appreciate music happens when I’m sick, especially if I have a fever or just feel like I’m moving at half speed. Which I am right now! So I think my current grossness is influencing how I hear Nagoya producer House Of Tapes’ latest release, the two-song Hopeless Peace. Recently, he’s shifted back towards the pounding, constricting sound that defined earlier works, and on opener “Hopeless Piece” that results in a song that, in my current state, runs from disorienting to at times a little too busy. Yet it also makes the moment when the noise gives way to a muddy but pretty melody all the sweeter. And it makes the rumbling title track all the better because, whereas the first song sometimes feels too cluttered, “Hopeless Peace” makes its clattering elements work just right. But hey, maybe when I’m healthy again I’ll have a whole new take. Get it here, or listen below.

New Nayutanayuta: “Sagittarius”

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Indie outfit Nayutanauyta earn their dreamy title with their songs thanks to their embrace of Auto-tune, which lends a hazy vibe to their creations. “Sagittarius” is an especially strong example of this approach, as a slow number building up to a guitar solo turns into something more thanks to the vocal warping. This is a clever twist on indie-pop, using modern technology. Listen above.

New Teenagers In Love: “We Were Young”

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Sorta bouncing off of the shore-side indie-pop featured yesterday, Teenagers In Love’s newest number “We Were Young” makes for a great follow-up number for those seeking out guitar-based songs apt for sad drives next to the ocean. This is a group called Teenagers In Love for god’s sakes, you should be able to get the vibe they are going for pretty quickly. “We Were Young” unfolds slowly, letting every element grow in intensity at a relaxed pace…most notably the vocals, which never like explode but do become more forceful during the song’s final stretch. Listen above.

New Pictured Resort: “Southern Highway”

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Wind-swept indie-pop outfit Pictured Resort have a new EP out in early September, which I guess is close enough to the summer…but thankfully, they’ve shared the title track now, which is perfect for warmer times. “Souther Highway” is a breezy mid-tempo number, one featuring the in-no-rush guitar playing guided by an easy-going beat, interrupted only by some synthesizer notes and the occasional drum machine strike. Ultimately, the group’s defining sonic footprint is the vocals, which are delivered in a slower cadence that pulls off the tightrope of sounding chilled out…and also heightening the drama of every year (the most immediate comparison remains Lake Heartbeat). Listen to it above.

New Pasocom Music Club: She Is A

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Up until now, Pasocom Music Club have been an outfit creating sleek, catchy dance-pop songs echoing a particularly plastic past, but almost never giving into nostalgia (even covers, such of Sugar Babe’s beloved “Downtown,” turn into something so radically different as to be more than the equivalent of staring at your record collection). This year’s magnificent Park City highlights this side of them perfectly, taking familiar stainless-steel glitz, updating it for today and finding the same heart-racing emotion (and humor!) within.

She Is A casts Pasocom Music Club in a new shade. It’s a reimagining (well, they call it a set of “covers,” though that doesn’t do it justice) of city pop honcho Toshiki Kadomatsu’s Sea Is A Lady album. Here, Pasocom draw from something specific rather than an idea, and familiar elements pop up frequently — songs here boast similar melodies to Kadomatsu’s original, but are often redone with new sounds (“Sea Line”) or imagine the tunes without singing (“Lovin’ You”). It’s listening to something vaguely familiar and finding Pasocom Music Club Inside, while also seeing a project discover interesting new perspectives on familiar songs, such as “Sea Song” turning into a bubbling cauldron of tension or a song like “Sunset Of Micro Beach” teasing vaporwave (it is, indeed, slower) but coming from an earnest and nostalgic place. Another strong entry from this project, and another argument for interesting looks into the past rather than easy ones. Get it here or listen below.