Sometimes this is mostly a music blog. Sometimes it’s a personal blog. Sometimes, it’s just empty. That’s how it’s been lately, as I haven’t been posting. I’ve been focusing all my energies on other Internet ventures. I’ve been working as a thesis + wordpress web designer full-time for about 5 months now (my biz site, sadly, isn’t my best work – but oh well I still have plenty of clients!). The time I might have spent here at GUSD is also being chewed up by my expanding affiliate marketing ventures. I’ve been sitting at my desk getting fat and trying to make a living.
I got engaged, too!
Life, she rambles. If you live with even a modicum of openness in your heart, you really never know what is coming around the corner. Like the man whose daughter was going to tell him an important secret. He was entranced and excited to hear what special knowledge his five-year-old had acquired, and hidden away from the world. And then, as he leaned in to listen to her small voice…she farted.
(Maybe I’ll just start writing prose poems all the time…)
Taken For a Fool – The Strokes
Crazy For You is no angry, hard album. It’s the kind of music you crave when sunshine seems far off and summer bliss is a distant memory. This is lo-fi surf rock and it just makes you happy, no? Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno comprise this So-Cal duo, who credit Rilo Kiley, weed, Dick Dale, Hole, and their cat as influences. Its’ sunny sound is infectious. From all of us at GUSD, we wish you a Happy Holiday.
Best Coast – Boyfriend
This Baltimore duo’s third album, Teen Dream, released this year to wide acclaim. We like the blissed-out pop magic they produce, as well as the atmospheric rhythms that transport us to other times. Singer Victoria Legrand has been compared in vocal stylings to Nico, which first peaked our interest in this band. Just for fans, they recently released this single:
Beach House – I Do Not Care For The Winter Sun
Making what has been described as synth-soaked funk and pop is no big deal to Chazwick Bundick, a South Carolina native with a degree in graphic design and an ear for the bubbly and the haunting. This sound is a testament to the always enticing edginess of muffled lyrics, random glitches, and heavy drum kit crashes… and then back to soothing melodies. It makes it worth listening to again and again. With a new album slated for February 2011, he shows no signs of stopping on his chillwave adventures.
toro y moi – Still Sound
One of L.A.’s brightest new bands, Local Natives, appeared his year with Gorilla Manor, a fantastic modern worldly indie-rock folk adventure named after the Orange County house the band lived and recorded in. We enjoy tracks such as Airplanes, a mostly soothing wistful love song, but especially tracks such as Sun Hands, a primal-driving-unstoppable force of a song that makes you pump your fist (ok, maybe just in spirit) and thank the heavens for good, new music. We hope for more excellence from Local Natives in the years to come.
Local Natives- Sun Hands
With vocals reminiscent of Cat Power or Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Wye Oak gives us some solid and layered driving rock. Based in Baltimore, Jenn Wasner & Andy Stack comprise this band. Their album Civilian will debut in March 2011, and are touring with the Decemberists this winter.
Wye Oak-Civilian
Catchy, breezy lo-fi is one of our fave sounds to listen to on cold December mornings. Today, there’s none finer than The Babies, a side project of Cassie Ramone from the Vivian Girls and Kevin Morby from the Woods. This album is set to release in Feb 2011, but in the meantime we have this single to enjoy. So enjoy!
The Babies-Run Me Over
How many of you saw Eat, Pray, Love? I’d bet it was a lot of you–but the question is, how many of you liked it? I myself thought it was a sort of up-and-down venture: very pleasing to the eye with all its tropical vistas and blessed by the presence of the great Javier Bardem, but otherwise often full of bullshit psycobabble that doesn’t really connect to an audience sitting comfortably in the dark, wondering why this person who is apparently able to afford a year of globe-trotting is just soooo sad. Anyways, that was what I took away from the film when I saw it::: a big eh.
But then, two nights ago, making a mix for Mrs. GUSD, I came across a great song from the film’s soundtrack: “Flight Attendant,” by Josh Rouse. The song is begins with a bit of exotic, hip-moving percussion, but moves into other territory by its end–and that instrumental story is backed by some very evocative, emotional lyrics which speak of the move from a “redneck lifestyle” growing up into a more sophisticated adulthood. But is that adulthood any better? is the question Rouse seems to be asking. Setting that question against a traveler’s sonic backdrop is a very clever move, partially disguising the angst with the cool detachment that the aeroplane ended up providing. So next time you want to feel that way just slip on this Rouse track, maybe mix a margarita, and find a tricky way to relax into your deepest fears.
Flight Attendant-Josh Rouse
A unique, Italian postmodern sound aptly describes this mysterious band. A Google search turns up surprisingly little, as they are as of now unsigned to any label… but not for long. Described as a puzzling orgy of sounds, they are well worth a listen. We hear influences ranging from New Order to CocoRosie which makes for a splendid sound.
Sybiann-Monsoon Breath
