The London band release the album on 23 April, 2012, but fans can listen to the 10-track collection a week ahead of release.
Including 2011 single ‘Belongings’ and recent release ‘Man Made’, ‘Ways To Forget’ is a stirring mix of epic rock and indie disco, mixing some of the best bits of Coldplay and Foals. The result is one of 2011′s essential guitar band records.
Listen to ‘Ways To Forget’ below.
Brooklyn synth-pop outfit Bear in Heaven release new album I love you, It’s Cool April 3 via Dean Ocean and Hometapes.
But I just couldn’t wait! I am a big fan of their second LP Beast Rest Forth Mouth (as you may recall some of their songs on past playlists). This album follows in a similar vein wherein the songs resist categorization, difficult to pinpoint. Immediate tracks to check out are Kiss You Crazy and latest single’s Sinful Nature and Reflection of You. But honestly, they’re all fantastic. The album consists of spacious three-four-minute dance worthy anthems made up of textura towering choruses. As was with the last album this is the type of music you feel all around you which is why I cannot wait for Bear in Heaven to play The Garrison on May 5th in Toronto.
Latest Single ‘Sinful Nature”
Click Album to Download:
01. Idle Heart
02. The Reflection of You
03. Noon Moon
04. Sinful Nature
05. Cool Light
06. Kiss Me Crazy
07. World of Freakout
08. Warm Water
09. Space Remains
10. Sweetness & Sickness
Django Django are an art-pop foursome from Edinburgh that first started garnering attention in 2009.
Their latest self titled release begins with ‘Hail Bop’, a baffling mix of tribal drums, electro-whooshes, whistles, and cricket chirrups. This gives way to the kind of irresistible chant-chorus that peppers the entire album. There are echoes of Hot Chip in ‘Hand Of Man’, while ‘Love’s Dart’ is drum machine-bedded acoustic fingerpicking sliced from the most tender parts of Gruff Rhys’ brain. Out in front, though, is the Tarantino-theme-via-Calexico bounce of ‘Life’s A Beach’ – as immediate anthem. It’s an album characterised by its sharp stylistic swerves, but never feels jumbled or incoherent. I would skip Zumm Zumm altogether but the rest of the tracks are all hits.
It’s a dream of the psychedelic tropics, a heady explosion of colours, an album that takes what it means to be ‘in an indie band’ and gives it a good shake.
Click album cover to download.
01 – Introduction
02 – Hail Bop
03 – Default
04 – Firewater
05 – Waveforms
06 – Zumm Zumm
07 – Hand of Man
08 – Love’s Dart
09 – Wor
10 – Storm
11 – Life’s a Beach
12 – Skies Over Cairo
13 – Silver Rays
If you’ve never heard of Shearwater, although they have created 8 albums and been around since 99, you’re not alone. It was the single “You As you Were” off Animal Joy released on Sub Pop that caught my attention. Soft and careening with beautiful piano melodies and cascading lyrics, the song is an instant classic. Shearwater whose far-reaching songs about man’s relationship with nature boom and swoop with epic grace and grandeur. Jonathan Meiburg’s strident vocals often drop to a high falsetto whisper, but he’s not afraid to be audible from the farthest reaches of space, either. For a group of musicians about to embark on a tour with the subtly brilliant, oft-understated Sharon Van Etten, Shearwater is a bold, majestic band with big conceptual ambitions.
Click album to download:
1. Animal Life
2. Breaking the Yearlings
3. Dread Sovereign
4. You As You Were
5. Insolence
6. Immaculate
7. Open Your Houses
8. Run The Banner Down
9. Pushing the River
10. Believing Makes it Easy
11. Star of the Age
This Brighton-based band are at it again with their third album Give Into the Wild. The album exhibits poignant wails and exploding guitar riffs; booming and infectious, resonant and real. The mixture of dark reality and crashing upbeat melodies would never usually nip at the heart string. However, when soulful yells scrape through the gritty surface, something quite beautiful bares its heart upon the horizon. After the relative success of their 2007 indie-pop debut ‘Colour It In’, inspired by an undercurrent of optimism, they forgot such sugar-coated tracks to make way for something more substantial. The Maccabees have mined into a seam of confidence which has left them utterly transformed. A sprawling work which continually tests the boundaries of what The Maccabees feel they can accomplish, Given To The Wild is an ‘album’ in the very classic sense of the word.
Click album to download:
1. “Given to the Wild (Intro)” 2:11
2. “Child” 4:31
3. “Feel to Follow” 3:29
4. “Ayla” 3:47
5. “Glimmer” 4:03
6. “Forever I’ve Known” 5:21
7. “Heave” 4:24
8. “Pelican” 3:44
9. “Went Away” 3:38
10. “Go” 4:12
11. “Unknow” 5:07
12. “Slowly One” 4:17
13. “Grew up at Midnight” 4:00
As a huge Band of Skulls fan I have been searching the web daily waiting for this album to leak. I was hardly satiated with the few singles they dangled in our faces throughout the past few months to drum up anticipation for the albm. Well wait no longer friends as Sweet Sour is now available for your listening pleasure. The 10-track album was recorded at Rockfield studios in Wales with producer Ian Davenport and mixed in Los Angeles by Nick Launay (Nick Cave / PIL / Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Sweet Sour is the follow-up to the band’s acclaimed 2009 debut ‘Baby Darling Doll Faced Honey’,.
Click to album to download
‘Sweet Sour’ Tracklist:
1. Sweet Sour
2. Bruises
3. Wanderluster
4. Devil Takes Care Of His Own
5. Lay My Head Down
6. You Aren’t Pretty But You Got It Going On
7. Navigate
8. Hometowns
9. Lies
10. Close To Nowhere
San Francisco garage rock outfit Thee Oh See’s are propulsive, careening, and at times, openly dangerous. Psychedelic rock meets punk fuzz they’re like the house band for a runaway train. Some of the songs off this record you swear were birthed in a English basement during the 60′s. Namely the additive tune The Dream, it’s raw and unpolished but begs of you to hear it to fruition, when you do, you can’t stop!
Much of their appeal comes from the fact that they’re a machine with four equal parts: the wide-eyed, cult-leader charisma of frontman John Dwyer, the effortless cool of keyboardist/singer Brigid Dawson, the pulsating low end of Petey Dammit, and the steel-solid rhythmic anchor of Mike Shoun.
The opening seconds of Carrion Crawler/The Dream feature the squawking of a saxophone– the last remnants of Castlemania‘s woodwind-centered psychedelia sputtering out like smoke from a 1920s automobile that ran out of gas. Just as Castlemania was the apotheosis of Dwyer’s cracked vision as a singer/songwriter, Carrion Crawler/The Dream showcases the full-band version of Thee Oh Sees at the height of their powers. Hope you enjoy this album packed with pure garage rock madness, with a heaping serving of old-school psychedelic music.
Click on the album cover to download:
Hello Friends,
It’s been one hell of a fall, 2011 has thrown me so many curve balls which still seem to be coming out of left field. Back in August (not so unexpectedly) I lost my (first real) job. With that I also lost my fairly new macbook. Not making excuses but all my playlists were wiped, which is why It has taken me so long to compile this one. To be honest thought, it really took this long to come together and to really be complete. Not so metaphorically I have also been going through the same evolution. I am currently getting settled in a very new and very exciting position at The Corner Store, a wonderful & somewhat revolutionary (and INCREDIBLY welcoming) production company. I want to thank everyone who gave me such words of wisdom, references, job opportunities, and support over these past few months, not coming out on top wasn’t an option, but you all knew that.
With that I give you my latest compilation, Few & Far Between. Ill let you make meaning of that however you wish. A whopping 130+ songs long, it’s a gentle smothering of Indie, Folk, Dupstep, Electronic, and all around goodness. Some new, some not so new, lot’s of great covers. And yes, i’v already started on the next one 
Click the album cover to download the mix.
On Creatures Of An Hour, Still Corners’ debut album, the London-based four-piece band displays its knack for creating a haunting atmosphere, evidenced by the utterly spooky waltz of “I Wrote in Blood” and the krautrock-style propulsion of “Submarine.” Driven by waves of swirling, reverberated guitars; clipped, bouncy bass lines and vocalist Tessa Murray’s wispy, feather-light vocal style. The airy quality of her voice lends Still Corners an intimate side, making this far from party music: It’s an atmosphere to immerse oneself into on a quiet night.
Anthony Gonzalez’s epic forthcoming double album titled “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” is conceptually comprised of his intimate childhood memories that draw the listener right into their own narrative. This album is the direct result of three years of tireless work, and it shows.
The album is a piece of art. It’s an extravagant and creative look at childhood, imagination, fear, heroism, triumph, friendship, and perhaps most importantly, dreams. The main character in the narrative that Anthony has created is you. Today. Right now. Why are you so serious all the time? Why did you let that one event change you? You used to be fun. Remember when we were kids? We used to travel to faraway places through the depths of our imagination. We used to be friends. What happened to us?
Parts of Gonzalez’s album (“Raconte-Moi Une Histoire”) take you back there–to the places of childhood, where you traveled on those bright summer days. Back to where the lakes became oceans and the hills became mountains. Other parts of the album focus on the awkward, pent-up energy and angst of adolescence (“Reunion”) and the responsibility and relative shittiness of adulthood (“My Tears Are Becoming a Sea”). Gonzalez is telling us the honest story of our own lives, and he tells it so very eloquently through intricate, multi-layered instrumentation, powerful, atmospheric interludes, luscious, pitch-perfect harmonies, and raw, gut-wrenching vocals.
‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’ is a dream in itself; a dream that we can (re)live in its 72 minute runtime—an imagination replenished. Download the album here.
