The way I see it, 2013 is going to be a fascinating year for music. The big boost that Frank Ocean gave to R&B last year is likely to continue through at least the first half of this year. Synth pop will be a big draw too, though not in the ways you might think. I suspect there will be a few really creative synth-based records that will create that forward momentum. It’s only appropriate that The Knife are putting out a new album and touring this year too, and a number of bands with similar influences are likely to get swept up in such an attractive darkness. Electronic producers with open minds are probably going to be hot in 2013 too as they take a mess of different genres and throw them all into some unique stew of their own creation. That blurring of lines between music styles will definitely take off even more than it already has. And while 2013 will be a year of innovation for many musicians, others will learn that certain tried and true techniques and sounds never really go out of style and that there’s always room to inject fresh blood into a genre that might otherwise have been left for dead. A great punk rock record doesn’t simply become bad just because it might not be “cool” anymore. It is with these thoughts in mind that I put together the Class of 2013. They’re certainly an eclectic selection of 10 artists, even if some of them sound relatively similar to one another. In some ways, that’s part of the fun. I’m tremendously excited that I’ll be following their every move for the next 12 months, and have every intention of doing even more than what I did with the Class of 2012. So strap yourselves in and click past the jump to learn all about the Class of 2013!
Month: January 2013
It’s Friday, and as always, that’s fantastic. The Oscar nominations came out yesterday, and as a movie buff, I’m excited to see how this year’s awards are going to go down. There were a few snubs, as there are every year, but this year’s seem particularly strange and farsighted. You take a look at the Best Director category, and to not have accomplished and great people like Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Tom Hooper included when they all turned in some of their finest work this year seems crazy. Perhaps the nominations got a little screwed up in the wake of some balloting issues they encountered while attempting to allow members of the Academy to vote digitally. Either that, or maybe the Weinsteins are threatening more families than usual this year. I’m just kidding, though really there’s a couple ounces of truth behind that I’m sure. So anyways, there are a number of things I’m disappointed with in this year’s Oscar nominations, but I’m not going to tackle them all here. Instead I’ll hope for better results when it comes down to the Golden Globes, which are on Sunday. That’s Hollywood’s most fun awards ceremony, so make sure you watch if you’d like to see a bunch of people having a good time while winning (or losing) awards. Now then, let’s get to today’s Pick Your Poison. Songs that get my stamp of approval today come from Apricot Rail, Camper Van Beethoven, Chelsea Light Moving (Thurston Moore’s new band), Gospels, Hollis Brown, Lapland and Milo Greene. In the Soundcloud section (located after the jump), stream some good tracks from Carmen Villain, Guards, Ryan Hemsworth and Widowspeak. Have a great weekend!
Camper Van Beethoven – Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out
Chelsea Light Moving – Empires of Time
Hollis Brown – Down on Your Luck
Jacco Gardner – The Ballad of Little Jane
James Hersey – Don’t Say Maybe
Jerusalem in My Heart – Yudaghdegh al-ra3ey wala al-ghanam
Kris Menace ft. Unai – Lone Runner (Axel Le Baron Remix)
Majical Cloudz – Turns Turns Turns (Blue Hawaii Fluchtig Mix)
Some of my favorite things to hear in music outside of the songs are the stories behind them. The whole idea of shows like VH1’s Storytellers where the artists give background attracts me like a magnet, though I’ll only dive into it if the artist featured is someone I like. While I’m sure someone like Pink has plenty to say about the construction of her tracks, inspired by an addiction to pills or something, if I can’t connect to it I simply don’t care. So let’s talk about Jens Lekman for a minute. There’s a track of his featured below called “Olivia and Maddy,” a song that comes with a story that I found compelling. A couple months back, you may recall the tragedy that was Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast pretty hard. New York City became a powerless, flood-soaked nightmare, and many were trapped in their houses and apartments for days without some essential resources. Amid this tragedy, Lekman wasn’t in any affected areas, but his pianist was. The tour was starting in Seattle a couple days after Sandy, and Jonas the pianist was trapped in NYC. So what’s an artist to do? Lekman took to Facebook and asked his fans for a favor: If someone in the NYC area could pick up Jonas and drive him to Boston so he could catch a flight, Lekman would pay for the help, and he’d write a song about that person. So Olivia and Maddy were the two heroes that apparently helped save his tour. The song itself is a little bit silly, and if the lyrics are true Lekman got over a hundred offers from fans wanting to help, but it’s actually quite a nice track all things considered. So check it out below, along with some other great songs from Art Decade, Boys School, Freeze-Tag, Hey Champ, Lower Plenty and Torres. In the Soundcloud section after the jump, stream tracks from Generationals, Herve, Heyerdahl, Hooray for Earth (covering Bear in Heaven) and Rachel Zeffira.
First Rate People – You Won’t Get This Joke At All
Jens Lekman – Olivia and Maddy
Neon Hitch ft. Tyga – Gold (Faustix & Imanos Remix)
The Steve Adamyk Band – Katacombs
I’m in a bit of a hurry today, so unfortunately I can’t quite ramble on about something aimlessly like I tend to do in these Pick Your Poison entries. Instead, let’s pretty much get straight to the music. There’s good stuff today from artists such as Anamanaguchi, FLOTE, Ghost Youth, Jez Dior, Pere Ubu, Phaseone, Reversing Falls and Rice Cultivation Society. In the Soundcloud section (after the jump), stream tracks from Free Energy, Hurts and Jeremy Greenspan.
The Good Natured – 5-HT (Duncan Murray Remix)
Reversing Falls – Curse This Place
Rice Cultivation Society – Honey Hide
Rosco Bandana – Feels Like Mississippi
It’s the first official new music release day of 2013, and naturally things are getting off to a slow start. Next week will be much better. For now though, if you’re itching to pick something up, the following artists are putting out material for your enjoyment: Big Boi, Broadcast, Chris Tomalin, Dropkick Murphys, Never Shout Never, Pere Ubu, Solange and Wooden Wand. You might also be interested to know that the soundtrack to the great HBO show “Girls” is out this week, featuring tracks from Robyn, Santigold, Grouplove, Icona Pop, Belle & Sebastian and Fleet Foxes. It’s all previously released material, but if you don’t have those individual records already, it might be something to check out. Also worth checking out is today’s Pick Your Poison. Focus tracks today come from Airstrip, The Away Days, Frida Selander, Iceage, Paperfangs, Qurious and Sweet Knievel. In the Soundcloud section (after the jump), there’s streaming tracks from Ancient History, Azealia Banks, Eat Skull and The Neighbourhood.
Frida Selander – Forever On Your Team
Gentlemen’s Relish – They Have Seen the Apes
Humfree Bug Art – With Night and Lights
Mikki Ekko – Pull Me Down (T. Williams Remix)
Oh hey, it’s the first edition of Pick Your Poison for 2013! Yes, I’m excited to start another year of fun music writing and coverage and downloads. If 2012 was a truly great year for music (and I’d like to believe it was), that means this new year has a lot to live up to. What with things like a new My Bloody Valentine album and a new Arcade Fire album hoping to grab us by the throat (or ears, if you will), there are a few guaranteed things to look out for. Newly chief among them is the surprising last minute revelation that there will be a new David Bowie record out in March. It’s called The Next Day, and you can watch the first video from it for the song “Where Are We Now?” by clicking here. All this information was revealed minutes before I sat down to write this, and needless to say I’m very excited. Speaking of new music in 2013, I’m pleased to announce that later this week I’ll be unveiling my “Class of 2013” – 10 artists to watch this year. The “Class of 2012” was a pretty big success, with most of those artists definitely getting a boost in profile (some more than others – looking at you Frank Ocean and Grimes), and part of me thinks that this next set will be even bigger and better. I’ll let you know later this week when that post goes up. For now though, please enjoy this delightful edition of Pick Your Poison, filled with some favorites I found during the couple weeks of vacation over the holidays. Be sure to make time for tracks from Amtrac, Angel Haze, Ty Segall’s new band Fuzz, Kirby Kaiser, Pravada and Wildarms. In the Soundcloud section (located after the jump), you can stream some really good tracks from Active Child, Local Natives and Ryan Hemsworth.
Amtrac – Money (The Drums cover)
Daymare – An Argument As A Gift
Fuzz – This Time I Got A Reason
Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet – Blues Can Be Abstract, Too
Last year, I was privileged enough to start something that turned into a great feature here on Faronheit. That was the “Class of 2012“, in which I chose 10 artists whose profiles I expected to rise significantly that particular year. After unleashing those names in January, I spent the year following their progress to see if they made good on that initial promise.
Some of the artists, like Grimes, Frank Ocean and Purity Ring, turned out to be inspired choices. Grimes was the #1 most blogged about artist of 2012. Frank Ocean released a record that revitalized R&B and got him applause that led to earning the top spot on many a year-end “best of” list, plus a nomination for the Album of the Year Grammy. Purity Ring just plain made a great album called Shrines that got them the same sort of praise, though maybe on a slightly smaller scale. So those were the main success stories from that last class.
Others didn’t work out so well. Kreayshawn was a “controversial” choice, a girl with a couple decent hip hop singles to her name, but who many felt was annoying and attempting to destroy the very fabric of popular music today. She promised her album would “put the haters in their place,” but sadly it only gave them more fuel to throw on the fire. She’ll undoubtedly keep trying, but will anyone bother to listen? Then you had a band like Blonds, an indie pop duo out of Florida. Their debut album The Bad Ones came out last summer, and while it often sounded like a mixture of bands like Tennis and Cults, the hooks just weren’t quite there and neither were the reviews. It wasn’t a poor effort by any means, it may just have struck at the wrong time – when a bunch of similar-sounding bands had already taken over an already crowded field.
And now a few words on Lana Del Rey. Arguably speaking, she’s a success. Her record may have been so-so outside of a few strong singles, but where she failed musically she struck gold as a figurehead. She barely even toured in 2012, yet continued to gain popularity thanks to a bunch of modeling work and commercial appearances for high end merchandise. You could say that music was just a springboard for her towards something much larger. As she moves in a new direction, can acting be far behind? We’ll see what happens in 2013. In regards to someone like Nicolas Jaar, he spent most of 2012 waking up to the idea that his album Space is Only Noise continued to be discovered and gain new fans almost every day. I expected him to rush and release something new to capitalize on his slow burn rise in popularity, but he instead chose to make some more subtle movements. Okay, so maybe releasing a compilation of largely unreleased music via a cube called The Prism isn’t entirely subtle. But he did that, compiled a BBC Essential Mix featuring some of his favorite artists, remixed a Cat Power track, and unleashed a new single called “The Ego” late in the year. He also toured quite a bit, and I saw him perform twice, which he was great both times. Maybe we’ll have something new from him in 2013?
Speaking of that, a few of my Class of 2012 still haven’t peaked quite yet. Their debut full lengths were due in 2012, but ultimately got pushed back to 2013. In other words, this year is going to be a big year for all of them, though arguably last year was too. Charli XCX put out a couple singles, an EP and a mixtape in preparation for her debut, and continues to gain new fans through touring as well. A$AP Rocky‘s record LongLiveA$AP got delayed and will finally be out this month, but he toured quite a bit in 2012 with the A$AP Mob, and unleashed a couple singles and videos. Oh man, remember that music video he did with Lana Del Rey for her song “National Anthem”? He played JFK, which was really quite out of left field. Finally, there’s Azealia Banks. Her 2012 was pretty huge, with her 1991 EP and Fantasea mixtape both coming out to a fair amount of praise. Both didn’t quite meet the expectations of her earliest singles, but the hope is that her debut full length Broke With Expensive Taste will rise to the occasion when it comes out in February. Meanwhile she’s attracting enough attention in the last couple weeks thanks to a fresh feud with Angel Haze that seems almost purposely created to promote one another. Whatever it takes to keep your name in the headlines, I guess. So long as the music is good, I don’t care how you promote it.
So let’s tie these artists up in a neat little bow and file them away for another day. Most assuredly they’ll all continue working in 2013, some with greater success than others. I’m proud of each and every one of the Class of 2012, even the ones that didn’t do so well. I plan to continue to follow all of them for the foreseeable future, but probably won’t actively report on any of it unless it feels absolutely necessary. Instead, I’ve got to shift my focus to the new year, and a brand new class. There are 10 new artists I’ll be following for all of 2013, and I’m super excited to reveal them to you later this week!
