Cheerleader

Fuck yes. Listen, oh listen, to that. It's magic.

It's so wrong, it's alright

Squinting pretty

Twin Sister - Ginger

I'm looking for purchase. Something to hold onto as shining, jangly guitars descend from dizzying heights to play around my ears in all my favourite colours. I think I'd like to hold onto you, cause that descent reminds me of the feeling I get when I see your feet in those shoes through the window on my doorstep. Those colours dance around you when you quirk the corner of your lip at me and when you bump your hip with mine and twist your foot in that shoe to that song. I'd like to hold onto you.

[from the fantastically lush Vampires with Dreaming Kids EP, which you can download FREE here]

[thanks Said the Gramophone]

Honey, do what you want cause I won't remember

[the impossible cool]

The Love Language - Sparxxx

[The Love Language]

Heads up guys, this is very special music. Ahhh you know when something come blasting into you life and fuck me you don't know how you did without it. This, at first, may seem unremarkable but it's like I love it for all the reasons I love Spoon and my friends - cause we're the good guys, the occasionally awkward but always charming... you know? We take a big mixture of beer soaked smiles, ramshackle guitars, cursory winks, unspoken debts, heart warming familiarity, worn out jeans, same streets, late nights, linked fingers, no direction, the balm for a broken heart, ruffled hair, wide eyed earnestness, hand rolled cigarettes, heated discussion, freckled skin, occasional seriousness quickly followed with upturned lips, friendships and relationships like twelve hundred year old foundations and new ones that speak promise over sparkling eyes and hearts of gold.

[on myspace/blogspot]

There's no time. We have nothing but time.

[lost the source]

Lotus Plaza - Quicksand


[The Floodlight Collective]


Hopefully there is some awesome Deerhunter-related release every year for the rest of my life, for the start of 2009 we have the first non-Bradford Cox centric release I've heard: the debut album from Cox's best friend, Deerhunter guitarist, song writer and multi instrumentalist Lockett Pundt. It's everything that's awesome about Deerhunter: guitar reverb with distinct pop aesthetics, ambience, warm melodies, compelling percussion and the exploration of alienation and introversion. This is my favourite type of music: slow revealing, warm, confessional and intensely personal.

[The Floodlight Collective is set for release on Kranky March 23]

And the shape of your knees

[here]

Vancouver - Shape Of Your Knees

[Download]

It started wearing down. Avoiding the landlord, breaking the keys, her humour left, his remained, she forgot to separate the whites, he was late, they ran out of coffee, the fish died, his Grandma died, he started smoking again and the gearbox broke, had to shift straight from second to fourth. Card was declined, earring broke, peck on the cheek, milk went off, forgotten birthdays, the weeds grew higher and higher between them till they were squinting through greenery to see each other, trying to remember smiles and kisses and the way she held his hand while they slept. 

[myspace]

Searching all the time

[here]

Faunts - It Hurts Me All The Time

[Love. Feel. Thinking. Of., due out on 17/2]

I sit underneath my desk and inhale the dust in a deep breath and unfocus my eyes and count my toes. One toe for each of my favourite books, movies, albums, songs, years, cities, concerts, types of cheese, song lyrics, girls. The distraction doesn't work as well anymore, it seems like everything has lost its shine but you. I can see the tears clinging to your long black eye lashes as you look up through them at me and I had to run. My mind whirls; I'm completely ruined for anyone but you.

[Faunts website]

Begone dull care

[ffffound]

Junior Boys - The Animator

[Begone Dull Care]

A friend of mine came over to sample the new Junior Boy's album Begone Dull Care the other night and told me something about this Canadian group that I didn't know before. Junior Boys were created to fill the exact music tastes of one particular friend of theirs, a band to reconcile all the influences and musical loves of just one person, their friend. This is the best idea for a band I've ever heard, to be all things to one person instead of some things to many people seems a more likely way to grow and fully master a feeling or personality in sound.

The intimacy of Junior Boys has always been what's drawn me to them. The breathy vocals and warm, spaced out electronics reflecting the space between two people more accurately than music or the same genre that I'd heard before. 'The Animator' is a warm but important conversation, the kind that can only happen between to people who know each other so well, they almost know exactly what the other is going to say, so gets caught in the sounds instead, how the sounds mean more than the words.

Begone Dull Care is due 11/5/09 in the UK on Domino.

[buy]

What's a matter there, feeling kinda anxious?

Hello, sorry I'm getting ridiculously lazy with posting on here. I'm in a bit of backwash at the moment, waiting to start uni with no money cause I smoke too much and go and see Twilight too many times, spending most of my time in bed or on midnight funrides around Ipswich with my friends playing MGMT, Empire of the Sun, Metrostation and shit early 00s pop way past the point of being sick of them.

Laneway festival last weekend was fun, the thrill of being underage and getting away with everything was shit funny. No Age were very special as expected (met Dean, real nice, humble guy, signed my shirt), Jay Reatard's a freak, Architecture in Helsinki were fun, fun, fun, Born Ruffians were way too sweet, El Guincho had me bouncing and Girl Talk were off the hook. Have made an executive decision never to go to a festival sober again.



Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses

I'm assuming you've heard this but how awesome is it? It's fucking rad. Franz Ferdinand doing what they do best, I'm totally swept up in the la la la la and the presumption and the well guided arrogance and I believe it and I love it. Let's just forget the context and the hesitation and the self doubt and think about right now. Don't stop cause the entire room is spinning, click the heels of your shiny shoes and spin harder.

[buy Tonight]

Also loving this one over at Fluxblog.

Pushed some words out

[jaime martinez photography]

Parlovr - Pen To The Paper

Galloping like a horse down the grey streets watching the clouds with colours like bruises in the sky.

[myspace]

One should never forget that there are wonders we haven't seen yet

[here; via here]

The Sound of Arrows - M.A.G.I.C.

Just when I thought I was immune to abbreviated cutesy songs with chants and life-affirming lyrics, this comes along to shatter all my illusions. This just drips sugar straight into my ears, its pop hooks dive deep into me pulling out my glee with a gasp and wide eyes. HOLY SHIT THIS IS FUN. I just got back from the coast, where I spun this quite a bit, with my friends, you know, skipping down the beach holding hands, singing outloud, wearing rose-tinted sunglasses and stuff. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this before, but your skin looks like it's made of gold.

[myspace]

Nowhere to go while our bodies glow

[sorry, lost the source]

Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes

[Merriweather Post Pavillion]

Fire of emotions shiver and dance at the corners of my vision like stained glass windows with a sunset behind them. This record is perfect. This song is perfect. The heat is perfect - oppressive, I can hardly breathe. We walk down a hill, feet slapping on the bitumen, skin glowing. A friend comes over, we sit on the cool tiles drinking cold beer, tapping our feet, you know, there's no where I'd rather be. The sun peeps through and I swear everything's melting. There's a storm coming and you're all sweat and smiles. Put your hand on my chest, my heart beats in time with the music.

[buy]

To inspire devotion

[a friend's picture]

Beaches - Sandy

I can get really proud of my favourite bands, like in the way a parent is proud of their children, if I feel I have some common roots or they're somwhat of an underdog. Like Cut Copy, for instance, being an Australian band, I pumped my fist in the air when they made the top ten for Pitchfork's Albums of the Year for 2008, or Electrelane or Vivian Girls, being such a success and all girls bands that I actually listen to, makes me grin and want to pat them on head and send them off further into the world.

Beaches make me proud as pie, an all girls band and they're from Melbourne, and obviously, they're awesome (or I wouldn't be posting them here). Despite having the most un-Googleable name ever, these girls play with such intensity, timelessness and glee - huge, rousing guitars, 60s beach punk vibes, loud bass and drums - all driving towards some great end. While they, and their music, is beautiful and mysterious you can still tell they're having fun, they're enjoying this just as much as you are, smiling into their shouts [how much do you love "san - DY!"?!], posing all serious while playing that killer riff, pulling out that ripper beat just as you toss your head back - the way you laugh and show off when you know you're winning a race - cause, you know, you're all winning, no one else comes close.

[myspace - buy Beaches]

Brisbane, watch out, these babes are cruising through on 6th March for Summer Tones with High Places (!!!), Dan Deacon, Lawrence Arabia and the Ruby Suns.

Just let us go

[ffffound]





Here We Go Magic - I Just Want To See You Underwater

It's complicated, you know. We don't know what we want. Well I know what I want, happiness. Like, I want to smile more and I think she could give me that. My toes tingle when I see her sometimes and life's short. So the complications... I just want to set them alight. But we can't, she can't. It's New Year, for fuck's sake, I just want to see her, it's too much not to see her.

Balearic rhythms and guitars, melancholy and clarity, watch out for this in '09. [via Rose Quartz]

[Here We Go Magic - buy/myspace]

Happy New Year.

Lights are in your eyes

[loveology]

The Raveonettes - Come On Santa

[Wishing You A Rave Christmas]

By the time Christmas rolls around each year, the need to curl up with family and wrap myself in light, warmth and beauty, is pressing. Like the deep breath between one year and the next. Laziness, easiness and love surround me. Not many Christmas songs capture the season as as well as this.

Bosque Brown - Silent Night

A wonderfully clear rendition of one of my favourite Chrismas carols. Her angelic voice echoes through your head speaking of Christmas' timeless story. I lie on the rug with my head under the Christmas tree, scratching the cat with one hand and squinting through the branches to see the light of the angel at the top.


Have a Happy Christmas.