Tracks of the Week: 24 September 2011

-

Matthew Britton is our human blog-music aggregator, kind of like Hype Machine but with feelings and shit. Every week he goes, puts on his rubber gloves and trawls the darkest sewers of Soundcloud, reporting back to TLOBF with his findings. Sometimes he strikes gold, sometimes just faeces, but one day, maybe, just maybe, a band covered here will play an actual gig in front of human people. We continue to live in hope.

For anyone who lives in a conurbation of any minor standing, this last week must rank amongst the worst of the year. The city centre is turned into a vast cultural wasteland, public transport becomes irrelevant and your own levels of self-loathing hit all times highs – yes, it is truly Freshers Week.

A lot of blame is placed disproportionately on students – but it’s fair to say that a lot of them are just as frightened and weary of the whole of scenario, knowing of the untold horrors that attending a carnage event or going to a shagtag bar would contain. If you’re one – and, judging by the fact you’re on the internet instead of loudly having banter on a bus somewhere, probably with your top off – here’s some fresh tracks to drown out the sound of your new flatmate audibly stealing your food from the fridge in the adjacent room.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

AC Slater – Hazy Days

Almost the moment that last week’s column went up, these little beauties were uncovered – or rather, unveiled themselves to the world with an email. Laced with the knowledge that a blogger can never resist a good early 90’s pop-culture reference (something, incidentally, shared with most freshers taste in posters), it was the ramshackle excellence of ‘All My Whiskey’ that started the seduction, but this distorted, meandering pop track ‘Hazy Days’ is what won over hearts. Coming from Bournemouth, AC Slater supposedly have an entire album’s worth of material already recorded, with some form of release for it coming in the next few months.

HAZY DAYZ by acslateruk

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Tashaki Miyaki - Somethin’ Better than Nothin’

If you’ve been following certain websites in the past couple of months, Tashaki Miyaki already feel like they’re one of the biggest acts in the world (but of course we live in an unjust world, so they’re not and Kings Of Leon are). The aforementioned AC Slater have put out 3 tracks in the last week, but these LA dreamers have barely done that since first popping up in February. In that respect, ‘Somethin’ Better than Nothin’’ isn’t really new – indeed, it was the first mass of swaying melody to come out under the moniker, but the recent announcement that they’ll be putting out an EP for Sounds of Sweet Nothing (Jewellers and Gross Magic are recent alumni) means it’s time to swoon all over again – and to get ready for that oh-so-vital cover of Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’ (known to UK residents as the theme tune to… well… Heartbeat) that comes free with pre-orders.

Tashaki Miyaki – Somethin’ Better Than Nothin’ by TheSoundsOfSweetNothing

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Xavier León - Movin’ On

There have been a lot of things said about Xavier León this last week (‘a lot’, in the grand scheme of the entire world, meaning ‘a few’), and almost all of them have centred on how completely rad his name is. Just as if you found out that WU LYF were all monied Tory boys or if Stay + were in fact a marketing campaign by Fiat, it would be a crushing blow if it were discovered this to be a psuedonym. Nevermind though – we’ll still have the music, and ‘Movin’ On’ is probably just about better than that mountainous moniker, the stuttering production and sublime use of warped samples drawing rivers of blood from what many of his peers presumed to be a stone.

Movin’ On by Xavier León

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Georgiaa - Postcards and Polaroids

You’ve got to applaud Georgiaa’s timing – just as our hearts recovered from the bruising that his track ‘Weeks’ inflicted on it 3 months ago, his beats it again with a track so affected and subtle you barely realise it’s happened until you feel a dull ache inside your chest. Decent reference points lurk between Perfume Genius and Porcelain Raft, which is about as far away from a post-ironic Nu-Rave night out as you could possibly get.

Postcards and Polaroids by Georgiaa.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Empyrean – Same Syllables

Empyrean made this subtle, minimalist track and thought there was something missing from it’s haunted yet skilled production. Troubled by this, he decided to draw himself a bath, hoping the water would bring him some more inspiration. He presses play to give it another listen just before slipping into the tub, and at once he has a revelation. Well, that’s how we’d like to think the Manchester based producer came to get those splashing samples onto the track, but it’s more likely due to the burgeoning suspicion he might actually be a genius.

Same Syllables by Empyrean.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Butterclock – Hustling feat. oOoOO

Bizarrely, this is something that you could imagine a DJ dropping at a first-night-out-of-the-academic-year party, and what’s more, you could dance to it without losing all self worth. That they’d follow it up with a dubstep remix of Jesse J featuring Pitbull is irrelevant, as is the fact that you’d slowly grow to hate everyone in the room, but Butterclock manage to take some of the better aspects of Witch House – namely the adventerous use of synth and oOoOO – to make a track that should be haunting your local wannabe hipster bar for the foreseeable future.

HUSTLING feat oOoOO by Butterclock

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Youthfall – Secular Child

Sometimes, you kind of hope that someone has started making music just because they’ve managed to find a decent enough pun that would look good on a flyer. It wouldn’t be a surprise if that were the case for Youthfall, if it wasn’t for this lovely new track that has been blogged about pretty much everywhere in the past few days. Not the most grand or ambitious of works given it’s lack of proper progression, insistence of loops and just above lo-fi production values, there’s a charm that shines through the various cracks, drawing you in.

Secular Child by Youthfall

Matthew Britton runs a blog called The Pigeon Post and contributes to Lost Lost Lost.