I seriously can’t get enough of Active Child. In anticipation of seeing them open for M83, I gave the album a listen on iTunes a few weeks ago, and it didn’t do much for me. Maybe it was the mood I was in, who knows… but after seeing them live I was completely won over. As a three piece with a mix of harp, keyboards, electronic and acoustic drums, and guitar, the music on it’s own was stunning next to the vocals that might go down as the some of the best I’ve ever heard live. Pat Grossi, the man behind the band, sings with a mix of heavy reverb, harmonies, and sampled vocals, and it just filled the venue unlike most other vocals I’ve heard. It was hypnotic and I would see them again in a heartbeat. Now that I’ve got the album, it’s been on heavy rotation and I love every single second of it.

Two videos are included below: the official video for Playing House, and a live performance of Hanging On performed at KEXP in Seattle. Not included below but available here is the full 24 performance at KEXP.

The long awaited new album Dive was released by Tycho today and it’s a thrill to hear the songs he’s spent the better part of the past year or more working on. Tycho is actually touring with a band these days and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they come to Chicago.

For those unfamiliar with Tycho, it is the musical output of San Francisco based artist and musician Scott Hansen, who, along with a few others runs what is easily my favorite design and music blog, iso50. I’ve been exposed to more greatness in art, photography, design, and music on his blog than I have anywhere else on the web. In terms of his own work, whether music or design, everything Scott touches ends up being something you wish you’d come up with first. Musically, Tycho is incredibly inspiring to me personally as these days I’m working more and more delving into electronic and instrumental music on my own. As I write this I’m only on the fourth track on the new album, having subsided on the already released track Hours for a few weeks now. That song is included below.

Buy Tycho – Hours

Visit blog.iso50.com

I was really excited to get the new album The Devil’s Walk from Apparat today, as my main exposure to him has been limited to a handful of songs, including the excellent song Circles found on the DJ:Kicks compilation he curated in 2010.

Apparat is German electronic musician Sascha Ring, and he’s released a number of albums and singles since 2001. My exposure has been a bit limited, but based on the songs I’ve heard prior to this release I didn’t entirely know what to expect. His remix of Telefon Tel Aviv’s song Lengthening Shadows, found on DJ:Kicks, was excellent.

On The Devil’s Walk, I’m impressed by the amount of instrumentation – especially some of the strings and percussion that’s not always electronic. For some reason the album reminds of of Bibio in the sense that it’s fused electronic and analog sounds so perfectly that they never dominate one another. As fall and winter approach, I don’t think there’s a better new album to go with the changing seasons. As a huge Telefon Tel Aviv fan, there’s something about this album that feels very comparable to the feel of their music, while also still being something unique to Apparat. Two songs off the album are included below, including the official video for Black Water, and the song Ash/Black Veil, which has such an incredible build of repetition and texture and reminds me highly of the song Circles on DJ:Kicks. I highly recommend picking up this album.

Apparat Official Website

Download The Devil’s Walk on iTunes

Swedish band Kent has long been one of my favorite bands. I think I discovered them in 1998 when their album Isola was released. They’ve not released any English language albums in several years, but Isola, Hagnesta Hill, and some older B-Sides are generally the only English language albums they released. The guitar sound, instrumentation, and vocals are incredible and even when you can’t understand the non-English songs, the greatness of the music holds up perfectly.

There’s a ton of info on Kent on wikipedia. The song below, Stop Me June, is from Hagnesta Hill, released in 1999. I used to search all over the place to find their CD’s since they were imports and difficult to find. This song just randomly came up on iTunes and it’s the first I’ve listened to them in a while.

A few more songs after the jump…

Read More »