Music

Sweden’s GOAT digitally released their new single “I Sing In Silence” today (7” Out 5/27 on SUB POP) and it’s something new for the “tribal psych” band. Quite the organic affair, GOAT has layered clean guitars, a ton of wood-based percussion, including a super fun guiro, and a healthy dollop of flute, and crafted quite the leisurely summertime stroll.

It probably all started as a joke, like some of the best ideas do.

Get some up and coming rappers and producers to collaborate on a 5-track rap album all about Hamburger Helper. A marketing team researched and found some talented guys to work on it, they all had a few beers, and laughed about it together. Sometime down the line, it stopped being a joke.

Often, with blog-approved indie pop, there's a barrier for entry. For lack of a better word, some of Yeasayer's earlier albums were... difficult. You had to kind of pay a lot of attention to the music to enjoy the songs, and doing so prevented listeners from losing themselves in them fully.

Drafting behind our profile this week on HEIDEMANN, we also couldn't profile the artist without posting about the remix off the record done by ION favourites, the Juan MacLean. The longstanding DFA stalwarts have added their trademark revisionist house beats and e-piano stabs to the HEIDEMANN single. The Juan MacLean can be accused of only doing the one thing, but much like Jack Nicholson and his specific acting style, they are the only ones who can do it with such aplomb.

Sex With Strangers have been at it a while now. The benefit of that is that a band with that many hours logged sounds far more like an outfit that's trying to make something rather than trying to "make it," and, of course, even the most uninitiated listener is turned off by an artist who smells of putrid desperation for fame (usually involving making expensive, glossy videos before they have even 500 Facebook likes).

It's no secret that ION loves the Raveonettes, so we are obviously pleased to continue bringing you the latest song in their "anti-album". "EXCUSES" is the third instalment in the band's release schedule of a new song every month, all year. We can't say enough good things about a veteran band finally understanding that the full length release once every two years is a dead model.

Oh shit, man, you doing anything later? Nah, it's nothing super important, only the new EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY ALBUM. I know! Yeah, dude, I just picked it up. You should swing by later and we can listen to it on my new $30 USB turntable. Nah, man, you don't get it. This album's, like, DIFFERENT. It's got, like, at least four new synth sounds. There's one that goes BWAAAAAH on "Wilderness", the title track, and it's sick nasty. Dude, that song would be perfect for the short film I'm working on.

Wolkoff’s beautiful new video for her single "The Homecoming" details the discovery that the world you live in may not be the one for you, and the process of finding out where you belong. Set to a delightfully tense synth line, "The Homecoming" is a John Waters-esque affair using non-actors in surreal and tasteful NSFW situations. It’s all so wonderfully staged, and the fact that Wolkoff achieves genuine emotional payoff, which culminates in a naked woman wearing a dog mask and dressed as a mermaid, is just one of many reasons this clip should be celebrated.

Do yourself a favour and before reading on, take three minutes to listen to this psych-rock tune from The Hykkers. Don't worry, you'll get some context for this later. Just listen, first and foremost.

Some will call Shotgun Jimmie a one-trick pony, but is that really true if the one trick is just really freaking good? Shotgun Jimmie doesn't really break any new ground here on the Joel Plaskett-produced Field of Trampolines. If you come in expecting honest, sing-along-able, relatable indie rock, well, you won't be disappointed.