Parisian dreamwavers The Aikiu are back after teasing us with an EP per year for the last two years. First, they’ll be releasing an EP titled “Pieces of Gold,” which you can stream below thanks to Soundcloud. Then, they’ll be releasing their yet-to-be-titled debut album later this year via Abracada. No date has been dropped yet, but it will be co-arranged with Pilooski of Discodeine and produced by Guillaume Brière from The Shoes, so we know it’ll be excellent.
Has it already been over 4 years since the Brussels-based duo of Mathieu Gendreau (originally from Montréal) and Pieter Van Dessel, better known as Plastic Operator, introduced us to their debut Different Places? It had been so long that we had almost completely forgotten about them! The new album, titled Before the Day Is Out, was finally released a couple days ago via Fine Day Records. They are currently giving away “Motor” as a free download from their Soundcloud. Grab it here: yoink!
The full album is streaming on the embedded YouTube window below. Click on the forward button to skip tracks.
Marina and the Diamonds (real name: Marina Lambrini Diamandis) releases her brand new album Electra Heart on 679/Atlantic on the 30th April 2012.
You can stream “Homewrecker” below or head over to her official website to download it.
Pentatones is the result of two cousins (Hannes Waldschütz and Le Schnigg) who had been tinkering with the idea of being in a band together for the last decade. Creating their own beats and sounds, they went on the search for a vocalist and found her in Delhia de France, known for her collaborations with Wighnomy Brothers. Her voice, together with Albrecht Ziepert’s piano skills, added a further dimension and depth to the music. Together, Pentatones shape voices, tones, sounds and beats into a mosaic of seemingly mixed up pieces. This album definitely fills a void that was left by bands such as Moloko, Baxter and Chungking. One of our favourites of the year so far! The album has been available since February 17th, via Lebensfreude. You can stream four tracks from the album via the label’s Soundcloud and you can watch their video, released about a year ago, below.
Belgian-Australian singer-songwriter Gotye follows up his breakout hit song “Somebody That I Used to Know” with Michel Gondry-esque visuals for the latest single off Making Mirrors, “Easy Way Out.”
Mysterious Manchester based art collective No Ceremony have released the video for their new single “Heartbreaker” and it’s just as artistic, wonderful and creepy as you would expect from them. As one of our favorite music blogs Big Stereo puts it: “This video is seizure inducing sex.” The track, which features Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago, will be released on 30th April, on their own imprint NOC.
Interstellar, the new album from Frankie Rose—formerly of Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Dum Dum Girls—was released via Slumberland/Memphis Industries earlier this week. Interstellar is her second solo full length album, and the first under simply her name, having dropping the moniker “Frankie Rose & the Outs” after the band’s 2010 self titled release. Interstellar moves Ms. Rose from a place of effortless Spector-esque inspired girl garage rock, to a world of ethereal and harmonic dream pop. Synth lines, echoing piano, organ, and simple drumbeats all along with her layered, airy vocals weave together to form a gorgeous collection of songs. You can stream “Know Me” below (or simply download it here). We’ve also included the video for “Gospel/Grace” for those in need of visuals.
The great duo known as DANIELS (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) have directed yet another masterpiece of a video (you may remember them from their work for The Hundred in the Hands’s “Pigeons,” Foster the People’s “Don’t Stop,” Manchester Orchestra’s “Simple Math” and Chromeo’s “When the Night Falls”). This time, it’s The Shins that get the privilege for their new track “Simple Song.” It’s taken from their upcoming record Port of Morrow, due for release on March 20th. Watch it below and make sure you catch them at Osheaga on August 5th.
Gorillaz, Andre 3000 and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy highly anticipated love child (for Converse) titled “DoYaThing” dropped earlier today. Watch the video here, or download it here and listen to it at your own leasure.
Fans of that 80’s fuzzed-out bouncy post-punk sound, rejoice! Swedish all-girl quartet Liechtenstein are back after dazzling us with their full-length debut Survival Strategies In A Modern World, released what seems like an eternity ago. Now that the Long Blondes, another band of the genre, have called it quits, we needed our fix for our addiction, and fast! Enter Fast Forward, their long-awaited sophomoric effort. Released a few weeks ago via Fraction Disc/Slumberland, the album is a pop gem filled with catchy post punk, jangly guitars, trumpets, piano and vocal harmonies, with all 11 tracks totaling under 35 minutes. You can stream the opening track below or simply just click here to download it.
Last month, Norwegian indie-electronic duo Lemâitre, unleashed their 4-track EP Relativity 1 to the world. They’ve since beeb releasing a video for each of the tracks—the whole thing follows a short narrative—with the last one concluding the series a couple of days ago. You can watch them in order below.
Appreciate
Coffee Table
Sceptics
The End
Swedish synth-poppers Lo-Fi-Fnk get nipply in the video for their latest single “Kissing Taste” from their 2011 effort Last Summer. The EP drops on February 27th and will feature, entre autres, remixes from our new Norwegian obessession Lemâitre (we’ll post about them later today), Main Attrakionz and Krusha.
Crystal Castles have released their fashion video for “Suffocation” off their 2010 self-titled album, in collaboration with Vs. Magazine. The EP comes out later this week and it includes a demo version of the track, plus remixes by HEALTH and Vitalic.
Yuksek’s new single “Off the Wall” gets the video treatment from director Romain Segaud. The EP, which comes out on February 27th, will include remixes by Brodinski, DJ Harvey, Pelican Fly et Cubic Zirconia.
Bonus! the making of
Here’s the freshly released video for Chicagoan band Gemini Club’s new single “By Surprise.” You can download the single for free here.
REFLEX is an up and coming synthpop duo (consisting of André Dalcan and Ludmila Cassa) from southern France that we “discovered” through the latest Kitsuné Parisien compilation (they remixed Juveniles’ “Ambitions”). Their EP will be released on February 27th via Jerry Bouthier’s (one half of JBAG) newly launched label Continental Records and will include remixes by JBAG, Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya, Kido Yoji and Second Date. You can watch the video for the single below.
Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny’s much anticipated debut album, Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose was just released on the 6th February, 2012 via Mute Records. Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose was created with producer Ben Hiller (Blur/Elbow/Depeche Mode). It introduces one of the most self-assured new bands of the year, fronted by a pop polymath whose blend of psychedelia, glam rock and chain gang folk is quite unlike anything else you’re likely to hear in 2012.
They’re quite the unpredictable band from what we gather… Get to know them better by watching the short film made by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard about her, her band The Hooves of Destiny and their debut album below.
We forget how we stumbled upon indie rock band Highasakite (probably while perusing all the Scandinavian blogs that we not so secretly stalk), but the important thing is that they caught our attention from the get-go. The newly-formed Norwegian trio is composed of Ingrid Helene Håvik, Trond Bersu and Øystein Skar and they make what we could only describe as nostalgic Nordic indie pop… you know, à la The Concretes. Their debut effort, titled All That Floats Will Rain, dropped on the 3rd of February in Norway via Riot Factory, but no international release date has been set yet. We’ve embedded what is probably our favourite track, “Indian Summer,” below for your aural fix.
School of Seven Bells are back with their third release, Ghostory, out February 28 on Vagrant Records/Ghostly International. The highly-anticipated album finds the band’s lineup has evolved along with the music; formerly a trio, the band is now a duo: guitarist/producer Benjamin Curtis and vocalist Alejandra Deheza. You can watch the video for “Lafaye” below.
Portland husband/wife shoegaze duo Mint Julep are back with a new video from their magnificent 2011 album Save Your Season. The eye-popping video was directed by the German collective known as A Nice Idea Everyday. It’s only February, but we have no doubt that this video will be making our end-of-year best of lists already. Watch it below!
