Following up their mad “Stylo” remix, Chiddy Bang take on Ellie Goulding’s fantastic “Under The Sheets“. The remix will appear on Chiddy Bang’s Swelly Express follow-up, Air Swell. Just like The Swelly Express, the tunes on Air Swelly were inspired, written and recording during Chiddy Bang’s travels (this time, cross-Atlantic) and meteoric rise in the music industry. In fact, Chiddy’s debut single “Opposite of Adults” (or “Kids”) is currently sitting within the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart!
Download Chiddy Bang’s remix of “Under The Sheets” below: Continue reading →
This is for all of you readers who don’t stop by PMA on a daily basis — I’ll point you to my favorite posts of the last week.
Album Reviews: On Friday (3/12) we reviewed Free Energy’s highly anticipated debut, Stuck On Nothing; and on Wednesday (3/10), we stamped Broken Bells’ self-titled debut with our “Favorite Albums” tag, the fifth album this year. Both reviews come paired with a LP/CD giveaway.
Giveaways: We are currently giving away The White Stripes’ new Live CD/DVD documentary Under Great Northern Lights.
Vinyl giveaway details at the end of the review. Free Energy Stuck On Nothing DFA / Astralwerks out May 4th* 74/100 [Rating Scale] Rate Free Energy’s Stuck On Nothing
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Rating: 7.7/10 (15 votes cast)
Philadelphia foursome Free Energy’s much-hyped debut album, Stuck on Nothing, is what you would put on in your car if you were escaping from somewhere boring. It’s driving, cathartic, danceable, youthful, the kind of record you would put on a couple miles down a monotonous highway to wake you up, spur you to roll down the top, get you doing an awkward dance in your seat. This seems like Free Energy’s whole M.O. – let’s do something to feel good. Let’s do something to be happy. Let’s do something to get away. “We’re breaking out this time,” Paul Sprangers croons in the album’s first five seconds. “We’re gonna start a new life.” With hooks this irresistible, bright power-pop instrumentals, and an overwhelming sense of positivity, it’s impossible not to believe him.
Free Energy’s melodic chops are best suited to the upbeat power-pop jams they serve up in the record’s first half – the Guitar Hero wailing of “Free Energy,” the “Boys are Back in Town”-esque chord progressions and incongruous saxophone licks on “Dream City,” and, best of all, the infectious big drum beats and syncopated vocal on album standout “Bang Pop,” which has all the pop sensibility to qualify it for daily rotation on Z100. Some of the slower tunes, like “All I Know” and the joyous explosion of album closer “Wild Wind,” manage to hold their own weight, helped along by the band’s masterful waily guitars and loud drums. Sprangers’ voice is warm, calm, and something about it is identifiable – or maybe it’s just his lyrics, which are always sweet, heartfelt affirmations: “You’re not alone!” The electric, infectious positivity conveyed through both music and lyrics is Free Energy’s greatest strength.
But, perhaps Free Energy’s greatest downfall is how well they know their strengths. Continue reading →
Earlier this week, MGMT debuted the first single from their hotly anticipated Oracular Spectacular follow-up, Congratulations. It would not be an overstatement to say that “Flash Delirium” was welcomed by a flurry of mixed reactions by fans (personally, I thought it was great).
Well, the album’s title track, “Congratulations” has leaked, and you can listen to it too now (and download it, if you’re sneaky). If you weren’t big on “Flash Delirium”, you probably won’t be into “Congratulations”, but I can’t see why that would be the case. Listen to the track below, and pre-order Congratulations at Insound. Continue reading →
You can watch Lady GaGa’s nine and a half minute tribute to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction in her new music video for “Telephone”. While the chola fights, product placement, unusual fashion (smoking cigarette sunglasses, beer can hair rollers, CSI tape “body suits”), the mass murder and the infamous Pussy Wagon are far more interesting than the song itself, this hasn’t stopped “Telephone” from becoming Lady GaGa’s sixth straight No. 1 song on Billboard’s Pop Song Charts.
The National debuted “Terrible Love,” the lead track off their highly anticipated Boxer follow-up, High Violet last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The audio doesn’t sound too great on regular computer speakers, so I suggest you pop in the headphones.
High Violet is out May 11th on 4AD. Are you ready?
Brooklyn’s Here We Go Magic first plopped themselves onto my radar when I saw them open up for Grizzly Bear and continued to spur my interest with great tunes like “Tunnelvision”, “Fangela” and “Only Pieces”. This summer, Here We Go Magic will follow up last year’s self-titled debut with Pigeons. “Collector” is the first sample of the band’s sophomore effort, and it’s quite a departure from “Tunnelvision”. In fact, on “Collector”, Here We Go Magic seem to have aligned their sound with bands like The Soft Pack, while still keeping a slice of their original aesthetic.
Secretly Canadian is giving away the “Collector”, download it below:
“Sleep Paralysist” is the latest free single to sprout up out of the Green Label Sound vaults. In the passed, they’ve released new, free tracks from Matt & Kim, The Cool Kids, Chromeo and Theophilus London. Today, Neon Indian graces the front page of the label’s website. “Sleep Paralysist” was co-produced by Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo and Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. I can already hear the distorted chillgaze/glo-fi synths on Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest follow-up, can you?
Here is the second single from the increasingly rewarding new album from Austin’s Harlem. Said album, Hippies is out April 6th on Matador Records. You can pre-order the album at a 15% discount at the Matador Store. Download “Gay Human Bones” below:
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