welcome to team me, a six piece norwegian pop band who are releasing their debut album called to the treetops in the states in march on propeller records. i missed the blogfamous buzz around the band on the ep they put out last year, however now they’ve hit my radar i’ve got a crush. the songs that team me craft are quite impressive; it’s joyous reach-for-the-skies indie-pop at it’s most melodic, with warm instrumentation and classic pop drive. think prefab sprout, the la’s, fanfarlo, deacon blue…i could go on, but i won’t cause really it’s about a unique voice that team me have as a band. listen/watch below.
Show Me – Team Me
With My Hands Covering Both of My Eyes I Am Too Scared To Have a Look At You Now
Rodrigo y Gabriela are releasing their new album Area 52 next Tuesday, January 24th. The album, recorded mostly in Havana with a 13 piece Cuban orchestra is streaming now in its entirety at NPR Music here.
maybe it’s that the interwebs have just turned my brain into having no attention span, or maybe i just dig the nimbleness of tumblr, but i’ve been finding myself posting alot to my tumblr recently and i’m feeling the way it handles. i started my some velvet blog.2 tumblr to post about some of my non-musical interests but i soon found i would resort back to the music since it’s mostly my life. and as i started posting music to my tumblr i would ask myself, should i post this to my wordpress blog or my tumblr. ultimately it came down to my being able to post stuff to tumblr almost immediately. no fuss no muss. so, for now that’s where i’ll be hanging with the occasional post here, where it all started in december 2004.
if you’ve yet to follow my musical hijinx on my tumblr, please follow me on somevelvetblog.2 tumblr here
In case you missed it: The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 1 is here featuring The Roots, The War On Drugs, Work Drugs, Purling Hiss, Lushlife, Hezekiah Jones, Chill Moody, Vintage Kicks and Gracie. Now, on to The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 2.
************************************************************************************************************************************** Cough Cool
Cough Cool’s Dan Svizeny has two very cool things going for him: he loves lo-fi blissed out jams as much as he loves Philly sports teams. CC’s new album, Lately is on Bathetic Records and has 13 mind expanding tracks of MBV-styled shoegaze wax.
************************************************************************************************************************************** White Birds
This past summer Drink Up Buttercup morphed into White Birds featuring three of the Buttercups; James Harvey, Farzad Houshiarnejad, and Mike Cammarata. The White Birds’ ambient sun kissed four song debut EP on Grizzly Records is a gorgeous, reminiscent-of-the-Fleet-Foxes-meets-Beach-Boys-Surf’s-Up collection of breezy pop songs. The band recorded a Key Studio Session for WXPN’s local music web site, The Key back in November that you should check out here.
************************************************************************************************************************************** Zilla Rocca
Rapper, producer, storyteller, hip-hop provocateur Zilla Rocca has got a very cool self-contained little cottage industry going on working with the likes of Curly Castro and Has-Lo as The Wrecking Crew and working with producers like the Small Professor and Dr. Quandary. Rocca had a busy 2011 busting out singles, EP’s, various videos and is currently at work on a Wu-Tang remix tribute project (check out the track below). Listen to one of Rocca’s highlights of 2011 below, the Nights & Weekends EP.
Zilla Rocca x Curly Castro x Has-Lo – Scallops (prod by Y?Arcka) WU-TANG PULP
Photo by Michael "Kraus Phade" Béon | krausphade.com
Saturn Never Sleeps
Long time DJ/musician/producer/global musical entrepreneur King Britt collaborated with Rucyl on Yesterday’s Machine, a collection of mellowtronica with R&B, silky soul and post-dubstep flourishes. You can download the album for free here. Rucyl’s voice has that sexy-as-Sade vibe to it and the album from start to finish feels like a distant cousin to Massive Attack. Smooth as silk.
************************************************************************************************************************************** Lantern
Lantern is a three piece fronted by Zachary Devereux Fairbroter and features Emily Robb on bass and vocals and Sophie White on Drums. The band first caught my attention with this cover of “I Just Want To Make Love To You,” written by the legendary Willie Dixon. Since landing in Philly last year the band has put out a series of EP’s, singles, etc that capture early blues with some hot indie-rock lo-fi punk-rock psychosauce urgency. They’re a little bit Capt. Beefheart, a little bit early Stones, a little bit Jon Spencer, a little bit Charlie Christian and now that’s he’s come to his senses, a little bit Elvis P. The band’s latest jawn is a live EP they released with Dirty Beaches that you can grab here. This cat and kittens can really distill the jams.
************************************************************************************************************************************** Scot Sax
Scot Sax is a one man rock and roll classic rock machine. “Classic” not so much in the sense of the same 250 songs we hear on classic rock radio (although you can feel that) but classic in the sense that since his days in Wanderlust, Sax has a sense of classic pop/rock songwriting that is just sort of off the charts. Whether it’s power pop, glam, indie rock or yes, “classic” classic rock, Sax just never sits still musically and this year put together Queen Electric, a power trio featuring Phil D’Agostino on bass and Mike Pietrusko on drums. With Queen Electric, Sax continues to showcase his versatility as a musician who is an excellent songwriter, player and pop craftsman. And yes, a massive Bowie fan. You can QE’s album for a “name your price” price below.
************************************************************************************************************************************** The Wurx
You may not be familiar with rap duo The Wurx but that’s all about to change real soon. G. Moolah & Trons are coming up quick, with some high profile joints and an even higher profile moment they had recently with The Roots’ Black Thought when they dropped by Tony Touch’s radio show that you can check out here. Keep your eyes (and ears) on these guys; listen to a couple jawns below. It’s like 1995 all over again. I am definitely looking forward to hearing more from these guys.
*************************************************************************************************************************************** Arches
With each new release, these dreamgazers keep getting better and better. Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller said it best about this band: “Arches music straddles that fine line between the beautiful lull of the undulating waves of an ocean and the part of the scene where you feel a tug on your leg from below.”
*************************************************************************************************************************************** Nicos Gun
With a string of singles, lots of hard work and now their debut full length debut (download below), Nicos Gun are about as fun a band that you can experience live. Prince, Bowie, Robert Palmer and LCD influences abound however these guys have found the rock flavor in the funk and push it push it push it.
This is part one of my look back on some of my favorite Philly based music that came out in 2011. Right up front I want to say that The Roots and The War On Drugs put out two of my favorite records of the year. I’m not going to dwell on the massive goodness of these records cause, let’s face it, these two bands have a profile that transcends the illadelph; although it wasn’t too long ago that the only Google search for The War On Drugs was this. It’s great that Adam and the boys have improved their ranking, right? That said, let me state broadly and emphatically that the local Philly music scene particularly over the last few years has been on fire. Genre wise, there’s a bit of everything for everybody; indie-rockers, chillwavers, hip-hoppers, punk rockers, dubsteppers, soulsters and singer-songwriters; it’s all here. Let’s rock The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 1.
Check out The Best of Philly Music, 2011 Part 2 here
Work Drugs
These chillwave yachtrockers came on the scene a year ago and every month have been releasing excellent new free jams. They released their debut album Aurora Lies in November. These guys musically tap in to the worlds where Steely Dan and Steve Winwood collides with chillvibes of the Oughts. At their music loving hearts they write catchy as anything pop songs and layer it all with some cool stoner dance music vibes. Buy the album here. Download some tunes below.
Purling Hiss
The Hiss are a power trio of remarkable psychedelicness. They released a pretty hot collection of rock and roll tunes this year called Lounge Lizards on Mexican Summer. If you want to hear them work, check out this recording from a show they did in November at the Cameo Galley in New York. It’s blistering. if Philly had a guitar army Mike Polizze would be on front lines right up there with Adam from War On Drugs and Kurt Vile. Back last March Mike and the band recorded a session for WXPN’s local music web site The Key. You can download the full session here or cop the song “Voices” below.
Download Voices – Purling Hiss (from The Key Studio Sessions)
*********************************************************************************************************************************** Lushlife
I have yet to see Lushlife live but since he dropped his No More Golden Days cassette/mixtape it’s been in heavy rotation. Lushlife is Raj Haldar and the breadth of musical influences and samples on this new free mixtape is staggering. From Frank Ocean and Fleet Foxes with some help from Heems and homegrown appearances from Dice Raw and Tim Meskers from Brown Recluse, Haldar’s also got some serious flow. He drops lyrical references to Jesus and Mary Chain, Maxi Priest and Ice Cube with as much agility as he spins out some excellent samples from Clams Casino and Gerry & The Pacemakers.
************************************************************************************************************************************* Hezekiah Jones
Hezekiah Jones is the band; the man behind it is Raphael Cutrefello. Philly’s got some very fantastic singers and songwriters and a very active acoustic/folk music scene (see Strand of Oaks, The Philly Folk Parade and Andrew Lipke). Raph is perhaps the most creative and innovative of the lot. This year Hezekiah Jones released the incredible Have You Seen Our New Fort produced by the forementioned Andrew Lipke.
If the release of Fort were not enough, Cutrefello and his crew along with Andrew Lipke collaborated on a song for WXPN and Weathervane Music’s Shaking Through. “Borrowed Heart” was written to sync with a scene from the 1935 classic film, Bride of Frankenstein. Okay, so admittedly I had a hand in the project, but what Cutrefello and the 11 piece band put together was absolutely fantastic. Download the song/watch the video below.
*********************************************************************************************************************************** Chill Moody
You say you don’t know Chill Moody? Well folks, that’s likely not gonna be the case for too long. The West Philly rapper has had a busy 2011 that started at the end of the ’10 with a solo album. Chill recently blasted out parts one and two of The Gam3Plan (produced by Joe Logic), dropped “My Eyes” w/ Cody Kahmar (see video below) and recently made his first Gam3Plan related video. It would be wise to keep your eyes on the Chill. He’s also pretty entertaining to follow twitter. As Drake says, “well fuck, let’s get it then.”
*********************************************************************************************************************************** Vintage Kicks
Formed in the spring of 2010, Vintage Kicks released their free to download debut album Geeks in September. It rocks relentlessly for 28 minutes. Lead singer Alex Marlys comes out fighting and throughout, the band pack a lot of music and sounds into it’s songs. The band are in the process of making a new EP called Math And Sciene that you can follow here. Joe Strummer would be proud. Download the album below, and check out the video for the anthemic “Jetty Jump”
*********************************************************************************************************************************** Gracie
A recent addition to the Phillwave scene and a welcomed one, Gracie released his (still) free EP called For Summer on the always excellent Absent Fever label last June. His Treehouse EP is on the way, coming out next month on Small Plates Records. Video; music – below.
stone darling are a retro-countryphonic girl group from los angeles making some pretty righteous noise these days with a new ep on analog edition and a handful of pretty cool tunes including a cover of funkadelic’s “can you get to this.” music below.
Philly beat maker, beat collector and producer Small Professor has a new album coming out called Gigantic, Vol. 1 on January 24th featuring some pretty strong voices including Guilty Simpson, Von Pea, Blueprint, Buff1 and Stik Figa. Also appearing on the album are Philly’s Wrecking Crew, featuring the wildly talented Zilla Rocca, Has-Lo, and Curly Castro. You can stream “When The Last Leaf Falls” featuring Has-Lo below. It’s a pretty strong, pretty tight jawn.
soul man lee fields has a new song “you’re the kind of girl” that you can download below from the folks at truth and soul. it’s from a forthcoming album out march 13th called faithful man
Family Records are releasing the second in their One Track Mind Series from the London three piece Anothers Blood fronted by lead singer Richard Frenneaux. “Lost Communication” is a very catchy tune; kind of reminds me if Animal Collective were selling out as a mainstream pop band. Musically it definitely has a lot in common with bands like Keane who are pretty good at the Brit-pop anthem thing and who are ok by me. You can buy the song here; stream it below.
Philly’s Arches have released a new four song EP called Enough that you can download digitally and purchase for a “name your price” dealio. They are also selling the EP as a “high quality hand dubbed cassette” that you can purchase here. Arches have been around since the 2010′s and slowly but surely have been releasing icy shoegazy jams that get better with each new release. Their latest EP should take these guys to another level. Imagine if in the early days of My Morning Jacket, with all their reverbed haze, they were a slow burning bunch of gazers in love with their Ride (and early Meat Puppets) singles. That’s what Arches sound like. Primary members of the band include Julien Rossow Greenberg and Tom Herman Jr. They released their debut album Wide Awake last February. Their first tape/EP, out on The Curatorial Club was released in July 2010. In addition to this new EP, the gents have a split single that you can pre-order here.
They did a Daytrotter session last month that you can listen to here. Last July, they entered the WXPN World Cafe studio to record a session for XPN’s local music blog The Key, that you can listen to here. Below, listen/download their new EP, and check out the video for “Late Last Night.” Get your bliss on.
