Broadcast 2000

Here's an awesome song. and then someone timelapsed tokyo and put it together with the song. cool.

Get up and go from Stefan Werc on Vimeo.

2 heads

How good were the 90's? The TV shows were awesome (saved by the bell, sister sister, round the twist), your tamagotchi controlled your day and pagers were pretty much the most technologically advanced thing you could own apart from a calculator. And then of course there was there was the music. Pop music was popular. and excellent. Underground music was underground, and not creeping into clubs, charts and radio 1. And the dance music had the distinctive cheesy hopeful 90s sound which just wouldn't fly if it was released today.
2 heads' song Out of the City encapsulates this mood perfectly. Its cheating a bit, it was released 2002, but to me it definately belongs pre-millenium.
The music video is wonderfully 90s as well. And features an excellent sunrise.

Sleigh Bells

The Sleigh Bells keep popping up on Hype machine, but I don't really understand why people think that they are so amazing. Most of their stuff seems too disjointed, or heavy on guitars. Its just not they type of music I would want to be listening to over the summer. However, they did a more relaxed version of one of their songs called 'Ring Ring'. This new version is called 'Rill Rill', and has been on repeat for the last couple of days:

White Rabbit

I had never heard of white rabbit until I saw them perform on live with Jools Holland. I have never seen such a nervous lead guitarist, it literally looked like he had never performed before, but it didn't matter. The drumming in this song is awesome, and it gets better with each listen. I don't normally watch the Jools Holland show, but I'm glad I did this time.

Also just went to see Pendulum at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange. They are absolutely insane! Probably the best gig I have EVER been too. Check out their new song, 'The Island', it was absolutely amazing.

Discovery

The side project of any musician is always an interesting thing to delve in to. There's usually a reason its a side project (ie experimental nonsense) and not their flagship. However, sometimes you find winning combinations between unlikely artists that share a deep burning passion for a slightly more alternative type of music. A good example of this was when the whiney dude from Death Cab for Cutie made an excellent album with an electro producer under the name The Postal Service. Good on him. Discovery is the lovechild of the keyboardist from Vampire Weekend and the vocalist from Ra Ra Riot. Interesting. Their album was released around 2005 to mixed reviews, but what strikes me is the complete lack of publicity or promotion around the entire outfit. Maybe they were busy or they maybe just didn't care. Either way, I like the thought that they were sick of the music they were playing in their band and just had a jam session and turned it into an album. Thats a bit what the album sounds like anyway. I like it.

Fyfe Dangerfield

So I recently found out that Fyfe Dangerfield (use to be part of the Guillemots) has suddenly become famous because his song, 'She's Always a Woman' was recently featured on a John Lewis advert. Although it is a good cover of Billy Joel's song, I personally prefer some of Fyfe's original material. While his album is not all that great, two songs really stand out for me: She Needs Me, and When You Walk in the Room. I first got When You Walk in the Room about 6 months ago, and got totally addicted to it.

Star Guitar

The Chemical Brothers were one of the first electronic producers/bands I ever got into, and while most of their stuff is quite heavy, Star Guitar is not. This is a song that you may not like first time you hear it, I didn't, but it definitely grows on you. It starts off with some simple clapping samples, and over the first minute and a half slowly builds up until the vocals kick in. This is the sort of song that is perfect for travelling, when you're stuck resting against a window, watching the world go by. The chemical brothers obviously knew this, and have made one of the best/cleverest videos I've ever seen. Here is is:

Pogo

I tend to shy away from novelty music. However, this time last year I came across a 19 year old with too much time on his hands that makes novelty songs that are actually good. The premise is that 95% of each of his songs is made up from soundclips from films. And then even better, he makes a music video to go with it.
He has enough songs now to fill three albums, and is still churning them out. They're all worth a listen, but I do wish he'd drop the gimmick- he obviously has a lot of talent so imagine what he could do if he wasn't constrained to a single movie. His latest hit, from the movie Up is excellent, but his most famous to date has to be Alice, which LA producer daedelus recently featured in his radio 1 mix. fantastic.

M83

Saturdays=Youth by M83 is probably one of my favourite album names ever. Saturdays. Best day of the week. Saturdays of your youth? probably the best days ever. The good thing about this album is it doesn't disappoint. Despite the fact that I was exclusively listening to aqua 10 years ago, somehow listening to pretty much every song brings back memories of those weekends. Most that I'm not even sure are real, but wish were.
I always seem to listen to this album in the summer. I think it was made for the sun, might get a bit heavy if you listened to in the winter I suppose. Anyway, an added bonus is that the video for one of the standout tracks from the album is excellent. It was the winning entry for a competition, and makes you wish you could redo those years but make them a bit more epic.

Ted and Francis

I first found out about Ted and Francis last year when I was in cornwall. I had just bought the new Kitsune Maison compilation before heading down there, and had it on shuffle when suddenly 'I Wish I Was a Polar Bear' came on. At first I thought it was bit of joke song, and didn't think that much of it, but after listening to a couple more times (especially while driving) I realised how great the song is. Its upbeat and light hearted and perfect for the summer, and so when I came across this remix of Two Door Cinema Club by T&F I knew it was going to be great. Needless to say it went straight onto my summer playlist, and i'm sure its going to stay there for quite sometime. The Twelves (an amazing brazilian DJing duo) also did a remix of this song, but it just doesn't live up to T&F version at all, so here it is:

Pumped up Kicks

So about a month ago now I happened to stumble upon Foster the People, a LA based band that formed in October 2009. Although they've been around for less than a year, there have already produced a song that is sure to be song of the summer for many people. It reminds me in may ways of Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folk, a song that I heard once at the beginning of the summer a couple of years ago now, and didn't stop listening too. You can grab a free download from their website. Enjoy

New Example

I'm not quite sure what to make of Example. The first time I came across him was with Fred Falkes remix of 'watch the sun come up' and I loved it, and then with his next single, 'I won't go quietly' I was a bit disappointed. The song has slowly grown on me, but I just think it's a bit disjointed at parts, and is just a bit forgettable. However, a couple of weeks ago I heard his new single 'Kickstarts' and loved it from the start. It is instantly catchy and a perfect summer tune in my opinion. I heard an interview with him in which he described how he wanted to capture the feel of the drop from dizzee's bonkers, but make it slightly more light hearted, and i think he's done that perfectly. Sadly the single doesn't come out till the 14th june, so we're stuck with listening to it via youtube...