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Probably the last new track I'll post before Christmas... Some cool emotive electronic pop here on the new MNDR remix of Home Video's Forget. MNDR add some drama, creating something a little bit like the Postal Service remixed by M83... In other words expect to feel it rather than just hear it.
Sylvan Esso are one of my most enjoyed random finds in 2014 - their self-titled debut album alternates between delicate pop, folk and modern grime and garage influenced urban sounds. Love it.
The band have just announced that the hotly tipped solo artist Jack Garratt (featured here back in October) is to support them at their sold out London Scala show on February 26 so it seemed like a good opportunity to go back and share the remix he did of one of Sylvan Esso's best tracks, Mami.
Check out the remix above, and the original below. Such bass.
A glorious slither of pop perfection here from London-based, Wolverhampton-born singer/songwriter Tom Aspaul. This track is taken from the Revelation Mixtape, which Aspaul plans to self-release early next year.
This track was produced by GRADES (real name Dan Traynor), and the duo worked on it after a night out in Soho... After creating the track in a vision inspired by future neon cities and Janet Jackson's Doesn't Really Matter video that night Aspaul ended up banging his head on a table and blacking out. The lyrics came out of that event, with the singing likening the experience to both Newton's moment of revelation when the apple hit his head and that moment when you are hit between the eyes when you meet the person you realise you are meant to be with.
Check it out below. I've also posted a second track, Indiana, which is just as infectious.
Been meaning to post this since it dropped earlier in the week, but December being what it is I'm only getting to it now. Anyway - a killer remix of the emotive closing track from Caribou's latest album Our Love from Carl Craig. The melodies are stripped back here creating an even more amplified disconnect - Dan Swain's vocals are all the more exposed against Craig's distorted, mechanical bass. So good.
Butterfly is the debut EP from Snowpoet and you would do well to think of it as a bit of an early Christmas present. The group are led by two core musicians, London bassist Chris Hyson and Irish vocalist Lauren Kinsella, but they work as a collective to combine experimental and improvisational music and spoken word.
They describe themselves as an alternative folk act but Butterfly is as close to jazz as folk, full of free form melodies and experimental instrumentation. The EP opens with Always, a shimmering and polished entrance full of details that glisten as Kinsella's spoken words walk you in, giving way to a soaring chorus and extravagant, cosmic closing third.
After a gently introspective interlude in the form of 1953, the titular Butterflies gently weaves itself around the listener, guitars panning back and forth as pianos twinkle. The music gives way to the sound of rain gently falling, a transition to runs into the final track Alive With Closed Eyes.
It is a dramatic, stark conclusion to the EP - raw and exposed in a way that contrasts to the polish of Butterfly's opener. A compelling release, Snowpoet are at turns strange and beautiful.
Butterfly is out now. Listen to Always below, stream the EP in full on Soundcloud or buy on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].