Modern Charms - 'When We Get There'
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San Francisco is pretty good at turning out music that makes you feel like you're floating weightless a couple miles above the earth. Pretty, pretty shoegaze awaits you.
Tycho
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Tycho is one of those musicians that I don’t even really want to force into words. This is perfect ambient music. I could fall asleep to this, I could work all day to this, or I could sit in a field on a breezy day and be totally content with anything that happened. That’s what ambient music is to me, a perfect soundtrack for relaxation.
Spend the time to listen to this album and liberate your mind. It’s so easy to listen to Tycho and forget about everything else. Try not to think about words. Just listen to the music without actively thinking about any concrete images, words, or ideas. It’s easier than it sounds, but it’s also much more active than it sounds. Getting to the point where you can purposefully zone out and separate yourself from all senses and learned intelligence is so freeing. Tycho is a great soundtrack for that.
He’s playing in Austin on the 14th, and Montreal on April 7th and 8th. I bet those will be awesome shows, but I’d just suggest that if you can’t make it to one, then sitting in your room and listening to his album will be equally as rewarding. These are the kinds of songs that are absolutely great in album form. Tycho is really making some of the best ambient music I’ve heard in a long time.
Go for a walk. Take a nap. Sit in the sun. Do whatever you love, and listen to good ambient music.
Moonbell - 'Figurine'
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Shimmering, transcendental, long-form shoegaze? Don't mind if I do.
Silver Swans
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San Francisco really has an impressive collection of music on Bandcamp. The very first thing I click on every time is incredible. For example, I just found this band called Silver Swans, listened all the way through their 2012 album, “Forever”, and loved every song.
They’re a dream pop band made up of two individuals, Ann Yu and Jon Waters, and this is exactly the kind of music that you could turn on and change any situation. I could be driving down the road listening to twenty different songs on the radio then turn on Silver Swans and suddenly feel completely different. This music is very refreshing and very original. I could be stuck car camping at a rest area on a long trip, pull out my ipod, turn on Silver Swans and suddenly feel totally engulfed in nature and beauty.
There are great organic drum sounds throughout the album, and very smooth higher frequency tones. The vocals are incredibly, and the arrangements are perfect. The end of the first track, “House Of Blood”, has a very long vocal sustain that perfectly fades the track out. The next track begins with dance bass to change the mood and keep your attention.
Consequently, the second track is probably my favorite. It’s called, “Secrets”, and it seems like a good choice for a single if they had to pick one. The lyrics are interesting, and the melodies are catchy.
Head over to Silver Swans’ Bandcamp page to listen to great music! Download it and take it anywhere you go for positive mood transforming capabilities!
Magic Leaves - 'Imjin'
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Magic Leaves's explosive, riff-based psych rock is great to wake up to on a Sunday. I'm usually of the camp that thinks guitar shreds are showy and unnecessary, but the solo in the following song works well enough for me to redefine my parameters.
Awkward Terrible vs. The Glowing Stars
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8-bit music! Yes! We have a band in the town where I live called Fake Brad who plays with Gameboys during his live sets, and that totally turned me on to the idea of 8-bit music. Awkward Terrible vs. The Glowing Stars is a lot like that. This band is awesome. Check them out live or go listen to them on Bandcamp if you want.
There’s a Vampire Weekend song called Horchata. This album is called Horchata, and I like it a lot more than Vampire Weekend. Excellent work, Awkward Terrible vs. The Glowing Stars.
Whoa! Words came in on “Mainframe” and totally blew my mind. It’s great! If I put this in my car, I think I could listen to it on repeat for probably a hundred times before I got tired of it.
8-bit rock is so ver underappreciated. Maybe not in San Francisco, but definitely in Knoxville and Nashville. Despite how much I loved “Mainframe”, I think “Nichols D. Wolfwood” is my favorite track on the album. It’s got so much interesting stuff going on.
Be sure to go listen to this band. 8-bit needs more support, and this is a really good place to start getting on the game train. These songs are good and fun, and you would probably love to turn them way up, turn the lights out, and dance around your room for the entire length of the four track album “Horchata”. Awkward Terrible vs. The Glowing Stars is really good 8-bit rock.
A Conversation Between Trees
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What would it sound like if trees could hold conversations? Last fall, two producers created an eighteen track album called “A Conversation Between Two Trees”. They assembled electronic tracks from all over Europe. Their common interest? Saving the Amazon Rainforest.
They call the first half of this double album ambient/chill out/downbeat and the second half psychedelic trance. I certainly think if trees could talk, it would be more off a “chill out” type situation than a “psychedelic trance” groove, but I hope I’m wrong. I hope trees like to rave out for hours.
These initial soundscapes are really great. The fact that I can’t understand most of the spoken word probably helps create the ambience for me, but I think that was the point. This album contains many different languages, and it’s presented to an American crowd who likely knows little more than English.
“Erot and Samsara –Eternal Tree” is my favorite track. It begins with a very woodland theme. Even the drums sound like they could naturally exist in a perfect forest somewhere. Someone I imagine to be a wise medicine man begins to speak over the other sounds, and if I close my eyes I can almost picture the entire scene. It’s probably early morning. I’m well rested. It’s early summer, but it’s not too hot. There is a refreshing mist in the air and a great canopy of shade. Then suddenly, electronic beats break into the song and I am in a forest of bliss.
This is a really well constructed album. Check it out.
Aloonaluna - 'Lost and Strange Creatures'
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This hypnotic little track is the closer to Aloonaluna's upcoming cassette release Bunny, which will drop on Hooker Vision next month.
Sorcerermusic - 'Universal Vision'
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This bedroom dance project mixes some very fun beats together from a variety of influences including, allegedly, space jazz and krautrock.
Universal Vision by sorcerermusic
Terry Malts - 'Tumble Down'
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This San Francisco trio has yet to release their first record, but from the sounds of it, their February debut will be well worth watching out for. If you couldn't tell by the photo, these dudes draw heavily from the '80s. Check out their brilliant psychedelic pop below.
Terry Malts - Tumble Down by Slumberland Records