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your sunshine

24 Feb

A heat wave has washed over the Bay Area for the past few days, and being trapt indoors during 70 degree weather in February is torture. A sun soaked untz and Friday to the rescue…  and a long lunch in the park.

Today’s Indie: Call Your Boyfriend / Noah and the Whale (Robyn cover)

‘don’t you tell him how I give you something that you never even knew you missed / don’t you even try and explain how it’s so different when we kiss’

A playful little twist on Robyn’s Call Your Girlfriend, English indie popsters Noah and the Whale flip the table and tell us how to politely call our boyfriends and let them know they have been traded in for new flames. While this sounds like the nicest way to go about such a conversation, the whole uptempo spin on NATW’s cover has a smug little grin behind it that Robyn’s original version doesn’t have — she sincerely sounds a little sad and sorry for the chick, like she’s been there too (ahem Be Mine). I guess boys will be boys… but I like it. #indie

Today’s Untz: Sunshine / Picture Book (Justin Faust remix)

‘I feel like the summer inside’

Here is a can’t help but smile electro popsicle of a track, aptly titled Sunshine and perfect for melting you into the weekend. Syrupy sweet in lyrics and sound, it might be advisable to consume in moderation to avoid a tummy ache, but I had it on repeat all Thursday afternoon. Picture Book is comprised of two brothers who were born stateside but grew up in the UK, and Sunshine is the first release of their first official EP, At Last, out in January. German DJ/producer Justin Faust washes a dreamy wave over the single in his remix, and it is in a word, nom. #untz

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pirate doves

16 Nov

Little time for music this week as I have started reading this little series you may have heard of called The Hunger Games, and suddenly am totally unable to pry myself away from hundreds of pages of young adult fiction… some hybrid of Twilight minus the vampires, Harry Potter minus the magic, and Survivor except with teenagers as the contestants who are fighting till the death a la Lord of the Flys. God help me.

Today’s Emo: Wicked Games / Coeur De Pirate (The Weeknd cover)

‘bring your love / baby I can bring my shame / bring the drugs / baby I can bring my pain’

Coeur de Pirate (French for Pirate Heart) is a Canadian born singer named Beatrice Martin. Beatrice hails from Quebec and sings mostly in French (check out Les Amoures Devouees, delightful gibberish to my ears), but she puts her dirty pirate mouth to work on this cover of The Weeknd’s Wicked Games in Ingles. It is brilliant to hear such a gentle, soft voice emitting such gritty language, and while I imagine her singing it with a smirk on her face, she carries the somber tune with sincerity until the very end, when we catch a glimmer of giggles. #emo

Today’s Untz: Mother Protect / Niki & the Doves (Goldroom remix)

‘I used to follow you, follow you for days / I slept beside you, just shadows away’

I have been lusting over this song on Hypem all week only to discover yesterday that the remix artist Goldroom is the main writer for my new blog crush, Binary. New as in I have only just become acquainted and started devouring its content new, the blog has been around for some time now. Highly recommend, as with this track. #untz

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wicked empire

28 Sep

I created an email account for the blog back in July, theuntzandtheemo@gmail.com, set up what I thought was email forwarding into my regular gmail account, and then just assumed no one was contacting me because nothing was coming through. I used to work at Google, so you’d think I could handle the simple concept of gmail forwarding, but apparently not. I logged into the blog account on a whim on Sunday night and had over a hundred emails waiting for me – music recommendations, artist plugs from labels, and to my delight even few thank you from artists themselves. Totally floored, all was happily (if tardily) received.

Today’s Untz: Wicked Game / James Vincent McMorrow

‘the world was on fire / no one could save me but you’

I saw JVMM for a second time last Friday night, appropriately rolling into Slim’s with a group of six Irish friends, and soon found myself knee deep in whiskey and beautiful music. James played all of my favorites from his album as well as his new cover of Higher Love, and then closed out his encore with this cover of the Chris Issak classic. Stripped down to just that voice and a little guitar, the result was tragically stirring. The house fell silent.

You know when you are watching a soccer game, and both teams are playing quite well, but then someone ties things up at the very end of the game and for the last few minutes everyone is playing like someone hit fast forward – with extreme focus, intensity, drive – and you wonder why either of the teams didn’t display this prowess earlier in the game and annihilate the other team all along? That is how I felt at the end of this show. James played beautifully throughout the night, but at the end some sort of fire got lit that brought things to an entirely new level. Stunning. #emo

Today’s Untz: Walking on a Dream / Empire of the Sun (Oxford remix)

‘we are always running for the thrill of it thrill of it, thrill of it’

Oxford shakes up Empire of the Sun’s signature track into something made to be played on the beach, and the head bob here is unavoidable. This is the first I have heard of French artist Antoine Rigail, pulled from my friend’s BlogJuice but hope to be hearing more soon. For the thrill of it. #untz

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a-team miracle

27 Jul

My co-rec soccer team, the Fiyah Balls, suffered a tough play off loss Monday night after deciding to channel the US’ PK scoring abilities against Japan. I may have been involved in one of the fatal shots… no Brandi Chastiain moment for me. On the bright side, getting eliminated early in the evening gave me the chance to sit down and finally catch up on music blogs sans distraction for the first time in what feels like weeks. The result: the two solid covers below. And we still have our championship shirts from last season…

Today’s Emo: The A-Team / Birdy (Ed Sheeran cover)

‘but lately her face seems slowly sinking, wasting / crumbling like pastries’

The original version of this song is beyond emo, and Birdy takes her cover up a notch to the point where it stings. The tragic figure in the track is addicted to crack, works as a prostitute to pay rent, and is slowly crumbling like a pastry… a surprisingly poignant analogy, causing me to picture straggling crumbs at the bottom of a bag, hopeless.

All of this is being reworked by this talented fourteen year old British songstress who keeps cranking out breathtaking covers. However beautiful and believable, I hope she has little to relate to in this one. #emo

Today’s Untz: Miracle / The Dirty Tees ft. Natasha Bedingfield (Fragma cover)

Guilty pleasure music Wednesday… time to dance around the bedroom before hump day. Once I got past the shudder of hearing Natasha Bedingfield’s voice (memories of Pocket Full of Sunshine on endless loop in my head) and got into the layers of untz wrapped around this cover, everything fell into place and it seems like the only appropriate response. Enjoy. #untz

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