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castles and suburbs

19 Aug

Friday. Yes please. This is rare for me, but I am ever so ready to settle into a restful weekend.

Today’s Emo: The Suburbs / Mr. Little Jeans (Arcade Fire cover)

‘kids wanna be so hard / but in my dreams we’re still screamin’ and runnin’ through the yard’

The original Suburbs is a kind of song that manages to cause shivers despite warm, upbeat tones, making you pine for home and sprinklers and simpler times, while simultaneously making you realize you can’t go back. Norwegian born songstress Mr. Little Jean slows it down here, smooths it out and adds some weight, making the sound match the scene it paints. Chills.

With silvery vocals and rolling bass, she practically sighs her way through the chorus, letting the words speak for themselves without trying to overly emote anything. The result, as with most things that make me feel nostalgic, is that kind of quiet comfort found in allowing yourself to really miss something. SO #emo

Today’s Untz: Baptism / Crystal Castles (Germany Germany remix)

One of my favorite Canadian untz crafters, Germany Germany has produced a sprawling take on Crystal Castles’ gem, Baptism. It’s not a new track, but there is nothing like a good Nintendo-esque indie pop remix to smooth out the end of a long work week, and I am tracing these sounds in zigzags around my head, dreaming of dance beats in a dark place far far away from powerpoints. I love musically inclined geeky bros, so am delighted Drew is producing these tracks while studying engineering at the University of Victoria. Hope he keeps them coming steady between studies.

Since it is Friday, a bonus untz with this hot mess of a Hood Internet mash up of Baptism and RihRih’s Rude Boy.  #untz

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whiskey rivers and crystal castles

16 Jan

Emo (pronounced /ˈiːmoʊ/) A style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics.

Untz The official rave or techno sound of a pulsing beat, usually written with an umlaut (two dots) over the ‘U’.

Greetings to my first posting of the Untz and the Emo. You can expect tri-weekly updates of my favorite dance and indie songs, and perhaps some thoughts on what makes them so great.

Today’s emo: Down in the Valley / The Head and the Heart

To begin, a band I have done nothing but inundate everyone I know with since the first time I heard their album, the Head and the Heart. They may or may not have contributed to the inspiration behind the title of this blog, and are one of the reasons I got inspired enough to create one in the first place. Thus tweetathons, spammy Facebook posts, and enough youtube links in my gchat status to their achingly emo live shows to undoubtedly have trained some of my friends to stop bothering to click on my gchat status forever.

Ryan Adams vocals, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros cacophony of sounds and instruments, and simple yet sigh inducing lyrics (“I know there’s California / Oklahoma / and all of the places I ain’t ever been to / but down in the valley / the whiskey rivers / these are the places you will find me hiding / these are the places I will always go”) have made The Head and the Heart’s debut my favorite album of 2010.

These are the places I will always go. #emo

Today’s untz: Not in Love / Crystal Castles featuring Robert Smith

Risking a bit to have a somewhat emo-y first untz song, but this song has had me rocking out in my cube during the past week, and then wanting to down shots of patron while pre-gaming at a party intentionally hosted without patron this weekend. Crystal Castles borrows the lead singer of the Cure, turning the regular baby cooing like (but still awesome) vocals of this song into something both inteligible and all too tangible. “We were lovers / now we can’t be friends / fascination ends.” Might as well dance it out. #untz

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