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fall asleep, spin the sky

18 Mar

OMAM

Today’s Indie: Skeletons / Of Monsters and Men (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)

Of Monsters and Men covered the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Skeletons last month, and it got picked up the blog circuit this week, hard. I can see why. There is both power and restraint in singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir’s voice as she takes on the formidable Karen O’s words as her own, and her vocals met with the soaring harmonies and tambourine rings of her bandmates flow together into a sound that gives a feeling of creature comfort to a cloud covered Monday. I have listened to this song ten times, and counting.

It has been an epic couple of years for the Icelandic sextet since I first laid ears on Little Talks back in 2011: they have toured the world and their full length debut, My Head is an Animal, hit number six on the US charts. Hearing this sliver of new sound from them today has me hoping for their continued success. #indie/tory

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slow and steady

25 Apr

Today’s Indie: Slow and Steady / Of Monsters and Men

‘I spend my nights dancing with my own shadow / and it holds me and it never lets me go’

Icelandic sextet Of Monsters and Men caught my attention with their foot stomping jamboree of a single, Little Thoughts, but have cemented their appeal with this slow burner of a song that settles right into the bones. Slow and Steady echos that the all too relatable feeling of a moment in life when things are moving so quickly around you, but you feel stuck in slow motion. Singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir has a beautiful birdlike voice with an edge, like Charity of The Head and the Heart, and I love the drum accompaniment and final ‘wooo-ooo’s’ that carry out the end the song.

I found this gem via 365 Days of Music… mad props to their ambition, I have a hard enough time posting three days a week. #indie/tory

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friendly monsters

23 Mar

Big changes at work mean little time to find new tunes during the week anymore… with great power comes great responsibility. Luckily I had time to catch up on a lot of tracks while cleaning the crap out of my apartment last weekend. Dance music + swifter  made me feel like Pippi Longstocking when she taped scrubbers onto her feet and poured bubbles on the floor. I will always find the time.

Today’s Emo: Little Talks / Of Monsters and Men

‘we used to play when we were young and full of life and full of love’

Who needs mice when you can have monsters? I almost skipped over this track upon first listen because the intro sounds like a bad Mighty Mighty Bosstones song. Then the vocals chimed in and I thought I had fallen into a miscategorized  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros track.  Upon further listening and a bit of digging through the interwebs I discovered Of Monsters and Men: an Icelandic pop group with clever male/female banter and a jamboree vibe. This is a great indie folk jam and the Oregonian in me can’t help but tap my foot along to the tambourine.

Thanks Iceland, I was losing faith in your musical exports after too many funny SNL clips of Bjork. #emo

Today’s Untz: Live Those Days Tonight / Friendly Fires

‘you claim  your history / is beyond a man like me / but I’ll live I’ll live I’ll live / I’ll live these days tonight’

Bad Enrique Iglesias song, or new indie dance band release? The latter, but sometimes it’s shocking how fine of a line it can be. I like dancing to bad Enrique anyway, especially with tracks like Tonight I’m Fucking You (so dirty you have to watch it on a Russian YouTube knockoff).

This Friendly Fires track may be a bit more subtle in its message, but it still stirs me up. I saw the group and fellow britts The xx play a show at the Independent a couple falls back and was impressed with the likes of Strobe and Skeleton Boy, so I am looking forward to May 16th’s release of their new album, Pala. If it has more tracks like this, I am sure to be catching them again and dmfo. #untz

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