Ifan Dafydd is either an upcoming producer inspired very-extremely heavily by James Blake, or, judging from some comments and dubstep forums, James Blake himself. Not to perpetuate the rumor, but I might as well tag this post as James Blake, right? Seriously though, this probably isn’t James Blake.
Whoever Ifan Dafydd is, it’s likely going to [...]

A couple of things ran through my head the first time I heard the dark, rising piano chords of “Tamer Animals.” The first was, “This can’t be a new Interpol song I didn’t know about!” And the second was, “Finally, another great Interpol song!” My first thought was the right one (though, I’m a pretty [...]

This week in my headphones has been mostly devoted to Jamie Woon’s debut LP, Mirrorwriting. The British singer/songwriter/producer’s electronic R&B album has some production help from Burial, who makes the first 3 tracks (including singles “Night Air” and “Lady Luck”) the overwhelming(!) favorites.
But before that, there was a self-released Wayfaring Stranger EP that featured [...]

Austra’s “Lose It” sounds just like so many great things. Likely coming from the same line of influence as artists like Florence and the Machine, Bat for Lashes, The Knife, etc., Austra lead singer-songwriter, Katie Stelmanis (who’s released a solo album and played with Toronto band, Galaxy), gets her Kate Bush vibrato on hard here [...]

As mentioned in the press release, Seattle’s Craft Spells recorded their album in a bedroom during a ‘cold and dreary winter.’ This is only partially easy to believe. The band, led by songwriter Justin Vallesteros, fits nicely into the Beach Fuzzed Found Footage genre (which I’m not sick of), but also have [...]

San Diego’s Dirty Gold have got the sunny beach grainy found footage vibe thing down with this clip for their excellent afropoppy single, “California Sunrise.” Lots of California and sun, people on surfboards, etc. Their debut EP is due this spring on AD’s Autumn Tone label. “California Sunrise” is on iTunes. Buy.

Vancouver’s Dirty Beaches (AKA Alex Zhang Hungtai) is set to release his debut full length on San Diego label Zoo Music this Spring. His newest track, “Lord Knows Best”, is streaming over at GvsB, but 2010’s ” True Blue” (sounding like a heartbroken ghost from 1965) got more of my attention. Similarly eerie B-side “Sweet [...]

UK songwriter/producer, James Blake, is doing some pretty excellent things in 2010. Started with the release of his 2 EPs, then the lead-off single from his upcoming debut (due in 2011), a cover of Feist’s “Limit to Your Love”, and continues now with my favorite so far, an unconfirmed album track, “I Never Learnt to [...]

I regrettably had to bail on the Filter Magazine Culture Collide Festival for most of the weekend (apologies to Klaxons, El Guincho). H8 U cold. Luckily, I was able to rally by Sunday’s Toyota Antics sponsored (hard to miss) Block Party, which featured performances by Jenny and Johnny, Tokyo Police Club, Cass McCombs, Fran Healy [...]

Brighton based electro-pop band, Mirrors, give me no reason not to love their latest single, “Hide & Seek.” The track is likely off of the band’s likely upcoming full length on Brighton’s Skint Records, and features lots of great, not so unobvious English new wave influences and a low-budget, early 80’s looking clip to match [...]