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Richard Youngs originally released this collection of consciously pop-minded “beats and hooks” last year, as usual, as an ultra-limited CD-R . Thankfully, Jagjaguwar has re-mastered and reissued Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits and here we find Youngs zeroing in on sparse, killer drum loops and his own version of the second side of Bowie’s Low for a brainy pop trip through an alternate reality ruled by New Order and R.E.M.
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The brainchild of producer Ryan Olson, who had initially enlisted the help of Solid Gold's Zack Coulter and Adam Hurlburt, Gayngs was reportedly to be a bedroom project inspired by 10cc's "I'm Not in Love," and soon grew to a cast of 25 contributors including members of Megafaun, the Rosebuds, Rhymesayers and Bon Iver. What results is a gorgeous album of narcotic pop that takes cues from '70s soft rock, blue-eyed soul and hip-hop -- one of this year's sleeper hits.
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Like many dreamy, aching pop albums, Small Black's EP was born in hibernation; founding duo Ryan Heyner and Josh Kolenik spent a long winter writing lo-fi pop songs in the attic. Part of the raw charm of Small Black's EP is the synthesis of two layers -- the home-recorded sounds, like scratchy guitar twinkle and tweeting Casio laid to tape, and secondly, the clean, powerful studio sounds, like the soaring, reverb-drenched vocals. Next big thing alert!
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Sighting’s seventh full-length, "City of Straw," is forty minutes-worth of gritty, fractured noise and atonal lurching; but buried beneath the aural chaos lies a very accomplished sense of melody and pop song-structure, making for a complex and ultimately rewarding set of songs. Recorded in Brooklyn, the album features contributions from several members of local favorites Oneida. An occasionally difficult yet truly worthwhile listen.
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Like an Arcade Fire tuned to AM radio in 1973, Montreal's Besnard Lakes return with their second album, awash in Jace Lasek's glass-cutting falsetto and a wall of mournful reverb, and the doleful memory of forty years or so of pop music, cut and pasted into challenging, instantly memorable slices. Moody, fragile, and dark, not afraid to bare its teeth, this is the sound that chases your winter away.
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