Thursday, January 31, 2008

xiu xiu

i've been listening to the new xiu xiu album, which i think is quite good. though i'm not crazy about the cover of under pressure. xiu xiu is generally seen as 'difficult' music - or perhaps 'uncomfortable' - but what i find fascinating about xiu xiu is when they speed things up a bit and produce utterly brilliant pop songs. not in the conventional sense of pop maybe but i just go weak in the knees when i hear those brass-synths on 'oh no friend' and the guitar bits on 'boy soprano' are nearly as effective as those on unwound's corpse pose. below, those couple of songs plus some more 'upbeat' xiu xiu, including a couple of covers, topped off with unwound.


Sunday, January 27, 2008

a few new ones

exciting new releases from cadence weapon, sons and daughters, duke spirit, destroyer, earth, blood on the wall, lightspeed champion (last year's best pop song?), beach house and radar boys. plus a couple of older track by thee more shallows, beach house and baby dee.