Blackbird Blackbird

Check this fresh remix of oft mentioned Blackbird Blackbird's "Hawaii" by the talented Chrome Sparks.

Hawaii (Chrome Sparks Remix)

// Chrome Sparks
// Blackbird Blackbird

Purity Ring - Ungirthed

Enjoy the video for this promising single from Purity Ring. The project is a new, more accessible tangent from members of the neon delusional electro-pop crew Gobble Gobble. Purity Ring appears to be yet another female driven shadowy pop project that further confirms 2011 is shaping up to be the year of the female vocalist. Perhaps this is a fitting homage to the untimely death of frontwoman Trish Keenan from the increasingly influential act Broadcast. Nonetheless, here is a track that is very of the moment and as long as the music stays this good...we can't complain.

"Ungirthed" - Purity Ring (Video by The Tearist)


// Purity Ring

Sean Carey

Video for "In the Dirt" by S. Carey -


Here is the first video release from Sean Carey, originally known as the drummer for Bon Iver. Accordingly, his 2010 solo debtut, All We Grow, is nothing less than impressive.

// S. Carey

Cassettes Won't Listen

If you only listen to one song today, make it this one and everything will be alright. Jason Drake, the main man from Cassettes Won't Listen, remixes "Soak It Up" by Houses.

Soak It Up (Cassettes Won't Listen remix)

// Cassettes Won't Listen
// Houses

Music Video: Zoos of Berlin - Electrical Way

Video by Pomp&Clout:


// Zoos of Berlin

Brendan Austin

Paper mountains by Brendan Austin.

Starfucker - "Bury Us Alive"

Written yesterday for Willamette Week's Local Cut:

Today, Starfucker’s new label, Polyvinyl Records, announced that you can start pre-ordering the band’s forthcoming full-length (titled Reptilians)—and get an immediate MP3 download of the entire album when you do. Fans will know that this release has been a long time coming, but let’s recap Starfucker’s tumultuous history…

A little over two years ago, the name Starfucker was never far from the lips of pretty much every musically inclined person in Portland—which, if you haven’t noticed in this town, is pretty much everyone. Led by the ever-quirky multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter Josh Hodges, the group had just released its self-titled debut and was quickly being ushered in as one of Portland’s biggest sweethearts. Out of the dance-crazed basements of P-Town’s house show scene, here had a bubbled up an act with staying power. A poppy, hook-laden dance project that even your parents could get down with. As evidenced when Wieden + Kennedy produced an ad that utilized the band’s “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” to push Target pharmaceuticals. It was clear that Starfucker’s music had commercial potential and everyone knew it—if only they hadn’t chosen such an expletive-ridden name.

It was here that the project reached a fork in the road to success which has plagued artists for years—would Starfucker finally make some decent cash for doing what it loved, or stay underground and pile up the street cred? Opting to split the middle somehow, the project ardently crashed into the unknown that lay between. Asking fans to help change its name, Starfucker would become known as Pyramiddd in 2009. Unsurprisingly, the change took virtually all of the wind out of the sails that had once been dubiously stitched with F, U, C and K.

And so, in 2010, Hodges and crew went back to saying “Fuck it!” and readopted their original moniker while releasing a slew of B-sides and a 7-inch in advance of a new LP out this March. Here in 2011, there is a gust of new life in those once-deflated sails and now the day has finally come for the world to hear the latest effort from the resolute and capable band we always knew was there.

Bury Us Alive

The synth-heavy pop banger is an ostensible rallying cry that admonishes public opinion during the dark days of Pyramiddd by proving that even though the name changed, Starfucker never did. With lyrics like “I know nothing ever keeps you safe for sure/ No one ever dug down so far we go” and “No one even listened/ But this death has set me free/ So bury us alive,” it’s certainly clear that Hodges believes what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. As a culmination of its past and telling insight to the group’s perspective on the future, “Bury Us Alive” is a perfect launching point for Starfucker’s rebirth. With the release of Reptilians, 2011 is likely to harbor a new level of success for these hometown heroes—and like proud parents, we should just sit back and watch them go.

// Starfucker

Lyndsey Denyer

Mixed media work by Lyndsey Denyer:

MillionYoung - Replicants

Back in October we brought you a single from MillionYoung's then-unnamed forthcoming release that was slated for January on Old Flame. Well today MillionYoung (Mike Diaz) is back with another single from that album, now titled Replicants, which has been rescheduled to drop February 15th. The eponymous new single, like all of MillionYoung's work, is a mesmerizing dance track that has travelled to us from some other galaxy. Jheri over at Get Off the Coast puts it best when he says "This is what the hip kids at Starfleet Academy get down to." Beam me up Diaz!

Replicants

// MillionYoung

Music Video: Destroyer - Kaputt

For those who've never heard of Vancouver B.C.'s Destroyer, you've been missing Dan Bejar in your life. His soon-to-be-released (1/25) album Kaputt on powerhouse indie label Merge is being labeled by some as "Destroyer does chillwave." While that's a lofty description for a guy whose music is often compared to the ever-changing David Bowie, the new record is surely a departure from the typical eccentric indie songwriter stylings that Bejar has been churning out since '95. Whatever you want to call it, it's already being heralded as an "album of the year" candidate come this next December. (Didn't we just get done with all that noise?) Nonetheless, here's the album's first music video for the eponymous single "Kaputt":

// Destroyer