Because of some complications, honeypower will be on hiatus for a little while…in the meantime, check out supersuperdb.com for new music.
Oct
7
Kind of…a new incarnation of the beloved Sordo database has come up, under the name of SUPERSUPERDB. We’ll be archiving our links there!
Oct
2
YAY! Annie Clark, Texan multi-instrumentalist and guitar shredder extraordinaire delivers on the promise of her genre-busting first album with Actor, a sweetly composed 21st century baroque cacophony about the performativity of postmodern Western life. An intricately orchestral rock album, it delivers at once a manifesto and eulogy for our vapid culture. Or whatever, read it how you like; I just came from an art history symposium. This is one of my top five albums so far this year (including The Big Pink, the xx, Delorean, and Bibio), and it rivals in quality its predecessor Marry Me. She is extremely talented, gently hardcore, and soon to be very influential. This is an essential 2009 release on the (as always) incredible 4AD.
Favorite tracks: The Strangers, Marrow, Actor Out Of Work, Laughing With A Mouth of Blood, Just The Same But Brand New
For proof of her guitar-shredding skillz, check out some photos I got of her performance at All Points West this summer!
Oct
2
When real pop hits me, it hits me real good. I’ve been on a Dan Black binge for the last few days now, and it’s not likely to let up soon. Originally gaining notoriety from his HYPNTZ mashup of the Notorious BIG track and Rihanna’s Umbrella, his sound is unapologetically pop, but the electro beats borrow equally from hip-hop influences as they do from his synthpop contemporaries. With his Myspace listing influences: “Jay-Z, Sigur Ros,” it’s clear that Black is a sign of the arrival of New Pop, a generation of artists raised simultaneously on a (post) millennial maelstrom of saccharine pop/hip-hop and wildly diversifying indie music. Most tracks on this album are too catchy to resist, whether with the hooks or lyrics. The beat matching of Symphonies will pick you up in any mood; it’s hard to listen to this in public and not bounce around like you’re the coolest thing in town. And lyrics like, “European human being/Drugs slash drinks slash psychic healing/Flesh nipping blood sipping Sitting in a circle sharing feelings/Not ill take pill roll up make bills/Inhale hold til you feel until” in the aptly titled I Love Life make this a party album through and through. My only criticism is how front-loaded it is. For a pop album, it is staggeringly full of potential hits, but they mostly comprise the first six tracks of the album; after Yours, the album winds down a mellow meta-pop direction, until Life Slash Dreams tunes you into the ecstatically beautiful finale of I Love Life.
Regardless, if you want to dance to legit pop music but not feel that hipster guilt, he is your man. Link is 320k.
Oct
1
UPDATE: link includes V0 version
Yup, it leaked a while ago. It’s great. I kinda hoped this wasn’t the cover art because I feel like he creates much better (more interesting) stuff, but whatever. The album itself is excellent, though hang onto those old leaked demos and unmastered versions from last year if you have him, cuz there are definitely some cuts and changes. Overall, the record is a delicately refined and polished version of songs you can tell he’s been working on for the past 4+ years or so. An astoundingly beautiful sophomore release. I keep getting more effusive as I write because I started listening when I started writing the post.
Check him out as he tours North America with Broadcast this fall/winter! He’s in Philly October 18th.
