Your #1 feminist pop fantasy realized: sisters Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee and Allison Crutchfield of Swearin‘ (both formerly of P.S. Eliot) were asked by Rookie, the online zine for teen girls, to record a song to serve as the site’s May theme song, and they chose to cover Grimes‘ breakout single “Oblivion.” It’s a fantastic cover that reinvents pretty much all of Claire Boucher’s original instrumentation (that irresistible synth bassline gets translated onto an electric bass, and the Crutchfield sisters layer plenty of distorted guitar over the top) but stays true to her sublime, layered vocals and challenging, triumphant energy. Check it out.
Jagwar Ma’s 10-minute single “Man I Need” is one of our favorite epic tracks of the year, but we’re still satisfied with the four-minute cut the band used for the song’s awesome new video. Animated music videos are sometimes a little too kitschy for our tastes, but we like this one – bright primary colors and a fast-paced story move perfectly with the song, and we love the short, fun moments where the band themselves make animated appearances. Check it out.
Courtesy NPR, you can now stream Mount Kimbie’s new album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth a week before its physical release date. Thanks to gorgeous first single “Made to Stray,” we knew this record was going to be good, and we were right – it sees co-masterminds Kai Campos and Dominic Maker opting for more non-electronic instrumentation and unedited, soothing vocals (helped out on two tracks by King Krule), to great effect. First listen highlights are the Krule-featuring dive bar slow-burner “You Took Your Time” and the sublime, multi-textured “So Many Times, So Many Ways.” You can pick up a physical copy on May 28 – in the meantime, put your headphones on and turn it up.
If you haven’t gotten a chance to catch James Blake live yet (or if you just love watching his performances), you’re in luck – he stopped by the Seattle radio station KEXP on his last American tour to perform a few tracks, and you can check out a video now. Blake and his bandmates performed a few tracks from new record Overgrown and self-titled favorite “The Wilhelm Scream,” and it’s utterly mesmerizing to watch three guys make such otherworldly music right before your eyes. Overgrown‘s title track in particular is totally sublime and haunting in a live setting. Check it out.
The-Dream’s long-anticipated IV Play won’t be out physically until May 28, but if you’ve been anxiously awaiting the record, you’re in luck – you can stream it now courtesy Vevo. We’re already enamored of the record’s Jay-Z-featuring, instant summer jam of a first track, “High Art,” but the rest of the record is great too, as The-Dream lays down super-sexy slow jams alongside braggy, radio-ready tracks featuring everyone from Pusha T to Beyonce (the track she guests on, “Turnt,” is a definite highlight). Check it out before you pick up a tangible copy next week.
We’ve been hearing about Beyonce’s single “Grown Woman” for a long time – after teasing it in her Pepsi commercial and performing it on her recent world tour, she and her label promised an April 8 release date for the full track, but it’s just now making its way to the internet. It’s worth the wait – a breezy, irresistible afro-pop beat courtesy Timbaland anchors Queen B’s (Kelly Rowland-inspired?) assertions that she’s, well, a grown woman. Get ready to roll all the windows down in your car and sing along with that fist-pumping chorus – “I can do whatever I want!”
It seems like this version of the single might be an unofficial leak, as it’s not yet listed on iTunes – we’ll keep you posted as we hear more. In the meantime, check it out.
Take this from someone who just saw the movie – as you probably could have predicted, Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” is probably one of the best things about Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Now it’s got a video of its own, and, wisely, director Chris Sweeney decided not to go with a cut of scenes from the film and instead do something decidedly more Lana – namely, found footage, face closeups, and eerie shadows. If only the actual film looked more like this… Check it out.
Foxygen’s “No Destruction” is one of our favorite songs of the year, so we’re glad it’s now got the awesome video it deserves. Brilliantly, the band’s close friend Bryan Felber decided to get nostalgic, putting together a kind of supercut of some of the homemade films he worked on in high school and college with the band members before they got together to form Foxygen, and stitching it together with some new footage too. The end product is as smart as it is surreal, just like the song itself. Check it out.
It still reveals nothing about why they chose to hashtag the song’s title, but the long three day-awaited video for Mariah and Miguel’s collaboration “#Beautiful” premiered yesterday on (the Mariah-judged) American Idol, and if you missed it, you can watch it now. Get ready for lots of motorcycles, cars, chandeliers in a barn (?), and leather. Check it out.
Just in time for warm weather, here’s a new song from The-Dream’s upcoming IV Play that he rather accurately describes as “Just a Fuckin Real Fun Energetic Summer Song!!!!!!!!!!!” That number of exclamation points is totally necessary, especially if your idea of energetic summer fun parallels that of The-Dream and guest Jay-Z (ie. copious sex and weed). Plus, you get an irresistible, bass-heavy, clubby beat, plenty of hilarious one-liners (“Girl, I’m missin’ you like bitches miss my music”), and a great verse from Jay. Check it out - IV Play is out May 28th.