Song of the Day

Archive for March, 2011

I try not to classify artists or to translate their musical style, genre, or category of music based on their beat or the types of instruments they use, but in a way it’s necessary to help make artists more approachable. Jamie Woon’s music is backwards for me, he’s already approachable, and although his music appears to consist of a mix of pop and electronic sounds with a soul RnB and acoustic singer songwriter feel, I think that it’s not easy to classify his music into a genre. The funny thing is I went ahead and described it while talking about how it’s hard to describe.

One thing that pops out to me about his work is the clarity of the sound, it’s nice to have clear sound which sometimes gets lost among the dinge of electric guitar screams and regular percussion clashing. But without any hard percussion sounds, Jamie’s voice is given full stage. He’s got a great voice, and the well balanced studio production he did when recording his music does it justice.

“Get your Filthy Dukes off me!”, she cried before screaming and dashing out of the dark pulsing London nightclub. Funny scene huh, happens ALL THE TIME!

What’s with all the electronic music on the Song of the Day blog? This doesn’t sound like indie music, it’s like I’m in a Nintendo game from the 80′s or something? Which makes me wonder, did they have Nintendo in England in 1985 too? The guys from Filthy Dukes probably did, damn dirty remixers.

New digitalism, Eleven Tigers blends elements from all electronic genres into a psychedelic kaleidescope that keeps on giving. Jokubas Dargis a Lithuanian now living in London is responsible for all this madness.

Listen to and download more of their tracks using the player below, donations to the artist welcome!

Listen to the tracks Autogenesis, Prosthesis, and Trail in the player below.

Delorean, not to be confused with Dolorean, or a rapper, or a car.

Update: 4/11 Just talked to the band Dream Thieves today on a flight on their way back to Iowa City from Coachella 2011 and they mentioned Delorean was on the list of amazing bands playing at the festival. Said they really enjoyed Delorean along with the rest of the showing. Perhaps Dream Thieves will be there next year? Dream Thieves sounds much like a mix between Phantogram and Crystal Castles. Very good tunes.

Ratatat is a Brooklyn based duo that produces some good tunes that are easily recognizable but diverse in their minimal synthesized melodies and progressions. Their music can replicate tonal landscapes that are reminiscent of bands like Radiohead, The Strokes, Crystal Castles but also vary into different musical themes that employ melodies riffs and sounds from all sorts of musical genres from hip-hop, to R&B, to New Wave and Rock. It’s hard to find any bad songs by this band. Here’s a bunch of other great songs with music videos on YouTube that I found by them that are really worth listening to. You have to hear them to get a taste for what this band can do. Be careful not to play them all at once.

This video is crazy, but hey, that’s art. I love this song. Couldn’t embed it from YouTube, but some other sites had it. The sound quality is probably best on the YouTube page. You must stick up for yourself son, never mind what anybody else does. This line is anthem worthy.

I never heard these guys before, they’re getting pretty popular I guess since they’ve got some big production and talent in their latest music videos, this animated music video is pretty unique, looks like Ren & Stimpy animators’ work. The song is energetic and releases a powerful rock sound that ebbs with the straight treble vocals. Good track I wanted to share.

Romanian dance groove group Play & Win. This song just kicks me out of my chair and makes me want to dance every time I hear it. The music video doesn’t do the song the musical justice that I think it deserves, but it does succeed in conveying the kind of carefree life-loving feelings that the song promotes. At it’s core this is a dance tune that is 100% feel good and enjoyable all the way through. It’s one thing to make good electronic dance music, it’s another thing when it does an equally good job of making you feel good. I’m all about the good vibrations and positive house music!

Check out the Play & Win official website to learn more.

Jason Reeves and I were both born in Iowa City! He moved to California and co-wrote most of the songs on Colbie Caillat’s album Breakthrough. I really like Colbie and now after finding out he worked with Caillat it shows why, he’s a great songwriter.

Check out more of his music at his website JasonReeves.com.

San Francisco based artist Scott Hansen shows his best work here. This music has creates such a rich multi-layered experience that it’s hard imagine any possible way this song could be better other than making it longer. This indie techno music track is a refreshing journey into sound that I wish more people had the opportunity to experience. I don’t understand why popular radio stations avoid playing this music and think that they are doing us some sort of benefit by trying to play only those artists that have the largest mass appeal. And yet, anytime you go to a spa or get a professional massage you’ll find the rooms often playing music like this because it IS APPEALING to most people especially when they want to relax.

I just hope Tycho keeps up the good work and gets more of his music out and into our ears. Be sure to visit the official Tycho Music website to learn more about this talented electronic music artist.