What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?

Two talented musicians have each contributed some of the year’s most impressive music so far:

Here We Go Magic

Brooklyn’s Luke Temple has virtually abandoned his singer/songwriter stuff and moved in a hipper direction, and the change suits him. Not that anything is wrong with his previous stuff (2007’s Snowbeast is awesome), but it just feels like he made the perfect jump here and brought his game up a level. His newest effort, Here We Go Magic, is already one of 2009’s “next big hypes”, but it most definitely lives up to the reputation it is receiving. The album starts out with 4 tracks that pretty much anyone will dig, followed by 4 noisier, dronier tracks I really dig, and finishes off with a tune that feels like a Luke Temple throwback, and all of it is excellent. There is plenty of room on this bandwagon so jump on:

Here We Go Magic : Fangela

Here We Go Magic : I Just Want To See You Underwater

Buy Here We Go Magic

Here We Go Magic myspace




Blackout Beach

Of the holy Canadian indie-demigod trinity that make up Swan Lake, Carey Mercer is the one member I hadn’t yet completely worshiped. That is until I sat down with the new Blackout Beach album, Skin Of Evil. Mercer is far from accessible, and even my thirst for weirdness in music wasn’t enough to propel me into really digging into one of his projects until now. From reading various reviews, this seems to be one of his least far-out works, and it has proved to be an enjoyable and intriguing entry point for me. It has me extremely excited about the forthcoming Swan Lake album where Mercer is joined by Daniel Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers) and Spencer Krug (Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade). Do not miss this one:

Blackout Beach : Cloud Of Evil

Blackout Beach : Astoria, Menthol Lite, Hilltop, Wave of Evil, 1982

Buy Skin Of Evil

Blackout Beach myspace