Indie/Synthpop Batch

patkins is gonna jizz his pants over this one.

Just a miscellaneous little Indie batch, following an electronica/synthpop theme. Enjoy!


~ *~ * f a n c y * + * b o r d e r * ~ * ~

Nikki (I Am Not The-Dream) - GOBBLE GOBBLE

You may not have heard of him, but The-Dream is one of the most prolific Top 40/pop songwriters of the past five years (e.g. "Single Ladies," "Umbrella," "Touch My Body," "Baby"). He's also done some solo stuff, most of which tends towards the absurd (e.g. "Falsetto," in which he boasts that his sexual prowess causes an instantaneous upward pitch change in the voice of his beloved, and which features an electric guitar solo on the bridge). "Nikki" is one such solo effort, a bitter message to an ex-lover, here covered by one of my favorite artists, Canada's Gobble Gobble. While it's a tad odd at first to hear Cecil Frena trading his usual vivid, grotesque lyrics for "shawty, I been making love to Nikki," this jam still delivers a healthy dose of brilliant-but-off-kilter production, and for the umpteenth time proves Frena a mad scientist, but one reanimating dead pop music instead of corpses.

Faces I Can See - Oh Fortuna

Another oddball indie take on standard pop music. Here it's more chillwave-does-Top-40-Hip-Hop, saturating a familiar-sounding (i.e. you've definitely heard it before) beat in reverb, synth washes, and ethereal vocals. Oh Fortuna ftw! [[I got this (as well as the next 3 tracks) from a really cool //free// compilation arranged by none other than Gobble Gobble, in honor of the artists they toured with this year. You can grab that HERE.]]

Lemonade - Braids

Glasser comparisons may be made, but Braids comes across as a little less tender than my co-blogger's recent muse, at least in this track. Awesome Indie/Synthpop track. Really cool production, and epic vocals. (Braids is also about to support Baths and Star Slinger on probably one of the coolest fucking tours to grace the surface of the earth, so check the dates here and get on that shit!)

The Breathing Fire - Candy Claws

An otherworldly, gorgeous intro of colorful synths paves the way for a hushed lullaby punctuated by magical synth strings being plucked underwater...all with a distinctly classical feel (and real strings at one point!). It's kinda like the intro to The Shins' "Sleeping Lessons," reimagined by a very shy baroque-pop group (how's that for an analogy?). This is a standout track from the mixtape, I can safely say I have never heard anything like it before in my life. Really cool production and composition going on here, even if it's not the catchiest tune ever. Check out Candy Claws, I know I'm going to.

Poster Boy - Old Arc

This one's a fucking jam. Glitchy as fuck, but with a wicked bassline and a hard-hitting beat; it's like SebastiAn + 80's bass synths + soul...Old Arc is another name I will be looking further into.

Wherever We Are - Human Life

Love these guys. Found em' on Apes With Barrels, who have great taste in electro-pop artists as well as their more rave-oriented counterparts. Funky, catchy well-produced; and that fucking lead after the chorus gets stuck in my head every time I hear it. Hooray for Human Life!

Enjoy, children!

[ [ . z ¡ p . ] ]

Lobster out.

(((BONUS))) [[zip only!]]: Crawl Back In (Baths Remix) - Brad Laner
Oh yeah. You know you want it now. Because everybody loves Baths.