fast reverse

Orange Blossom Flyover - Fast Reverse
[shoegaze]

Download/stream.

Short & sweet nine-minute EP of beat-driven shoegaze. It's an interesting take on the style, pushing the surprisingly lively beats to the front but it works, especially in the closer "Vicarious Rooms of Gold" where the guitars and vocals feel more rhythmic, too; those shoes are tapping. The whole EP is really just driven - it has a sense of momentum that, elsewhere in this genre, gets lost in the cavernous reverb and swirling modulation. It's about as focused as you can get while still feeling a million miles away.

Also worth checking out is the Fresh Horrors from Hades "EP", which is just the 7-minute "So By Your Spells": a gorgeous, hazy backwards-looking free-fall. The complete opposite of the above EP but absolutely worth a listen.

Minajah

True Womanhood - "Minajah"
[Moombahton]

REEL TOO REAL by truewomanhood

Sublimely catchy new one from post-indie forerunners True Womanhood. This is part of their immensely cool "Reel Too Real" series which is cool for reasons other than the dense punning I mean, look, all the songs are recorded on this. Did you see ? Yeah, this synth-heavy stuttering grove was done through that monstrosity and, I am explicitly told, not through Ableton. I don't have a strong grasp of how electronic music is made & performed, really, but I have the inkling that Ableton makes it easy and this was not and that's good: reverb-drenched analog anti-technology fun-times dance tune. Bear with me when I say it's not "obvious" dance music aside from the rave synths (Moombahton synths?); no grating 4/4 drum machine beatdown, just organic & beat-driven & incidentally danceable.

whatever, dude

Tree Hopping - The Beat Band
[tropical lo-fi]
Recommended if you like: dancing in an exotic tin can telephone

Stream it.
Download.

Back to school back to work it's January oh man c'mon. Tree Hopping, though: we have Tree Hopping, thank god. The Beat Band is ferociously energetic and, despite being apparently composed mostly of loops and samples, is a coherent little package. It's a brisk half-hour but really, anything longer would've been exhausting because this LP is relentless, chock-full of funky rhythm and wooping and sloppy guitar and shimmery keyboards; really, all in all, an album put out in entirely the wrong season 'cause it's summer in a .zip. Or maybe this is entirely timely - rays of tropical post-punk shining through yr S.A.D. Yeah there's tons of "no-fi bedroom pop" or whatever making the rounds right now, but Tree Hopping has flavour rather than the drab dourness that is most of the contemporaries. Fun fun fun and really a feel-good record throughout; every bit as colourful as the album cover. If the first two tracks don't hook you then winter has claimed your soul and you need this more than you know.