SF’s finest in electro breaks and remixes brings a free 48 minute mix of their trademark spastic bounce featuring tracks from Eprom, Oizo, Slugabed, and Dopplereffekt.

LAZER SWORD – SWEATPANTS MONEY MIX

Though they released this mix for free, they recently dropped the 12′ Gucci Sweatshirt on Innovative Leisure Records. Purchase the single at Undergound Hip Hop dot com.

art via

Sometimes hype is merited. Here’s the opening track from Local Natives’ standout debut album.

LOCAL NATIVES – WIDE EYES

Gorilla Manor was released on February 16, 2010 via Frenchkiss Records
Buy it at insound.com

Some songs are just born singles, perfect little gems that set up house without asking and don’t leave when asked, no matter how kindly you insist. Norway’s Casiokids’s recent release “Finn Bikkjen” is exactly one of those songs: a prefect mixture of melody, beat, and, my own personal audio aphrodisiac, a fat analog synth lead. The ice cream on top is a reverbed, vocal line with a soft melody and sung in a language I can’t understand, which for some reason only makes me love it more. The song undulates from spacier bridges to the uptempo synth-laden chorus that never fails to have induce some sort of contented nodding along. Quite simply, electropop at its finest.

Casiokids – Finn Bikkjen

This, in combination with their last single “Fot I Hose”, another bouncy, synthy tune leads me to feel nothing but anticipation for whatever they choose to record next. Beyond their odd inclusion in the Fifa 2010 soundtrack, I guarantee more exposure for them this year as they’re supporting Hot Chip on tour this February:

12 – Glasgow – O2 Academy
13 – Edinburgh – Picture House
15 – Nottingham – Rock City
16 – Leeds – O2 Academy
19 – Manchester – Academy
20 – Birmingham – O2 Academy
21 – Southampton – Joiners
22 – 
Bournemouth – O2 Academy
23 – Bristol – O2 Academy
24 – Norwich – O2 Academy
25 – London – Camden Barfly (Headline Show)
26 – London – Brixton Academy

In the US, you can’t purchase their singles through iTunes, but you can grab the Moshi Moshi label compilation. It features “Fot I Hose” and the b-side “Verdens Største Land” along with tracks by Au Revoir Simone, Samuel & the Dragon, and The Very Best. To download the compilation through iTunes click the cover to the right.

The 7″ singles for both “Finn Bikkjen” and “Verdens Største Land” are available direct from Moshi Moshi Records.

Today, for some reason, Grizzly Bear was on my mind. While driving around some back roads, I was listening to my favorites off Veckatimest, mulling over the evolution in songwriting from Yellow House to today. The album is certainly one of my favorites from last year and “Two Weeks” still stands as both a killer single and video.

Sitting in my inbox almost summoned by my daylong binge I found this newly minted live Grizzly Bear track. Recorded for Austrailia’s Triple J Radio, the band covers “Boy From School”, one of the finer tracks off Hot Chip’s 2006 album The Warning. The song is given the standard, but wonderful Grizzly Bear-ification: the tempo is slowed, everything is doused in a healthy amount of reverb and the vocal harmonies snake around each other like bacon wrapped around a steak. (In general, this blog is short on vegan friendly metaphors) It’s a lovely interpretation of an already good song, and even if it’s just some under the radar promotion for Hot Chip’s upcoming One Life Stand, I’m ok with that.

Grizzly Bear – Boy From School (Hot Chip Cover)

Please check out Triple J’s website to hear more of the interesting stuff they have to offer.

Now when I say “winter outdoor group participation experimental Christmas art music”…what comes to mind?

Nothing, you say?

Well, to the cross section of you who haven’t thrown up a little (I admit, I get queasy at the “group participation” part), you should all be alerted to and excited by the concept that is Unsilent Night. The brainchild of Phil Kline, a longstanding NY artist who works most frequently with music. Since 1992, he’s lead his own kind of interesting Christmas celebration. Unsilent Night centers around one of Kline’s musical compositions: a drone based swirl of chimes and other vaguely Christmas related tones played through a variety participant brought audio sources. It’s kind of a chorus line that both Fennez and The Flaming Lips (remember Zaireeka?) would enjoy, as folks snag their copy of the composition from the website and the living sound sculpture begins as the group walks together playing the piece from home brought boom boxes, iPhones, and hopefully some of those lovely bike audio rigs I’ve seen at Critical Mass. Given that the composition is an abstract one coming from multiple moving sources, the work evolves as the crowd passes through the given city, forming something fluid and unique each time. Ultimately, a unique, weirdo holiday tradition I can get behind.

This year has some new cities, including Chicago and if you attend NYC’s 18th annual Unsilent Night this Saturday, you’ll get to be lead from Washington Square Park to Thompkins Square Park by Kline himself. Last year’s reported attendance for the New York event was around 1500, so that’s probably the best bet for the most epic scale of holiday drone.

Unsilent Night is happening in 25 cities this year: Albuquerque, Asheville, Baltimore, Berlin, Boulder, Cambridge (Ontario), Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, East Lansing, Fredericton (New Brunswick), London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Milledgeville, Missoula, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Vancouver.

Many of the events are happening this weekend. Check out Unsilent Night to find out when and were it’s going on in each city.