I N D I E

Forest

Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck don't just sing about feverish, frayed and  fractured romances – in the three years since forming  Elephant, they've been living one.

Their first recordings, recorded in the strung out early mornings after the night before, were delirious and light-headed. Rivas’ stream of conscious lyricism combined with Pinchbeck’s innate melodic nous to create vignettes of delight and wonder.  A debut single followed, 2011’s woozy Ants, followed by the Assembly EP.   But before they had a chance to capitalise on the growing acclaim around them the duo’s relationship broke down, almost to the point of no return.

That seemed to be Elephant’s graveyard.  Yet an unexpected rapprochement in late 2012, and a renewed musical hunger saw Rivas and Pinchbeck reconcile.  The first fruit was this year’s gauzy single Skyscraper, which announced their return in spectacular fashion, with Rivas’ swooping vocals allied to a spectral chorus creating an eerie, lens-flared 3 minute wonder of song.

Now, new release Shapeshifter provides confirmation that Elephant are truly back as a force to be reckoned with. “I flew to the moon to mirror you and I saw the future” sings Rivas, with a raw melancholy and nostalgic longing. A sumptuous missive of love lost and lessons learned, that sparkles with charm, optimism, and the sort of lush swoonsome string arrangements that reach into your chest and wring your heart dry. 

Backed by the sparse and stretched out Snowday, as icily cool as it sounds, full of chiaroscuro contrasts and flickering atmospherics, it’s a release that suggests their debut album is set to be one of the standout albums of 2014.

ELEPHANT LINKS: 
 
Facebook - www.facebook.com/elephanttheband    
Twitter – www.twitter.com/ElephantTwit  
Label -  www.memphis-industries.com


Elephant - Shapeshifter

backwards

Born

Rathborne - Dog Years (Slowed Remix)

Available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/1epic-ep/id971839698

Available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/D_R_A_M_1EpicEP?id=Btutts2fakfu3zs2doo7txc6k7i

Buy now!

D.R.A.M. - Erything

The deliciously off-kilter and wholly unique musical oeuvre of Connan Mockasin stands defiantly alone in the current musical landscape. Exploring the furthest flung horizons of pop music on his critically acclaimed album “Forever Dolphin Love”, the New Zealand born, current London resident synthesises the playful aural experimentation of pop mavericks past and present like Joe Meek, Brian Wilson and Ariel Pink but pushes the boat our even further, dissecting, inverting, and dissembling the very structures of the pop song itself, creating something endlessly inventive and completely beguiling, all at the same time.

This willingness to toy with the edges of musical convention is showcased to startling effect in “Faking Jazz Together”, its typically opaque title belying a gorgeous, leisurely amble through an enchanted forest of lush psychedelia, complete with dreamy guitar licks, liquefied salsa rhythms and Mockasin’s trademark alien vocals, sounding like a transmission from another cosmos, ghostly yet strangely affecting all at once. Tom Furse from The Horrors, meanwhile, extrapolates the beats from the original and relocates them in a wide-eyed, sprawling dub epic akin to Screamadelica-era Primal Scream, and renowned German producer (and Kompakt lynchpin) Michael Mayer builds a propulsive, tropical-flavoured anthem around Mockasin’s unusual vocals, with delightfully unpredictable results.

Even better, you can see Connan Mockasin in glorious live action this autumn, when he and his band embark on their own headline tour of the UK, playing dates across the country at the end of September. 

www.facebook.com/connanmockasin
www.facebook.com/phantasysound

Forever Dolphin Love

Faking Jazz Together

Sea Birds

Mr. Quiche

Debut release from Brooklyn's Black Marble.

Black Marble is one of the latest and greatest additions to the Brooklyn synthwave lexicon.  Their stark, alienating textures cloister a vaguely hopeful intensity, like hearing a lone and distant rhythm echoing from the hull of a lost deep sea vessel.   Reminiscent of early DIY synth recordings that sought to pit emotional undercurrents against wan dystopian landscapes, one gets the sense that Black Marble is somehow trying to squeeze blood from monolithic concrete.  Clearly, these two take inspiration from a disparate group of past musicians who mixed punk ethics with cold electronics, as their ultra-private, handmade style recalls the isolated but uplifting feeling of early European minimal synth.  Triumphantly bleak with undeniably infectious tracks, Black Marble's debut EP Weight Against the Door arrives just in time for winter.



Weight Against the Door

Pretender

Black Marble - Pretender

opening track off debut album "Starfucker" released on Badman.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/s-r/id290359552

Florida

Please and Thank You

http://dreampeter.bandcamp.com/track/bluebeard

Dreampeter - Bluebeard

The Chief

'2' LP/CD/MP3 will be available October 16th on Captured Tracks

Mac DeMarco // Freaking Out The Neighborhood

Mac's debut '2' will be available worldwide October 16th on Captured Tracks. 

Mac DeMarco // Ode to Viceroy

The BirD Day - The Past Noise

Summer Camp - Round The Moon

Taste from Vol. 5 
this is an awesome guitar song, reminds me of early radiohead and late smiths rolled into some other awesome acts.
anyways.
enjoy.

King No One- Vulpix

Cheap Fun! 2013
http://adeodatwarfieldx.bandcamp.com/

I N D I E

Margz