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Hello, Blue Roses - "Sunny Skies"
Destroyer dude, Swan Laker, and the sexiest New Pornographer this side of Neko Case, Dan Bejar teams up with girlfriend, the visual artist Sydney Vermont as the delicately pastoral Hello, Blue Roses. Their fragile, but somehow robust full-length debut The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty is out 1/22 on Locust. This week we're happy to Drop their "Sunny Skies," offering a dose of the brightest stuff amid the early January moon. Interested in the song's story, we asked Vermont for further illumination.
You're living in the Arctic Circle? What brings you there? Well, we're 160 km south of the Arctic Circle in Dawson City, Yukon. We're here doing an artist residency at the Klondike Institute for Arts and Culture. Dan is the songwriter in residency and I'm the artist -- he's helping me record a musical uhhh theatre piece ... sort of.
What's the story behind "Sunny Skies"? It's pretty cloudy in Vancouver from about October to April ... probably a song about being emotionally stoic waiting for summer.
What's that soft buzzing accent that flows here/there during the song? And why does the instrumentation shift and grow more baroque when Dan sings? It must have been all the velvet and lace Dan showed up in. And something about the "pink noise" function on an old mini-Korg...
Do you have any plans for the Winter Solstice? Maybe sing the song by candlelight? It was Winter Solstice last night. I think it started getting dark at 3:30, but it was pretty much just dusky all day long -- pinky and blue and grey, quite beautiful. The sun isn't rising here till around 11. We went for a midnight walk up this road and paths above town with our friends Tara and Tao and two dogs ... well, the dogs sort of took off and we started calling them from high up on this ridge, high enough up that you can hold the houses in your hands like cupcakes, and a few minutes later, Lucy, the one year old part coyote, one eye blue, one eye brown came bolting through the darkness, from town ... we walked by some old cemeteries at the top and drank hot cocoa. The moon was incredibly bright, all snowy. I miss snow living in Vancouver, not gross city snow, but forest snow. We slid down this really big hill on a path through the trees on our bums in snow pants. Best Solstice I've had. Didn't think about that song once.
Premature Evaluation: Beach House - Teen Dream
When we meditated on Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally's gorgeous sophomore album Devotion we had the following to say: [Y]ou can't fall back on Mazzy Star or Galaxie 500 references because they've pushed themselves into their own, unique solar system.... (more)
New Jonathan Boulet Video - "A Community Service Announcement"
This dude's the latest signing to Australia's Modular label, landing with a tidy package of promotional offerings: a catchy, moistly breezy indie-pop debut single that couldn't be better titled for a meet-the-artist track; a subtly arresting/marginally tricked-out video; and a... (more)
New El Guincho - "Antillas (XXXchange Remix)"
When we first heard onetime BTW Pablo Díaz-Reixa, aka El Guincho, we were drawn in by "Antillas," a song we described as "a five-minute bundle of clattering loops and sunny harmonies." It was from the self-released Alegranza!, before he'd signed... (more)
Muse To Headline Coachella 2010?
According to Consequence Of Sound, a previously reliable source pins Muse to the coming year's desert fest headlining slot. Glenn Beck just bought a ticket. The dates are April 16-18. Oh and these Coachella headliner rumors? Needs more Pavement.... (more)
Parents Just Don't Understand Horrorcore
From hardcore to heavy metal to gangsta rap, local TV news teams have long warned parents about the terrifying new sounds rotting teenage brains. This week it's San Fran's KPIX on the horrorcore scene. Not all juggalos are murderers, dad!... (more)
