2015 promises to be a good year for us Indie fans. With bands such as Wolf Alice, Peace and Swim Deep already having announced new albums for the coming year, all is well on the Indie front. One album I'm especially looking forward to is Guards' second album, which the New York band are currently recording. Here are 3 reasons why I'm looking forward to the LP, which may just be my album of 2015.
1) "In Guards We Trust" was amazing
If you aren't familiar with their debut album yet don't waste any time - check it out! It's brilliant feel-good indie, with wanderlust-inducing tracks such as "Home Free" and poppy, energetic songs such as "Silver Lining" or "Ready To Go".
2) Guards will (most probably) go on tour
I had the pleasure of seeing the trio support MGMT in Munich in October 2013 and they were absolutely fantastic. "[Their set] had an instant feel-good factor to it and, [was] packed with energy and positive vibes" is how I described their performance at the said concert.
Hopefully music fans all over the world will be able to see the band present their new album live in the not-so-distant future.
3) This short snippet from the studio I've listened to this 26-second long video what feels like at least 93,857,578,375 times by now, such is my excitement. Check out the video here!
For better or worse, Greta Kline (aka Frankie Cosmos) will possibly forever be introduced as the artist with 40 self-released Bandcamp albums; and at the tender age of only 19, she has already released more songs than many musicians do in a lifetime. Most of these collections display all the common trademarks of bedroom recordings (adorable truths, the recurrent buzz of background noise, and distant instruments) but they catalogue a maturing artist over time. Under the pseudonym Frankie Cosmos (which apparently pays homage to both Frank O’Hara and her boyfriend Aaron Maine of Porches), her output is jubilant and prolific in nature with the short indie pop songs being the perfect medium for expressing her post-adolescent discontent.
The New York based recorder has recently finished and released (on the 4th April) her first studio album – Zentropy. The introduction of her own three piece band gives the record a cleaner edge and more professional sound to it; but with this, it seems impossible for old fans not to still like it, and it’s more than likely she’ll attract a few new ones. If you want to know what the LP sounds like, try and piece together wheedling guitars, a cheeky sense of humour, some infectious teenage enthusiasm and a developing musical virtuoso. Tasters from the album include ‘Owen’ and ‘Birthday Song’ which explore grounded sadness and worry respectively. Both songs are a door into the candidly emotional world that Kline explores. This dream-like world is perfectly lyricised within her sweet voice, which creatively competes with the shifting tempos and melodic bass lines.
Approach the Frankie Cosmos catalogue, particularly Zentropy with care, because one taste and you could be locking yourself away in a room to listen to all 40 of those releases.
For fans of // Porches, Quarterbacks and Whatever, Dad
Earlier this year New Yorkband “Guards” released their debut album“In Guards We Trust”. Since then they have toured with fellow Americans MGMT and won over many critics. The bands light (yet thought provoking), happy and free sound makes for a combination of thoughts containing the urge to sing-along every word and the helpless feeling of utter wanderlust. With lead singer's “Richie Follin” sister being part of group “Cults” one could definitely imagine a lot of pressure being on the Americans. How they felt whilst recording their impressive debut isn't important, though. The result is. And the end product is what has to be one of the albums of 2013. Twelve songs taking the listener from energy packed songs such as “Silver Lining” up to slower “1&1” make this a must-hear. Combining melodic vocals with fitting guitar, drum and synth pieces give Guards a sound that will lift anyones mood. Another easily detectable feature in their music is the flawless chemistry existing between each member.
The synth intro of “Nightmare” catapults the listener straight into what feels like a broken roller coaster. Broken, because instead of having highs and lows “In Guards We Trust” just starts and ends on a very high note with mere minor slips along the way. The whole album is fueled by an energetic pulse hammering through the album like a stampede of happiness. “Ready To Go”, the band's most successful track has enjoyed moderate fame in the US and abroad (German music magazine “Musikexpress” recently put this song on one of their highly popular mix tapes). The penultimate track “Home Free” is, in my opinion, puts the group into an elite group of bands, that have mastered the skill of writing music capable of inducing wanderlust into the person currently enjoying this masterpiece. The opening instrumental part brings back memories of long past travels and induces longing thoughts of new ones.
Lyrically Guards still have potential, though. In the sense, that, their aren't any stand-out lyrics, which you feel an urge to have tattooed straight away. And critics could also argue that each song's chorus is fairly similar, though I believe this feature just helps distinguish Guards' sound.
“The future's also I see”, claim Guards. And if this statement is true, then fans can start looking forward to more great music in the future. In Guards We Trust.
This is something that I struggle with. I worry that people might mistake it for a center of the road dance or classical album when its neither. Ive kind of settled with Modernist Classical Electronic Dance music.
What would be your major influences?
The album idea came to me when I was at Lollapalooza 2008. I was watching Booka Shade perform and what blew me away by their performance was the crowd. Each person was dancing to every kick drum beat and synth hit, I stood there watching in awe. I had never really listened to dance music let alone gone to a dance concert so seeing people responding to music like that was completely new to me. Just watching everyone dancing made me excited and made me want to dance. I wanted to be drawn into this communal dancing experience! I knew right then that I wanted to write music that would well up similar feelings in a crowd but I wanted to use classical instruments instead of synths. I worked pretty much on that seed of an idea for about 5 or 6 months and in that time I finished and early version of the title track and started on The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Which is where I hit a wall and realized that I wasn't really getting to the heart of the music I wanted to create. I then started listening to cheesy dance music like Tiesto to understand what in the music makes crowds communally dance like they did at Booka Shade. This inspired me to write "The Antitelephone" and work more on the first two tracks but I still didn't feel great them. The breakthrough came when I wrote The Entanglement. The song was written in about a day or two and it made more sense than all of the other tracks. So I went back and rewrote the other three. Just to give you an idea about the length of the writing process: The Entanglement literally took a matter of hours to write, had only one version and no rewrites. The Ultraviolet Catastrophe and The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle took about 10 months to write and had over 100 versions and as many rewrites. The Antitelephone took about 6 months had about 50 versions and about 30 rewrites.
The biggest influence in my mixing came from U2's "No Line On The Horizon" album. One of the first things that you will notice is Bono's crackly imperfect voice. And I realized that if there is any band in the world that has enough money to afford to make an album sound perfect, its U2. But they didn't make it perfect and all the vocal mistakes are there and unpolished. I wanted to do the same thing with the sound of my record. But since I am constrained to the perfect 1's and 0's of a computer I tried to mix the album with vintage effects to create acrackly analogue sound. Also I got it mastered on vintage equipment to add more analogue warmth and crackle. I absolutely hate the boring digital perfection of other electronic artists so I wanted to avoid that.
How long have you you been making music for?
Off and on since 2002 grade but not seriously until about 2007
What instruments or software do you use to create your work?
I use Logic 8 to write just about everything. I started out as a guitarist and sometimes Ill write things and transcribe them for other instruments. I have grown pretty tired of guitar and I really don't have any interest in playing it on a record. Hopefully that will change down the road!
And what is the creation process like? Do you lay down a beat and work from there or start off with playing around with instruments?
Usually I will choose a tempo and start laying down ideas. I put down as many short phrases as I can with out editing them. Once I have a couple down I will add about five layers of complimentary instrumentation. Then I choose my favorite and start building a song off of it. The Antitelephone and The Entanglement's idea seeds were written in the same day in the same Logic project. The Entanglement was a combination of two ideas put together. For The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle I wanted to write a dance song with Gregorian chant. Somewhere in the 100 or so rewrites it be came an operatic duet. I got a vocal teacher at my college to sing a couple of lines in Latin for the song. The female vocal was a lady that I had heard sing a solo at my church. The Ultraviolet Catastrophe's various parts were put together fairly shortly after Lollapalooza, the only thing that really changed in the rewrites was the drums and bass.
Any plans for single releases?
I released a single version of The Entanglement which is being promoted in the UK and Europe. It is going to be played on BBC 3's Late Junction Show. I also animated a video for the single (which there is a link at the bottom of the page).
(if so), would there be any bsides or remixes surfacing with the new single release? I don't really produce any b-sides. I either work on something until it gets on the album or I throw it away pretty quickly. I am planning on releasing a remix album of The Ultraviolet Catastrophe in the late fall.
What has been your favourite artist from It's All Indie?
Although not very indie, Bloc Party/Kele would be my favorite. They caught my attention with Silent Alarm and oddly enough kind of followed my shifting musical interest over they years as they changed into an electronic band. That being said I do hope that they get back together and get back to their punk/rock roots.
(and finally), what would be your 'Track of the day'?
Lemon by U2. That song is so far ahead of its time. Impressionistic lyrics set against a synthy/gated guitar line and groovy dancy bass and drum combo. There is also a cello interlude which I love. If there is one song from any artist's cannon of songs I wish I could steal its Lemon. Zooropa, from which Lemon is taken, as an album 15 years ahead of its time. Radiohead gets so much credit with Kid A being the first great electronic rock crossover album. When U2 did it 10 years earlier and much better than they did (in my opinion).
Huunter are from the USA, Brooklyn New York to be accurate and they have released a brand spnaking new album 'The Ultraviolet Catastrophe'. It is many things, modern classical meets electronic dance. It’s easy dance to, and with 4 electronic tracks it is also 40 minutes of pure electro fun. Lloyd Bourne (the one member of Huunter) sent me the album and having listened to it, I have to admit, it is a brilliant listen!
The most interesting track on the album is 'The Entanglement.' This is where Bourne creates a most harmoniously infectious, layered sound you can’t help but move to. It is also the closer to the album and the piano accompanied by the drums reminds me of late 90's dance music, the synths also make this track into my pick from the album. Huunter - Ultraviolet Catastrophe Free download Via Bandcamp [OFFICIAL SITE] [FACEBOOK]
