... the other Black experience
Oakland's Afro-indie-pop quartet Bells Atlas released their debut EP this week and it's a beautiful beautiful thing. The band combines minimal beats with lush textures and the multi-layered vocals of lead singer Sandra Lawson-Ndu. The three songs and two remixes on the EP show a young band in complete control of their sound. With influences ranging from chillwave to samba to indie rock to Afrobeat, the Bells Atlas EP sounds like almost nothing else on the planet. It's rare that…
Added by Sound Check on April 10, 2013 at 11:30am — No Comments
While Brooklyn wasn't paying attention, Oakland seems to have snuck up and stolen our crown as the center of adventurous independent music. Between The Seshen and the new Bells Atlas (not to mention longtime favorites like The Coup and Blood Sugar X), saying “we're from Oakland” is turning into shorthand for “you haven't heard shit like this…
Added by Sound Check on March 8, 2013 at 11:06am — No Comments
Afropunk member (I Am) Isis has been dropping a steady stream of singles since 2009, but she's finally ready for a full length. The debut Amazingly Random comes out this fall, and the dope first single 'I Saw You' is out now. The track combines a longing blues guitar lick with Isis' sultry spoken-word; seamlessly blending the vintage and the modern to create…
Added by Sound Check on July 6, 2012 at 8:51am — 8 Comments
Summer's finally here and The Dirtbombs have a new single! It's been 4 years since the Detroit garage legends played Afropunk fest. Since then they've lost a member, recorded an album of Detroit techno covers, and apparently fallen in love, or gotten a puppy, or something. The new song 'Crazy For You' shows a softer side of the venerable garage band. Playing like a lost Matthew Sweet track, or maybe early Lenny Kravitz, the…
Added by Sound Check on June 22, 2012 at 6:58am — No Comments
Baltimore trio Me and This Army just dropped their badass new single; the minimally titled and maximally loud 'You.' Anchored by lead singer Courtney Hargrove's kick-in-the-teeth vocals, the track pulls no punches. It's a song about betrayal and anger, plain and simple. A fierce kiss-off to a wayward ex. “There you go / breaking everyone's heart / there you go breaking everyone”.
The band builds from a bouncy syncopated beat to a giant pop-punk hook, calling to mind The Exit…
Added by Sound Check on June 6, 2012 at 7:26am — 21 Comments
DIY electro quartet Body Language unveiled their new video for the sexy new single 'You Can.' The track, from their 2011 Social Studies EP, shines with a wobbly analog synth line that would make Chromeo jealous. The ethereal three part boy-girl harmonies of singers Angelica Bass, Matt Young, and Grant Wheeler hover over a reverb drenched 808 beat. The song is an ode to the bad decisions made in the name of lust. "And you can stop / but you wont," they tease on the…
Added by Sound Check on May 30, 2012 at 9:30am — 1 Comment
On their new single 'You Used To Be A Man,' New Young Pony Club ditch the LCD Soundsystem inflected drive of their last record 'The Optimist' in favor of a slicker slow burn. Building off a simmering 808 beat and the steady refrain “You used to be a man / Now I don't know what you are / Do you understand how hard it is to stand / And watch you fall hard?” The track is a vicious kiss-off hiding beneath a veneer of apathy. Singer Ty Bulmer describes it as a song “about betrayal. A…
Added by Sound Check on May 14, 2012 at 8:30am — 2 Comments
© 2013 Created by Matthew.
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