{"id":5087,"date":"2016-09-02T10:19:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T14:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=5087"},"modified":"2016-09-02T10:19:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T14:19:08","slug":"music-update-august-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/02\/music-update-august-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, August 2016."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First, some non-music links &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2bHSnLN\" target=\"_blank\">my thoughts on the Yoan Moncada promotion<\/a> for Insiders, and my <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2bI97FH\" target=\"_blank\">review of the coop murder-mystery boardgame Mysterium<\/a> for <em>Paste<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>August was pretty fertile for new releases &#8211; I ended up cutting a few songs from the list this time around &#8211; with a number of singles out previewing albums due to drop in the next six weeks. I feel like overall this is the worst year for strong albums in a while, but it&#8217;s at least a solid-average year for great tracks. We still have time for something to grab me as the clear album of the year, though, so I&#8217;m trying to keep a positive attitude and take it one playlist at a time. Spotify users can use this <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/7H8yrw2Yl6VEFeLgmhFw54\" target=\"_blank\">direct link to the playlist<\/a> if the widget doesn&#8217;t show up.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Akeithlaw1%3Aplaylist%3A7H8yrw2Yl6VEFeLgmhFw54\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Swet Shop Boys \u2013 Tiger Hologram<\/strong>. If the voice with the British accent sounds familiar, that&#8217;s Riz Ahmed, the actor who played Naz on HBO&#8217;s The Night Of, paired here with Heems (ex-Das Racist) over a beat that was the best bit of new music I heard all month. The <em>New Yorker<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2016\/08\/29\/swet-shop-boys-cashmere-and-rap-as-protest\" target=\"_blank\">profiled the duo<\/a> ahead of the release of their debut album, <em>Cashmere<\/em>, in October.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dinosaur Jr. \u2013 Goin Down<\/strong>. This is my favorite track right now from their new album, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2caism7\" target=\"_blank\">Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not<\/a><\/em>, mostly because it just rocks and that&#8217;s when I&#8217;ve tended to like their music and not find myself bothered by J Mascis&#8217;s vocals. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dawes \u2013 When The Tequila Runs Out<\/strong>. This song is just goofy-fun, more upbeat than stuff I&#8217;ve heard before from the brothers Goldsmith, who&#8217;ve also been working with Van Pierszalowski on his new project under the name Van William. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Atomic Tom \u2013 Someone to Love<\/strong>. Atomic Tom is new to me, even though they&#8217;ve been around for a decade and released albums in 2010 and 2015, with the latter, <em>ERA<\/em>, including this incredibly infectious 1980s-style pop gem. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The Naked And Famous \u2013 Laid Low<\/strong>. Never has this New Zealand quintet sounded more like CHVRCHES than they do here \u2013 and that&#8217;s a compliment. Now I&#8217;m going to ruin the song for you by pointing out that the two notes in the chorus where she sings &#8220;Taaaaake me&#8221; are the same two notes of &#8220;Tell me&#8221; from the chorus of &#8220;Always on My Mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christine and the Queens \u2013 Tilted (Live From Spotify London)<\/strong>. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever included a live track on one of these playlists, but I didn&#8217;t highlight &#8220;Tilted&#8221; when it came out last year and the song has grown on me, especially with this strong live performance. I still don&#8217;t think the French language is well-suited for rapping, though.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kate Nash \u2013 Good Summer<\/strong>. I&#8217;ve got mixed feelings on this pop song from Nash, who peaked commercially and critically with her debut album and UK hit &#8220;Foundations;&#8221; I still love her voice and her ear for melody, but these lyrics are such a step down, as if she&#8217;s dumbing it down for the sake of sales. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Tall Heights \u2013 Spirit Cold<\/strong>. This song was first released as a single last summer, with a video out over the winter, but there&#8217;s a new push behind it with their August release of a new album, <em>Neptune<\/em>; I&#8217;ve seen them called &#8220;prog folk&#8221; but I think that&#8217;s misleading. This song is more atmospheric, driven by the two singers&#8217; harmonies and Paul Wright&#8217;s cello, with some influence from the late &#8217;90s quietcore movement evident as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jagwar Ma \u2013 Give Me a Reason (Radio Edit)<\/strong>. This Australian outfit, now based in the UK, go full-Madchester with this second single from their album <em>Every Now and Then<\/em>, due out October 14th. I hear Soup Dragons, Charlatans UK, even a little Happy Mondays here, so needless to say it&#8217;s my favorite song by Jagwar Ma yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Coast Modern \u2013 The Way It Was<\/strong>. I&#8217;m not a big Cage the Elephant fan, so saying this sounds just like a CtE \u2013 boy, that&#8217;s an unfortunate acronym \u2013 track doesn&#8217;t explain its inclusion, but in this case I found the chorus stuck in my head for a while after my first listen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Midnight Faces \u2013 Heavenly Bodies<\/strong>. Another not-new artist I hadn&#8217;t heard before, this trio started out in Grand Rapids where one of its members was in a band (Saxon Shore) with Father John Misty. &#8220;Heavenly Bodies&#8221; is dream-pop with a better tempo and that moaning guitar riff earworm that was enough to land it on my playlist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>American Football \u2013 I&#8217;ve Been So Lost for So Long<\/strong>. Apparently this is a big deal; I don&#8217;t remember American Football from their late-1990s activity, after which they were on hiatus for sixteen years. Nothing says &#8220;emo&#8221; like &#8220;If you find me\/Please remind me\/Why I woke up today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Softer Still \u2013 Bliss<\/strong>. A quartet from Surrey whose sound reminds me a ton of Real Estate and a little bit of the Sundays (without Harriet, though, so it&#8217;s not quite the same).<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Head And The Heart \u2013 Rhythm &#038; Blues<\/strong>. This Seattle folk-rock act&#8217;s third album, <em>Signs of Light<\/em>, drops next Friday. I think &#8220;Shake&#8221; is still my favorite song of theirs, but this would be a strong second; they&#8217;re better when they rock a little more like Okkervil River.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bloods \u2013 Bring My Walls Down<\/strong>. Modern punk with sweet, layered female vocals. It works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dinosaur Pile-Up \u2013 Nothing Personal<\/strong>. This British rock act put out their third album, <em>Eleven Eleven<\/em>, last October outside of the U.S., but it&#8217;s just appearing here for the first time. I know they don&#8217;t call themselves a metal band, but the dropped tuning and riffing here are strongly reminiscent of classic (pre-thrash) metal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prophets Of Rage \u2013 The Party\u2019s Over<\/strong>. As with their previous single, Prophets of Rage&#8217;s riffs are stronger than their rhymes. I get the political motivation behind the group, especially in light of the upcoming election, but I wish we were getting more vintage work from Chuck D and B Real.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sabaton \u2013 Shiroyama<\/strong>. This song is such an unabashed throwback to 1980s thrash that I love it in spite of all of its anachronisms \u2013 or perhaps because of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Metallica \u2013 Hardwired<\/strong>. Obligatory. The lyrics are dumb, the drum work is amateurish, but I do like the early 1980s speed-metal riffing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First, some non-music links &#8211; my thoughts on the Yoan Moncada promotion for Insiders, and my review of the coop murder-mystery boardgame Mysterium for Paste. August was pretty fertile for new releases &#8211; I ended up cutting a few songs from the list this time around &#8211; with a number of singles out previewing albums [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[876,757,852,261],"class_list":["post-5087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2016-in-music","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-rap","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5088,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087\/revisions\/5088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}