Let me first reiterate that this site has never been about being first. There’s just too much music and too many critics out there playing that game. We share what we love when we find it, or in this case, when we get around to it. Forgive me for waiting so long to get this out to you. I deserve a sound beating. I’ll take it from Washed Out. It’s a pleasure to be pummeled by Washed Out’s gentle rhythms and epic synth-scapes.
Also known as Ernest Green, Washed Out creates soundtracks for sunsets. He uses a wide, soft-focus brush and paints with generous strokes of hazy vocals and undulating echoes of blisstronic. This album messes with your head—you get swept up into some sort of time warp, making every present moment feel like a past memory. A couple lines from a poem by Geoffrey Hill seem to capture this mood I’m reaching for here, “What paradises and watering-places! / What hurts appeased by the sea’s handsomeness!”
From Within and Without (Sub Pop 2011)
Eyes Be Closed [MP3]
Amor Fati [MP3]
From Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer 2009)
You’ll See It [MP3]
Feel It All Around [MP3]
Let’s face it, 2010 was less than stellar at this url. The principals and our reviewers all dropped out of ear-shot simultaneously and for months 3hive has been out of commission. No particular reason really. Life unplugged us, and once unplugged it’s hard to get back into gear, back into the groove.
Phantogram sets the bar high for new music in 2010. Obvious comparisons to Portishead aside, this young duo easily hold their own. It’s a fine distinction, but Phantogram is more space-hop than trip-hop and “When I’m Small” throws down a groove of heavily plucked bass that brightens up the bedroom vocals and scratchy record sample circling its way through the track. About a third of the way through everything drops out except soft synth pulses and echoing guitar to highlight Sarah Barthel’s voice. Diamonds spill from this woman’s mouth every time she opens it! My limited judgment is based on this and a couple other tracks, but I’m happily prejudiced and waiting to be fully abducted by Eyelid Movies on February 9th (vinyl via Ghostly). 
Tycho’s latest single evokes the tranquil mood that accompanied my recent sunset chase here in Huntington Beach. A few years back my father pointed out that late in the year, and from the vantage point of the H.B. pier, the sun settles into the isthmus of Catalina Island. My father is full of such miscellany. For some reason, this year I had a major itch to witness this minor phenomena. To my surprise, I found no information online, so beginning winter solstice I closely monitored the coast trying to determine the D-day. My efforts did not go unrewarded. The area experienced scattered showers in December, which smeared plenty of clouds across the skies, clouds that bled all the warm colors of the rainbow. Sensing that was the day, I crammed kids and cousins into the car on New Year’s Eve and sped off to catch some dying rays. “Coastal Brake” provides that same warm, shimmering 