Can you really fall in love at first sight, or is it just infatuation? Romeo thought he was in love when he first saw Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” I’m feeling a little loopy myself after hearing “S.O.S.” from San Francisco’s LoveLikeFire. The song blows open like a track from Bossanova, or Trompe Le Monde, then settles into a nice Cure-esque riff (“A Forest?”) and finally into a breathtaking chorus where singer Ann Yu sounds like a more forceful Siouxsie. I love LoveLikeFire like I love all of the above. No, I know it’s just infatuation. I don’t have a long relationship with LoveLikeFire. I haven’t put in hours and hours of intense listening. I haven’t dreamt or loved along with their music. It sure feels like love though. Call it what you will; I’m going to let myself wallow in the butterflies I get from LoveLikeFire.
Licorice Roots
Let me preface Licorice Roots by saying they’re an acquired taste. I admit I almost didn’t last twenty seconds into their record. Their wobbly, off-kilter sound knocked me off balance at first. At first. But I held strong and as soon as I ventured four tracks deep, their song “Hey There Little Love” saved the CD from certain eject-death. I learned to appreciate Licorice Roots for their peculiar low-fi-ness. It’s as if The Seeds were playing underwater, with a sprinkle of attitude courtesy of Ween. My swimming trunks are on and I’m in mid-cannonball, ready to take the Licorice Roots plunge! P.S. If the vocals are a bit much for you, check out the title track “Caves of the Sun.” It’d make a great soundtrack to a SpongeBob SquarePants Spaghetti Western.
Mono in VCF
To make up for a few posting days I’ve missed during my move to Cali, it’s two-for-one day.
Recalling a simpler time with simpler pop, Mono in VCF have graduated from the University of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (school mascot: The Some Velvet Mornings) magna cum laude. Okay, that was lame, but these songs are so fresh and clean and original (in a 2007 way) that they are completing enthralling, and you should just download now. An MP3, like a picture, is worth a thousand words.
Easy Anthems
I sometimes wonder how couples who do their art together pull it off. I mean, it seems like the creative tension would lead to realtionship tension and it would all be so… personal. Easy Anthems, Vanesa and Philip Jimenez, sort of exemplifies what I’m talking about. From their website: “We broke up, and we made music, and we got back together, and we made music, and we got married, and we made music, and we broke up, and we made a kid, and we got back together, and we made music.” Yeah, I just don’t think I could handle all that. Thankfully, all that matters is that the Jimenez family can, and do, and make some fine music to narrate the saga. Their entire debut album of country-tinged, pleasantly melodramatic, ear-friendly pop therapy sessions is available as one big old free download on their aforementioned website; the four songs below are a nice sampling of what you’d get.
Beat Radio
Beat Radio have managed to bend several ears here at 3hive, so it’s always nice to get an email from Brian cluing us to new tracks, in this case the well-arranged and optimistically emo stylings of “What I Love the Most.” It’s even nicer when the track is a preview of not just an LP on the way, but an LP/EP superset, The Great Big Sea + Miracle Flag EP, which will be available in the coming weeks from CD Baby and iTunes. Plus, I just noticed that you can get a ton more free music than what’s below by just clicking over to the band’s website. Listen now, buy later, know that you’re doing it the way 3hive intended.
Sam’s original post from Sept. 2005:
Beat Radio spin wistful melodies with subtle, vulnerable lyrics in the same vein as Luna or Sebadoh’s more tender moments. Their songs have a radiant, familiar quality that grows on you with each listen. In fact, I’ve included two versions of “Treetops” — the 4-track demo version from earlier this year and a more polished version from the forthcoming EP — for this very reason. Much like a frayed blue blankie I once loved, I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of the demo version just yet. While the EP version is by no means overproduced, it seems so in comparison. But I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Intensive Care
3hive.com and Canadian bands have a totally love-love relationship. From The Arcade Fire to The Awkward Stage, qr5, The New Pornographers, Paper Moon and Oh Bijou — and you know there are many, many more — we’ve had great success with maple leaf music. Montreal’s Intensive Care fits right into this mix. Theatrical, conceptual, orchestral rock with both buzz-saw guitars and oohs and aahs, these tracks from the band’s EP 2805 exhibit the versatility and uniqueness we’ve come to expect from Canadian artists. Listen to these songs in order for an interesting, cool sonic ride.
The Drawing Board
In the late ’90s I became briefly obsessed with Ednaswap, the L.A.-based group fronted by Anne Preven and known less for their own well-crafted pop gems than for what other people did with said gems (Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” was originally Ednaswap’s). It made sense that the daughter of composer Andre Preven would have an impeccable sense of composition herself, and that’s exactly what otherwise inexplicably kept me and my former-college-football-playing roommate wailing along to Ednaswap’s catchy heartbreakers like a pair of teenage girls hooked on Dashboard Confessional. That’s not to say that The Drawing Board, the Austin-by-way-of-L.A. group sounds like Ednaswap, but what they share with my former obsession is an undeniably intelligent take on pop music. Think of Elvis Costello or Ben Folds and you’ll get a good sense of how The Drawing Board is mature, engrossing and hummable. Better yet, download “The Writer,” a bouncy little ditty whose playful piano belies its nihilistic lyrics. Still sound too cerebral? Don’t worry, just disregard this writer’s pedantic take, download the rest and you can trust the music.
The Sheds
My friend Cheech is driving around the USA this summer with his girlfriend and a Geoffrey Roberts Award, tasting and blogging about our country’s endangered foods. How great is that?! (Check out his adventures at www.eat-american.com, and maybe buy a thing or two. A few years ago he sent me a bottle of datil pepper hot sauce, and that stuff was awesome.) In honor and support of his cool summer, I’m posting The Sheds, a do-it-yourself pop-rock outfit from Cincinnati that, in my mind, embodies in music what Cheech is doing with food. Pumping out quirky Americana for the last few years, The Sheds seem a little endangered too; they offer everything they’ve got for free on this here Internet. How do they eat, or at least make a buck? So, here’s to good free music and good, honest food. May both live long and prosper.
Varnaline
I can’t write about Space Needle without plugging Anders Parker’s Varnaline with equal, if not greater, vigor. It’s almost easier to do, given Parker’s more prolific output—whether as Varnaline through 2001 or his subsequent eponymous work for Baryon Records. Sadly, Varnaline’s music received limited notoriety in their time due in part to their now defunct record labels, Zero Hour and Artemis, neither of which were really a perfect fit for Varnaline’s sound. The Varnaline take on alt country was blistering, raw, and true, with really excellent texture and sobering lyrics for those left standing.
George Sarah
It’s been almost four years since I had George Sarah and his string trio on my KUCI show. And just about as long since he’s released a proper album. He’s back again tonight on the program, this time as a guest DJ and I look forward to catching up with him. I do know he’s been hard at work scoring music for, and placing his music in, television and film. One listen and you’ll hear why his work is sought after. Sarah’s downtempo beats and synth work flow in and around gorgeous strings of all shapes and sizes. He calls it Electronic Chamber music. I call it a super-smooth-chill-explosion. Cool down your hot summer head with some George Sarah swimming between your ears.