I originaly posted Solvent 16 months ago. In fact, they were one of the first bands featured on 3hive. Just days after, Ghostly pulled down their full-length MP3s due to bandwidth constraints and there went my Solvent post. As Sean points out over in the News section, Ghostly’s recently found some bandwidth in their hearts and now offer, among others, this gem from Solvent’s latest, Elevators and Oscillators. For the record, my original post was one line: “Proof once again from the Ghostly Massive that machines do have souls.” Still holds true today.
Ghostly’s Back w/ Mobius Band and More
The Unicorns
These Montreal hipsters do — oops, I mean, did — play a lovely brand of ’80s-tinged rock/pop/dance music. Slated as the next big thing, they instead split up. What can I say? It happens to the best of them, but that’s still no excuse to pass over these songs. Get those feet a-dancing!
3hive Has Changed Hosts
The Constantines
Guess I could have waited until the new Constantines album comes out in October to post these guys, but I’m putting them up today as “the band that played twice within an hour of my house in the month of July and I missed them both times.” Ah well… In the month of July, my daughter took her first trip to NYC and went #2 on the potty for the first time; Sam and I used power tools in his backyard in July; Jon aged gracefully into his next decade in July; Clay recovered from daughter #3, and so on. Catching live the intense art punk of The Constantines would have been a great addition to this list, but, come to think of it, I actually wouldn’t mind a little down time.
The Jessica Fletchers
The summer’s already a month over, but the annual search for the perfect summer anthem is still ongoing. That is, until now. This Norwegian quintet takes that famed Scandanavian rock ‘n’ roll swagger and applies to the ultimate song about the summer. “Summer Holiday & Me” is the best holiday soundtrack since Team USA’s “Halloween.” Life requires a soundtrack? So does the summer…
Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys
Weirdo, funk pop that’s sure to “git” the party started. Or not. Depends on the party. Depends on the party favors. Reminds me of this book I’m reading where a young Nigerian boy dresses up like Elvis singing and dancing for tips, but Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys are the polar opposite: white boys dressing up and getting funky à la Prince.
Ariel Pink
Don’t worry about the bitrate on these, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Ariel Pink is all about lo-fi, right down to the crappy Angelfire website (yes, that’s his official website oops, it’s a fan site — see comments). His songs start with classic pop music forms — here we have psychedelic doo-wop (“Jules Lost His Jewels”) and new wave romanticism (“For Kate I Wait”) — then warp them to the very brink of listenability. But they are listenable, even enjoyable, because they’re like that favorite mixtape that you left in the car on a hot summer day: you still listen to it through the warble and hiss, because you know the music well enough to tune into its essence. “C’est la vie, c’est la vie, comme çi, comme ça…”
Koushik
Remember trip-hop? Anyone still out there doing it well? Massive Attack, Portishead and their Bristol neighbors usually got stuck with the moniker, but artists such as Caribou, Four Tet, and their buddy Koushik are tripping out hip-hop with their own set of sound biases (psychedelic melodies paired with slowed-down funk rhythms — imagine Greyboy remixing The Byrds, or early [good] Bee Gees).
Stereo Total
Fool that I am, I spent 11 years of schooling and two years of on-location training to become more or less fluent in French…only to fall in love and want to spend the rest of forever with a woman who thinks “French sounds stupid.” Of course, this only fuels my desire to play musique en français around the house. Even better if it’s catchy enough to get The Mrs. dancing in spite of herself. So, the giddy, candy-like pop of Berlin’s Stereo Total — featuring the coquette-ish vocals of Françoise Cactus — provides the ultimate weapon in our little civil war. (Cactus also sings in English and German, and sometimes about serious topics, just not when my wife’s around.) The band’s website features a ton of rarities with downloadable art so you can make your very own CD and join the good fight.