Archive for the ‘battles’ tag

Battles – The Line

While I have a major problem with the whole Twilight series (mostly due to the fact that as a result of it, all of us dudes are expected to live up to some unrealistic ideal of a fictional character, one who, from what I can gather while making a conscious effort not to know, is actually kind of a dick, but that every girl still goes nuts over), you can’t deny that whoever is in charge of their soundtracks has some major pull in getting lots of big name acts to contribute. I’ve been trying to stay away from it, but when I heard there would be a new tune from Battles, I had to investigate. And what we get is not disappointing. It starts out all mellow and mild but still full of weird/uncomfortable chord progressions in true Battles fashion, but about halfway through it really picks up and gets into the good stuff. Which can mostly be described as high energy mania. And when it hits, it hits oh so good. In a way that’s sort of like “Oh yeah, this is why I like Battles.” I haven’t heard any of the other Twilight songs, but I kind of want the whole series to go away. True Blood, on the other hand, now that I can buy into.

Battles – The Line

school of seven bells – connjur

ive been wanting to post a track by school of seven bells for quite some time now. the band is made up of twin sisters alejandra and claudia deheza and benjamin curtis of fellow indie band secret machines. their sound is really something unique. its part electronic, part tribal, and part what i think enya would sound like if enya were an indie rock act. but i shouldnt be surprised by their excellent and unique sound because they are signed to ghostly international, one of the coolest labels around, and not just because they are based in ann arbor, mi, my home away from home (which happens to only be about 40 minutes from my actual home).

when did i know that i loved ghostly international? last spring when the university of michigan museum of art had its grand reopening with a 24 hour extravaganza, ghostly international contributed with an hour of its favorite music videos. the first video they showed was “atlas” by battles. somewhere in the middle there was “deep sea diver” by grizzly bear. just a great song and video. i dont remember a lot of the other songs, but the final song was the gem below, which apparently is “poney part 1″ by vitalic. if youve ever wondered what computer generated dogs defying gravity with laser beams against an electronic track would look like, look no further.

as for todays song, like i said, it reminds me a lot of a modern day enya mixed with a bit of electronic. this whole “alpinisms” album is full of great songs like this, some much darker, and some much much more out there, and some not even remotely sounding anything like this one. but thats the beauty of the ghostly international label. a lot of the stuff is really experimental, and we know how i love experimental. ive heard through the grapevine that school of seven bells is a completely unreal live act and im looking forward to checking them out one day.

school of seven bells – connjur

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