Posts tagged with cut copy

06/08/2011

Hypem Hunting vol. 15 – Far

It’s been a while since we last played the world’s best and most likely only game involving a music blog aggregator’s search function, Hypem Hunting. In fact, I think it’s been about a month, which is pretty bad considering I was doing them weekly for a while. But alas, here we are again. This week’s theme is “far”, mainly because that was this week’s fairly common word that I picked. Here are the songs that I found.

Now, normally I say that the beauty of this is that I find songs that I probably never would have heard otherwise, but that’s not totally true in this case. You see, the song is “Far Nearer” by Jamie xx, better known as the guy from The XX who has been all over the place as a remixer/producer and DJ lately. And at the time of my writing this post, the track had over 113,000 listens already, and it seems like it’s been around since early last year. So how am I only first hearing about it/hearing it now? The world may never know. But since I hadn’t heard it before or knew it existed, it counts.

Next up, we’ve got a song that’s even older than that one. Yes, that’s right, we’re going back to 2009, folks. It’s a super lo-fi, rather psychedelic tune from Nite Jewel. I think I’d heard of Nite Jewel a lot but never heard Nite Jewel. But when I heard the extreme lo-fi-ness and then found out that the second member of the duo was once a member of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, I was slightly less surprised.

Nite Jewel – Falling Far

Oh hey! Another song that I’m surprised I never heard! Its the Hercules & Love Affair remix of Cut Copy’s “Far Away”. Again, not sure how I never heard this before. However, there are about a zillion Cut Copy remixes out there, so it becomes a game where you try to collect them all. But it’s a game you will never win.

Cut Copy – Far Away (Hercules & Love Affair Remix)

And last but certainly not least, it’s this little sub-3 minute jam from Junip, whose singer is the easily recognizable Jose Gonzalez. Once again, I just kinda never listened to Junip even though I always wanted to. But now I got this nice surprise on a random night in 2011 months after everyone else knew what was up. I feel like this song is the garage rock side of Gonzalez, and I like it.

Junip – Far Away

So, maybe this wasn’t the most underground version of Hypem Hunting ever, but I still think it’s pretty good.

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05/21/2011

Sleigh Bells / CSS @ St. Andrews Hall 5.18.11

Sleigh Bells and CSS. It’s almost as if they were meant to tour together. Two bands that I’ve only seen briefly at festivals. Two bands with overly energetic female vocalists. Both playing together at one of my favorite venues in town at the time of year where it was still a little to early for St. Andrew’s Hall to fully overheat (well, at least before the show started). Tonight was going to be a good show, and there was going to be a ton of energy spewed forth by everyone and everything in the building.

CSS, led by the ever charismatic Lovefoxx, hit the stage around 8:30 and gave the crowd their Brazilian flare full force. Having only seen them from afar at Coachella (where Lovefoxx crowd surfed at least 3 times that I counted), I wasn’t quite aware of just how much fun they were all having on stage until I got to see it up close. They brought it HARD, yet somehow some of the folks up front still found a way not to enjoy themselves (shame on you, people up front) even though the rest of us were soaking it all in. As Lovefoxx stripped down from pants and jacket to jorts and a red cutoff tshirt that said “TRASH” on it, her presence only grew and when the set ended, I only wanted them to come back out and play again. I only wish the crowd had given them a little more of what they deserved, but hopefully they’ll make a second appearance in Detroit as I believe this was their first ever. I mentioned to a friend of mine that if I was in a band, this is the type of band I’d want to be in. A band with bangin’ beats that you can tell are actually having a great time on stage instead of just going through the motions.

CSS – Move (Cut Copy Remix)






After a brief intermission in which just about all of the gear was cleared off stage minus a guitar and a few microphones, Sleigh Bells (aka Slay Bells) took the stage to “Iron Man”, a perfectly fitting entrance. And then it was all bets off. The lights flashed almost incomprehensibly throughout the set, a wonderful visual as a fan, but a dreadful one as a photographer, with Alexis Kraus doing her usual scream/sing combination and giving the crowd plenty of energy from which to feed. She climbed all over the stage and into the pit a few times (much to the delight of the 20 or so girls who had worked their way in front of the barricade, essentially trapping us photographers in the pit, not that I minded) eventually doing a brief crowd surf during the encore. Derek Miller’s level of madness could have matched that of Alexis were he not constrained by his guitar. The crowd was raucous as ever, even stealing the hat of one of the other photographers (not cool, crowd) but was otherwise very well behaved despite their outpouring of blood (more on that in a bit), sweat and emotion. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the Sleigh Bells portion of the evening as I more wanted to see CSS, but they definitely won me over almost instantly.

After the show, Alexis hung out at the merch table signing autographs, taking pictures and chatting it up with the fans. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture with her, but I did get a chance to give her a high five before she made her way up to the defacto backstage area upstairs, but a high five was all I really wanted anyway.

As the crowd dispersed, it became clear that someone or something had been horribly injured, with two massive pools of blood on the venue floor and a trail of bloody footprints throughout, but nobody really knew who or what it was from. It was almost ridiculous to the point of us wondering if someone had brought some fake blood to play a joke. Later on, we saw the photographer again whose hat had been squandered from him, proudly wearing it atop his head. As it turns out, the young lady who stole his hat was also the one responsible for the blood, presumably the victim of a broken nose. While we hope she’s OK and wasn’t seriously hurt in the end, don’t steal people’s things, because karma is a bitch, y’all.

Check out a few more pics on flickr if the spirit moves you.

Sleigh Bells – Rill Rill


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01/16/2011

Album review: Cut Copy – Zonoscope

Without a doubt, Zonoscope, the newest album from Aussie electronic beatmasters Cut Copy, was one of my most anticipated albums of 2011. The band just has an unparalleled ability to always brighten my spirits and can elicit a dance party with almost any of their tracks, so after the huge success of 2008′s In Ghost Colours, I had high expectations that I was trying to keep under control. My first glimpse at this album was the shuffle-laden “Where I’m Going”, a track that at first didn’t grab my attention at all but after repeated listens had me on board. Next up was the potentially Men At Work inspired “Take Me Over”, a track that was pretty 80s sounding but had me feeling pretty good about where things were going.

And now, after my first listen of the full album, I can say that all in all I am pretty satisfied with this record. Most noticeably, it seems to be a whole lot brighter in general than In Ghost Colours. I think this is due to some combination of brighter melodies and a noticeable reduction in the heaviest synth bass lines that permeated their 2008 album. Just like the last record, this one flows from one track to another almost seamlessly, so everything is tied together pretty nicely. Opener “Need You Now” is a great slower paced track at first that builds into a shining gem and is a great summation of the overal sentiment of the whole album. The heaviest track might be “Pharaohs & Pyramids”, an early favorite for me, especially coming immediately after the bouncy “Where I’m Going”, or the second to last track “Corner of the Sky”. The beginning and end of the album seem to be the heavier tunes that bookend the lighter tracks in the middle, and while the energy does go down a bit in the middle, this gives the album a really great flow from start to finish.

Undoubtedly the most ambitious track on this album is the quasi-rave inspired 15 minute closer, “Sun God”. At the start, this tune sounds a bit Hercules & Love Affair to me (I doubt if that’s a good comparison, but that was the name that first popped into my head when the song began) before breaking into several minutes of long, flowing synth as a beat slowly (very slowly) builds up, just bracing you for whatever is about to come next. I’m typically not a fan of these long, sprawling tunes, but this one just seemed to work, not to mention it got into some of the darker places (especially in the last few minutes) that many of the other tracks on this album did not.

Overall impressions: Another solid effort from Cut Copy. There seems to be slightly less (emphasis on slightly) of the heavy beats and that defined In Ghost Colours, but the synthy side of Cut Copy is still ever present, and the band still made sure to build their own brand of deep and intricate soundscapes that they do so very well. This is still the same Cut Copy we know and love, but just a tiny bit lighter and a tiny bit brighter, although after giving a few of the tracks some more plays, I’m starting to think that’s true less and less. Point is, I’m not disappointed by this album one bit, and I’m sure I will only like it more and more with each listen. Let’s just hope we see them on the roster for Coachella later this week as I’m fully expecting.

Cut Copy – Pharaohs & Pyramids

Cut Copy – Corner of the Sky

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11/23/2010

Cut Copy – Take Me Over

If it’s not too early to start anticipating 2011 albums (says I, right after I write a huge post about why we shouldn’t get so excited for upcoming releases), Cut Copy‘s 3rd proper album Zonoscope is definitely near the top of my list. I have to say that while it’s grown on me quite a bit since I first heard it, I wasn’t really feeling “Where I’m Going” when I first heard it, but have found myself unknowingly humming it here and there as of late, a very good sign. The shuffle of that song was something I wasn’t used to from the Australian dance kings, but I like that they went out there and did something different. But I am also extremely pleased with the more familiar dance/synth flavor of “Take Me Over”, much more In Ghost Colours-esque than the previous song. This is slated to be the first single from the album and should be released on vinyl some time soon. And with a new album comes a new hope that the band will tour again and stop here in Detroit, even though I know full well that they’ll get no closer than Chicago. But it says something that I’m somewhat satisfied with the energy from the band and more importantly the crowd during their abbreviated 4 song set at the 2008 Pitchfork Festival. A full length set might just push me over the edge. But I want it anyway, real real bad.

Cut Copy – “Take Me Over” (Radio Edit) Premiere by modularpeople

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10/11/2010

Bag Raiders – Snake Charmer

I first heard of Bag Raiders back in May when I was putting together the Blogwave Summer mix (with the help of all my blog friends) and our friends over at umstrum contributed “Shooting Stars” as their summer jam. After the massive popularity of that jam (along with a whole slew of great remixes under their belt), Aussies Jack Glass and Chris Stacey have finally released their self-titled debut album and if the few tunes I’ve heard are any indication, it’s going to be a great one. I’ve been trying to wait to listen to the album all at once, but after hearing “Snake Charmer”, I just couldn’t wait and have checked out many of the tunes, all pretty stellar. If there’s any question as to why this one is called “Snake Charmer”, then you haven’t listened long enough. It’s a ridiculously awesome dichotomy to have a traditional sounding melody right on top of a complex and hoppin beat. There are no two ways about it, this is just a fun jam. And if you aren’t familiar with any of Chris and Jack’s previous work, make sure to hit up their take on Cut Copy’s “Far Away”, a great rework of one of my least favorite songs on this album (although to be fair, the margin from most favorite to least favorite on that album was almost indecipherable). Point it, these guys do not fuck around.

Bag Raiders – Snake Charmer

Cut Copy – Far Away (Bag Raiders Remix)

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09/07/2010

Belle and Sebastian – Write About Love

It’s a bit crazy to think of how much more I love Belle & Sebastian more now than when their 2006 album The Life Pursuit came out. It wasn’t that the last album wooed my so much, but more that I sort of rediscovered their entire catalog. And that’s a good thing. So I was pretty excited to learn from our friend Frank at Listen Before You Buy that they’ve released a new track early to their Twitter followers and, as can be expected on the internet, as quickly as that happened, they shared it with the rest of us. My first impression? I like it, it was good, but I didn’t go nuts (kind of how I feel about Cut Copy’s “Where I’m Going”. But that’s my literal first impression. Thoughts after listening exactly 1 time. If nothing else, it gets me insanely excited for a new album that I didn’t know was coming. Does anyone know when Belle & Sebastion Write About Love is expected to be released?

[EDIT: after 2-3 listens, I find myself humming it incessantly. So I guess I like it a little more than I thought, and gets me real excited for even more]

Belle & Sebastian – Write About Love

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06/22/2010

Summer Drive Mixtape!

As you hopefully recall, last month, we put together our first ever mixtape entitled A Blogwave Summer which was curated by 20 of our favorite music blogs, each contributing a track of their own and mixed together by none other than myself. Well, I had so much fun putting that together that I decided to do it again with a bunch of tracks of my choosing. There wasn’t really a theme at the onset, it was just a lot of mostly high energy (and, for the most part, extremely bright) tracks that I love, most of which I hadn’t heard until I started this site last May. When I gave it a listen this past weekend on a 4-hour solo drive up to Traverse City, I decided it made pretty great driving music, especially on a sunny day, and thus, Summer Drive was born.

I could have also very well called this mix dailybeatz 101, because for someone who doesn’t visit the site regularly, it’s a fantastic representation of exactly the type of music that we love here. In fact, most of these songs have been posted on this site at one point or another, so you may have heard many of them here already, but I must say there’s something to be said for the way that juxtaposition can really change the feel of a song.

Special thanks to CrystalSister whose picture I used for the mixtape artwork.

Just like last time, you can right click/save as the zip file below which includes the mix split into individual tracks as well as front and back covers. Or, you can download the full mix from the soundcloud player below (this is what I recommend as you are sure not to encounter any split second gaps between tracks which really hurt the flow) and you can save the front and back artwork from this post. Either way, I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and please please PLEASE let me know what you think. I apologize for naming every mixtape “summer” something, but it’s what I love, and what the music sounds like for me. Check out the track list below.

Summer Drive mixtape (individual files)

Or listen and download one continuous file from the Soundcloud player below (what I recommend) by clicking on the down arrow on the right side of the player.

dailybeatz.com presents: Summer Drive by dailybeatz

Here’s a sample track from the mix that’s become one of my favorites the last few days. It’s the beautiful, flowing “We Ah Wi” by Javelin, which sounds like a breezy summer afternoon.

Javelin – We Ah Wi

buy it on We or amazon

Read the rest of this entry »

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04/01/2010

spoon/deerhunter @ royal oak music theatre 3.30.10

First off, I kind of really like the picture above. It might be among my favorite live pics that I’ve taken.

A few years back I had tickets to see Spoon at the Majestic Theater. I can’t remember what happened, but for one reason or another I sold my ticket and couldn’t go. Then the following summer, they were playing a free show as part of the Detroit Tastefest (now known as the “Comerica Cityfest”, but it will always be the tastefest, just as the Fillmore will always be the State Theater, and the way that DTE will always be Pine Knob. But it was on the 4th of July, and I was on the lake, so I called my friend to say I wasn’t going. Then a few weeks later, they were closing out the last night of the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. I was at the B stage watching the famous/infamous Cut Copy 4-song festival-closing set and didn’t see them.

So when I purchased my ticket for this show, my fourth attempt at seeing Spoon (I really hope someone is reading that will get this joke, but here goes anyway. “Dan, the scholarship committee has decided to give you….a fourth chance.”) And somehow, some way, I made it there for the 3-band lineup. Since I’m always late for shows, I missed the openers The Strange Boys. Sorry for that.

But I knew I was going to get there in time to see the second band, Deerhunter out of the ATL (or thereabouts), I was not going to miss it. I’d seen them once before from the front row at Lollapalooza back year and took some shabby photographs, so I was happy to have another opportunity to hear them and to catch them on film with a legit camera.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the sound at the Royal Oak Music Theater (I don’t remember much about the Bloc Party show there a few years back, a classic night of debauchery for every one of my friends that was there, but I do remember the sound being awful), and this was no exception. The band sounded great from up front, but as soon as you moved back at all it was a muddled mess. It sucked because I knew they were ripping it. Of course, “Nothing Ever Happened” was one of the highlights, but the REAL highlight (perhaps because they didn’t play it the first time I’ve seen them, and it’s one of my favorite 2-3 minute ditties) was their closing “Disappearing Ink”, which they jammed out for probably 7 or 8 minutes. It was pretty killer, bad sound and all.

A few songs before this, Bradford Cox was informing us that even after we left the show that night, he would be with us. He would always be with us. Terrorizing us in our dreams, whether we liked it or not. I thought it was rather hilarious, especially since he was speaking all of this through an echo effect, making it even weirder/creepier. But I don’t think the rest of the crowd picked up on his humor. And just before the final song began, he apologized and said that he would try to redeem himself. And then the band played the aforementioned jammed out “Disappearing Ink”, and in my opinion, Mr. Cox more than redeemed himself, even though I never felt there was anything calling for redemption in the first place. And as always, you can see all of these pics in higher quality on the dailybeatz Flickr page.

I’ve posted this song before, but I just think it’s that great as a quick and awesome rock song.

Deerhunter – Disappearing Ink

buy it on Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange - EP - Disappearing Ink or amazon

So next up was the main event, Spoon, who fate and circumstance had prevented me from seeing live so many times before. I don’t really know what I was expecting out of them live. But whatever I was expecting was exceeded. I also learned something really interesting about myself. I recognize and can hum along to just about any Spoon song, but I don’t really know the names of any of them. Why is that?

As the show began, I decided I would wait a few songs with my friends before I tried to get some photos, after all, nobody had told me that there was a 3-song limit or anything, and once I left I probably wouldn’t make it back to my friends anyway. So as I entered the pit in the middle of the third song, I took about 10 pictures and was told our time was up. Disaster. Luckily I got a few that were half-deece. So luckily.

As for the performance itself, I think I was surprised by a few things. The first is the energy. I don’t usually think of Spoon as a super high-energy band, I think I consider them more kind of laid back rock. But they were firing on all cylinders, in my opinion at least, and the crowd was enjoying it quite a bit. The next thing I really liked was the pretty cool light show. It wasn’t anything extremely over the top, but it always worked really well with the music. There were these candle looking lights that at times looked a little MTV Unplugged, but all in all it was visually entertaining. The band was in front of these color changing giant geometric shapes that provided a nice contrast against the black backdrop. And the third thing that surprised me was their use of effects throughout. I think this was especially apparent in the official “really cool song that I sort of forgot about and didn’t really know that I liked so much until just now”, which in this case was “The Ghost of You Lingers”. I think it just doesn’t sound like anything else they’ve got, and it was pretty great live with the lights and effects and whatnot.

The band came out for what I remember as a 4-song encore which included (I think) “I Turn My Camera On” among a few others and closed with “The Underdog”. I think this show made me realize how much I really like Spoon even though I don’t usually think to listen to them. But that seems to be the way I feel about so much music lately, so it’s always nice to rediscover.

Here’s one of my favorites from their recent album Transference which I kind of dig and which I was happy to hear live. It’s got a nice breakdown in the second half that I enjoy. Just promise me you’ll wait for it. And then look at the couple of pics I was able to snap.

Spoon – I Saw the Light

buy it on Spoon - Transference - I Saw the Light or amazon

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