After much waiting, Hooray For Earth’s latest LP True Loves has FINALLY been released. We first fell in love with them with last year’s “Surrounded By Your Friends” off of their Momo EP (which we just so happen to own on clear vinyl) and have since gotten a chance to catch them live and have heard “True Loves” and “Sails” off of the new album, and that was pretty much all that was needed to determine that this is going to be an album full of some major summer jams. And fast on the heels of the album FINALLY being released, the group has offered up another track in the form of “No Love”, a super upbeat, super catchy track that follows along the same lines as the other tunes we’ve heard from the album. I still haven’t listened to this album yet in full, and it’s because I’m waiting for the perfect moment that will make it even more enjoyable than I’m sure it already is. I’d have to imagine that will take place some time this week in the form of an extended early summer evening bike ride.
You know who we love? Hooray For Earth. We were so enamored last year when we first heard “Surrounded By Your Friends” and it quickly became one of our favorite tunes of 2011. And then we were thrilled when we were part of an intimate crowd to catch them live back in January when they were on tour with The Concretes. And now, at last, we are approaching the release of their debut album and I’m expecting nothing but awesomeness and big sounds and fantastic melodies. We’ve already been lucky enough to hear “True Loves” and now there’s a pretty neat video that goes right along with it. It’s primal and medieval and all of those good things, and there seem to be some teleportation wormholes as well (if only those were real…I’d probably go to Chicago a lot more often if I just had to jump through a cloud of smoke). The True Loves LP comes out on June 7 on Dovecote Records, and it can’t come soon enough. Check out the video below and then cop the Hard Mix remix of “True Loves”.
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.
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.
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.
You know what I love? Happy songs. Because happy songs can make people happy, and happy people are much better than non-happy people. This is especially true in work environments, although it really applies to all facets of life. Today’s happy track is brought to us by Hooray for Earth, a four piece from New York via Boston. Not only is the name pretty happy (because, yeah, Earth is pretty cool, so we should give it to ole hip hip hooray), but so is the music and lyrics. Even though the song is pretty happy right off the bat, it’s not until you make it to the chorus that you get the full effect. The happiness of the chorus is even more exaggerated when you watch the video below. So do that. It’s a little weird and a little creepy sometimes, but pretty cool and psychadelic. It’s a really nice compliment to the tune.
I think to fully enjoy this song, you need to just watch the video and see if you notice anything fantastic starting with the hit at the 1:50 mark. Pretty good stuff. Prettayyyyyy prettaayyyyyy prettayyy good.
