February 22nd, 2010 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave | 3 comments
What is chillwave, you ask? It’s a relatively new form of music (with its origins in shoegaze) that’s heavy on the synths, looping, downtempo disco beats, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines. Those at the forefront include Toro y Moi, Memory Tapes and Neon Indian. Add Memoryhouse to that list, and you’re set.
February 19th, 2010 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave | 4 comments
Rather than singing about the seasons and emotional dwellings of the winter month’s thoughts, MillionYoung seems a far more danceable character than the former; his remix of MemoryHouse transforms the ambient electronica arrangement into an ecstatic and pulsating dreampop/dance track, and you only have to take one look at his collection of upcoming shows to tell he’s all for hipster dancefloor filling this summer.
January 2nd, 2010 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave, garage, psychedelic, rock
In the same vein as all my blog favourites such as Surfer Blood, Girls and Best Coast – Real Estate make snippets of 60s pop psychedelia coated in fuzzy reverb and drenched in sunny harmonies. The difference between this band and the others is the total chillout mentality they show across their entire self-titled debut album, leading to a whole load of comparisons to the other chillwave bands of late.
December 31st, 2009 | by Jess Alatorre | published in dreamwave/chillwave, experimental, female vocalists, indie pop, shoegaze
As a band, Headlights is usually everything that good indie pop is made off: cute lyrics, catchy melodies, and solid harmonies. However, this album went a little headier, a little more emotional and a little fuzzier. The album “Wildlife,” released in October, is 42 minutes of wonderbliss.
December 7th, 2009 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave, electro pop | 8 comments
Causers is sure to be Laptop-crafted indie pop heavy on the synthesizers and light just about everything else. Toro y Moi makes lo-fi fuzz pop perfectly representative of 2009’s latest craze, dreamwave. Jarring walls of synthesizers coat glitchy, dubbed down percussion in warming chord sequences – joined without fail by Bundick’s softly sung vocals. The whole feel of Toro y Moi is very ethereal and shoegazey but at the same time clearcut pop music you can dance to.
November 8th, 2009 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave, electro pop | 1 comment
Toro y Moi needs to be listened to with the volume so that it can overwhelm you with fuzziness. If you aren’t cranking your speakers, it just might not work. The solo project of 23-year-old south Carolinan, Chaz Bundick, Toro y Moi has all the cutting edge modernity of Passion Pit, Memory Tapes and Wavves. That is to say, he knows how to pump out intense beats using his synths and laptop samples.
Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
October 27th, 2009 | by jason grishkoff | published in alternative, dreamwave/chillwave, experimental, indie rock
Truth is, I wish this was The Strokes. It presents the perfect evolution that I would expect from this group based on all that has transpired since they released their last album. Throughout Julian Casablancas’ new album, I hear hints of the new-wave-indie-80s-synth-pop that is currently enveloping the music scene. The product is both rewarding and refreshing — who doesn’t like a group experimenting with new sounds?
October 5th, 2009 | by jason grishkoff | published in dreamwave/chillwave, electronic | 4 comments
the more i enmesh myself in the music world, the more i realize that good music comes in sets of seven consecutively bigger waves. there are plenty of ripples and backwash between, of course, but about every seventh wave ends up being huge. in my case, the “seventh wave” of albums comes about every two weeks, and i’m pretty sure that this new memory tapes album is that seventh wave.
The Dirty Disco – Sista!
Memory9 – Mazinger Z Moves to Kreuzberg (Sexual Harassment Bootleg)
Moostache – Thrills
Fulton Read – Synchronize
Strange Birds – Strange Birds EP
