Recommended Electronic music (#1 - #10)

PELPP: Pillow Rockets
It is clear that Chris Manfre (who is a graphic designer by profession) spends much of his time thinking about putting things in their proper place. Under the moniker “Pelpp,” he constructs glitchy IDM that perfectly balances symmetry and space with frenetic beats and an exposed nervous system. “Pillow Rockets” is the perfect name for an album filled with a combustible energy covered over by blankets of floating, lo-fi haze. Manfre’s music is carefully constructed of architectural lines that wind their way beneath layers of snowy, static ambience. Like his own hometown of Salt Lake City, where all roads lead to the central Temple, these cold, electronic lines converge upon a warm, beating heart.
Recommended if you like Boards of Canada, Jon Hopkins, Ulrich Schnauss.
MP3 price: $7.99
BIRDS & BATTERIES: I'll Never Sleep Again
A good cover is hard to come by. When so many bands attempt to pay homage to their favorite songs by playing it as much like the original as they possibly can, it’s easy to wonder why you’re not just listening to the original. That’s why when you attempt to play something as classic and beautiful as “Heart of Gold,” you’d sure as heckfire better be prepared to bring something completely different to it, and you’d better be sure that it works completely. The opening track of this record is just that, a gorgeous and cavernous cover of Neil Young’s heartbreaking beauty, rippling with synths, electric pianos, affected electronic drum sounds, and a voice that’s hollering through the depths as though it is slipping further and further away from you. The trick about this second album from San Francisco’s Birds and Batteries is that as a whole work, it somehow manages to ignite post-rock, a mellow Americana, and electronic music all at the same time. The marriage of electric piano, slide guitar, and drum machine is a textural wonder that seems to have the blatant approval of Apollo. The up-front parts are perfectly illuminated, elements toward the back fade into the velvety black of nighttime. The record feels deliberate, but completely unforced… cozy but spread out. Add in the superb, crystal clear production, and this record is ridiculously mouth-watering.
Recommended if you like Neil Young, The Band, Hot Chip.
CD price: $13.97
COSINER & CAPITAL: Still
With its nods to down tempo lounge beats and the mellow golden age of Brazilian bossa nova, Cosiner & Capital’s “Still” is a work that updates the Ipanema Beach ethos of the 1960s. Where one may have previously found Astrud Gilberto breathing through lyrics about unrequited love, here we have carefully constructed rhythmic loops and spherical classical guitar arpeggios. Delicately played and lilting, the nylon melodies bring the sun to your eyes and the surf to your step. The occasionally appearing electric guitars play like they’re on stretched-out eight-second bits of magnetic tape, while looping counter rhythms surface in understated percussion experiments. There’s a certain amount of discordant but dreamy melodicism here, and most of the time it’s right up front to hear. It’s the overall feel of the record, though, the summer evenings at the coast that it evokes, that perfectly compliments the current season, with its salt water, sand, and perhaps a bit of rum.
Recommended if you like Norah Jones, João Gilberto, Da Lata.
MP3 price: $9.99
FRENCH THINKERS: What If We Died Of Happiness?
Creepy voices from nowhere, slow strumming ache. There’s something immediately alluring about this record for those of us who are drawn to the utterly crushed and deflated singer/songwriter types. But listen closer… there’s a slow swell of darting keyboard and an accented but delicate rhythm in there, too. With this release, the French Thinkers draw all their defeated feelings out, and put them into engrossingly rich half folk, half electronic songs. Focusing on their enveloping melodies and washy reverbs, the group outlines the resigned emotional depression that is so often found in the west, in contrast to the east coast’s aptitude for more pointed expressions of dissatisfaction (though that is found in some small doses on this album, too). Perhaps this is more of a winter album than one for the approaching summer, but there are a some shimmering and nostalgic sounding pieces that might be perfect for parking on a lawn with a blanket and catching the Perseids come August.
CD price: $10.00 / MP3 price: $9.99
REDHOOKER: The Future According to Yesterday
Deep and intense, Redhooker's "The Future According to Yesterday" is a solemn and gorgeous piece of classical/electric fusion. While an electric piano lumbers along, plodding through dusty chords and resonating in dark caverns of reverb, strings and woodwinds dart through, leaving remnants of their flighty character in wide swaths of color. Not your traditional quartet, the ensemble consists of a clarinet, a violin, a Rhodes, and an electric guitar, all precise and lamenting. It's easy to get caught up in emotion as the players spin tales of the urban Manhattan cityscape, shriveling from human contact, but longing to be held. It's easy to get hung up on the landscape of the decrepit oceanside village that may harbor a secret or three. These are the songs that speak the darker truth of human life, ringing in the ears of of the facade-bearing city-dwellers, and rolling through the hulls of the small boats put out to paddle the sea. It's perfect soundtrack music.
Recommended if you like Steve Reich, Sigur Rós, Brian Eno.
CD price: $12.97 / MP3 price: $9.99
CENTOVALLEY: August
Here's a place to park your parlor pillows, turn the switch in your brain to "off," and just enjoy what's flowing out of the speakers. At once delicate and wide, Centrovalley's brand of mellow and wafting electronic lounge music is exactly what's called for on a summery afternoon with nothing to do; stretch out on the couch (or the lounger by the pool!), close your eyes, and don't think about what you have to do until tomorrow. With its thick beats and even thicker synths, "August" is an all over bath of warm reverb and (sometimes slightly Latin influenced) trip hop rhythm. The record also has urgent moments, when snares get a bit more pointed, the compelling bass lines get a little more rowdy, and the record takes off just a little bit more. The occasional vocals bring an additional focal point (where in other songs other melodies or beats might be the focus) and they're just as beautifully atmospheric as the rest of the sounds with which they co-exist. It's the perfect album for an easygoing summer.
Recommended if you like Air, Thievery Corporation, Lemon Jelly.
CD price: $14.00 / MP3 price: $9.99
WEDGE: Heavensville
Wedge's filmic treatment of these songs creates such a backlog of mental imagery that it's almost completely overwhelming; an unraveling piano line or an ambient keyboard gives rise to a gorgeous, incredibly delicate, heart-wrenching melody. The record moves through twinkling background synths laced with acoustic guitar arpeggios and simple, solid beats into sludgy, and decidedly urban-sounding musical odes to the beauty of decay. There's a palpable nostalgia to most of these songs that immediately takes a listener back to that first broken heart, the years and the distance seemingly melted away by a voice punching through the billowing clouds of atmospheric synth. At the same time, this album is like rock that's turned itself inside out to expose it's electronic inner workings. Imagine all the synth lines played by strings or guitars, and you've got a completely different, yet equally beautiful record. No matter which direction you choose to approach this record from, the subtle movement of it is the stuff that heartbreak is made of.
Recommended if you like Air, The Cure, Sigur Rós.
CD price: $9.99 / MP3 price: $9.99
A PACIFIC MODEL: Divisions
A tasty combination of ambient electronic and nostalgic, atmospheric rock, Dallas, Texas' A Pacific Model eases through the upper tiers of the stratosphere to float on satellites and take pictures of the moon. Though the ambient textures are exquisite, the attention they've put into the songwriting on this record is what finalizes its resting place somewhere between Telefon Tel Aviv's "Fahrenheit Fair Enough" and Radiohead's "OK Computer." Perfectly spacious production blankets the whole album in a warm amber light, while crisp guitars drenched in reverb gingerly skip between airy expanses of picking notes and dense sheeting shrangs that dissolve into the ether. Keyboards and pianos make appearances and drums steadily tie down the rhythm section. The vocals are a perfect compliment to the music; they're emotional, but not to the point of being dramatic... they're pensive and perfectly plaintive. A gorgeous, well-crafted album of spacey rock and electronic music.
Recommended if you like Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Elbow.
LADYCOP: EP
With droves of bands making their runs at the Arcade Fire musical ethos, few have the talent to actually pull it off. New York's Ladycop certainly has it in spades. And while every other band seems to be utilizing modern technology to catapult themselves at least halfway into the electronic music category, few have the know-how to keep it from sounding like it's from 1991. Ladycop prevents it's beats from becoming cliché by making them a part of the experience, not a lonely focal point. Awash with buzzy drum beats that give way to the occasional sludgy glitch line, most of these songs are strewn with a regretful nostalgia that beats back any doubt that these dudes are to be taken seriously. Delicate guitar arpeggios and sinister leads sit solidly next to clear bass tones, hard panned drums make for a headphone experience that borders on psychedelic, spastic clapping punctuates rhythms, and the Enigk-like vocals layer themselves up to the rafters. I'm bummed that this is only 5-song EP... because it's gorgeous.
Recommended if you like At the Drive-In, Blonde Redhead, Arcade Fire.
MP3 price: $5.99
COMPUTEHER: Data Bass
Forget electronic music, here's computer pop. While the bulk of the initial appeal lies in the chip tunes' ability to conjure up lazy summer days spent getting Mario past the Koopa Troopas, this lady is pretty smart about it; there are some stand-alone songs here. The digital songstress, known only as "Michelle," has deconstructed tons of sounds you remember from such classic gadgets as Speak'n'Spell, the ol' Commodore 64, Atari 2600, and the original gray NES (and Game Boy!), and pieced them all together into a veritable symphony of nostalgia through robot pop songs. Sure, it's entertaining for those of us who remember what 8-bit graphics looked like (...especially those of us who might just have an ancient stack of ColecoVision and Atari cartridges waiting for us at home at the end of the day... ahem...), but these are great little pop tunes ready for anyone ready to dance.
Recommended if you like Kraftwerk, Devo, Daft Punk.
CD price: $14.95 / MP3 price: $4.95

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