Featuring tracks from Future Islands, Mr Little Jeans, SOHN, Chronic City, Wild Beasts, RAC, The Subs, The Glitch Mob and The War On Drugs.
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To download the mp3 file, right click and “save link as” here: The Breakdown with Ben Episode 70
Yo friends, welcome to a stunning edition of The Breakdown. This one is really, really fantastic!
Dominating this episode is a couple of album releases from some big names, along with some debut albums from artists I have been waiting for with baited breath for some time.
The established Breakdown favourite with a new album is Future Islands, a 3 piece from Baltimore in the States. They were responsible for the album that took number 4 in The Breakdown’s top albums list of 2011, On The Water. Their new album Singles maintains their super original sound, really focussing on their unique vocalist, inventive basslines and indie pop-hook songwriting skills that few possess. Give it a run, you will not be disappointed.
Austrian duo Chronic City, who have been personally supplying The Breakdown with their tunes for a couple years, have dropped their long awaited début LP, Nom de Guerre. It is packed with their catchy, bouncy, quirky, indie pop gems and is highly recommended.
Mr Little Jeans (who actually happens to be a ‘Mrs’) is one of those super quirky scando solo artists. Think Lykke Li with fatter basslines, poppier hooks, and possibly broader appeal. She grabbed my attention a couple years ago when she released a cover of The Arcade Fire‘s epic title track from their masterpiece album The Suburbs. The lead single, Good Mistake, from her debut album, Pocketknife, also pricked my ears up significantly. With the album now released, I can say with conviction that she is a genuine songwriting force. The album is brilliant.
RAC is a dude and a couple of his mates from my favourite American city, Portland, Oregon. His moniker is an acronym for Remix Artist Collective. He takes songs and reworks them into indie pop gems, writing his own stuff along the way. His album Strangers Part I is sweet, with a couple tracks lifted for this episode, including a really cool collaboration with Alex Ebert, the unmistakeable vocalist from Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes.
A little known electronic producer from the UK that goes by the name SOHN dropped a beautiful song a couple years ago that I loved so much it grabbed a spot in the top 20 of The Breakdown‘s top 100 songs of 2012. Well now he has an album, called Tremors. That song from back in the day, The Wheel, is on it, along with a bunch of other really cool explorations of electronic indie pop. The song included in this episode, Artifice, is a twisting, flowing, emotional, upbeat, danceable little wonder, with killer vocals and an irresistible bassline.
Ohio based pop-punk outfit Cloud Nothings has just dropped their second album, Here And Nowhere Else. Haven’t got around to spinning much of it yet, but the 2 lead singles from it have me hooked. They can get a little hectic at points with their energy and tempo, but they have some damn cool pop hooks throughout as well.
Still running the brilliant albums and no doubt top 10 albums of the year from The Glitch Mob, The War On Drugs and Wild Beasts as well. These albums deserve your ears’ time.
As always, lots of high quality single blogged tracks have been reeled in as well. Highlights this episode come from Australia’s Mt. Warning, Big Scary and Halcyon Drive, UK’s Mat Zo and Brooklyn outfit Skaters. Belgium’s The Subs have also applied their dubby glitchy, bassy goodness to a sweet vocal lifted from a 1985 R&B track by dude called Colonel Abram, get around it.
Enjoy this one, music lovers, I think you will. As always, if you do, share and recommend the episode to anyone that will listen. Together we can defeat the dominance of shit music in popular culture!
Til next time :)
Tracklist
Artist – Track Title (Start Time)
1. Future Islands – A Dream of You and Me (00:00)
2. Mt Warning -Youth Bird (04:00)
3. Mr Little Jeans – Don’t Run (06:55)
4. SOHN – Artifice (12:09)
5. The War On Drugs – Burning (15:27)
6. RAC – Tear You Down (ft. Alex Ebert) (20:15)
7. Wild Beasts – A Simple Beautiful Truth (23:55)
8. Halcyon Drive – Whitewash (26:30)
9. The Glitch Mob – I Need My Memory Back (ft. Aja Volkman) (30:03)
10. The Subs – Trapped (ft. Colonel Abram) (36:21)
11. Hats – Let Me In (40:16)
12. Chronic City – Adult Fantasies (44:30)
13. Mat Zo – EZ (47:46)
14. Mr Little Jeans – Mercy (52:30)
15. Wild Beasts – Mecca (57:40)
16. Big Scary – Luck Now (1:01:25)
17. How Sad – It Is What It Is (Blood Orange cover) (1:05:20)
18. RAC – Repeating Motion (ft. Karl Kling) (1:09:30)
19. New Arcades – Don’t Let Go (ft. Chloe Pamplin) (1:13:55)
20. Paws – Tongues (1:17:45)
21. Yellerkin – Solar Laws (1:19:58) *Language warning*
22. Skaters – This Much I Care (1:24:43)
23. Chronic City – My Own (ft. Illute) (1:27:53)
24. Cloud Nothings – Psychic Trauma (1:32:21)
25. The War On Drugs – Disappearing (1:35:13)
26. The Glitch Mob – Becoming Harmonious (1:42:06)
The Indie Electro Breakdown 