Yeasayer's third album, Fragrant World, is being released August 21 on Secretly Canadian. On Fragrant World, the band continues to embrace electronic instruments and effects, with hardly any guitar presence. In many ways, it's a progression from the sound of their sophomore album Odd Blood, an album I much prefer over their debut, All Hour Cymbals (as fellow Amoeblogger Billy Gil mentioned in his recent post).

Chris Keating, Ira Wolf-Tuton and Anand Wilder recorded Fragrant World in Brooklyn, (side note: for some reason I have it in my mind that Yeasayer is an Australian band and have to constantly remind myself that they are, in fact, New Yorkers). Keating recently told Under the Radar that he was listening to a lot of R&B while working on the album and "wanted to make a record that was legitimately, to use a bad word, funky." That is music to my booty-shaking ears. He also went on to describe it as "Sci-fi Pam Grier music," which made my booty stop shaking and instead looked a tad quizzical. But my booty and I will hold out final judgment until we can listen to the entire album. So far I've only heard "Henrietta," which Amoeba.com offers as a free download (get it here), and "Longevity" (video below), but I love both of those tracks already. And I can kind of see what he meant with the Sci-fi Pam Grier comparison.

Los Angeles band VUM has a brand new video for "Savage" from their album, Night Sun (out now on Secret Lodge Recordings) and we have the pleasure of premiering the video! You can also grab "Savage" as a free download on Amoeba.com.

A former Amoeba Home Grown artist, VUM is Jennifer Pearl (ex-Lion Fever, Lost Kids) and Christopher Badger (Grand Elegance). Directed and conceived by Michael Frost, who has been working with the duo since he fell in love with their first album Strange Attractor, the video features Pearl as a prism-beast radiating different images while Badger guides her through the LA canyons and into some trippy make out action (bodysuits and optical illusion included).

Vum Night Sun (LP) Secret Lodge Recordings
Free MP3 of "Savage" by VUM.

VUM's latest album, Night Sun, was recorded between LA and the South Pacific, where singer/guitarist Pearl was living for a time. The  duo calls their unique sound "cinematic noir," capitalizing on Pearl's deep, powerful vocals, psychedelic guitars, dark wave synths, and thumping Suicide-esque drum machines. Intertwined throughout are field recordings from the jungle.

Best Coast’s new Jon Brion-produced album The Only Place is available now for pre-order at Amoeba.com. Not only that, the California-lovin’ title track and first single is available to download. I heard it this morning on KCRW and am pretty pumped about it — everything sounds shiny and shimmery but still straightforward and not too clean, like finding a beautiful ring in the sand.


Free download of "The Only Place" by Best Coast.

The Only Place comes out May 15. Who isn’t excited about this? “Why would you live anywhere else?” After hearing the first track, I can’t wait for summer and I can’t wait for The Only Place.
 
Best Coast plays The Wiltern in LA on May 18th with Abe Vigoda. Go to it!

Haim offers Forever EP free.

This trio of sisters spins out serious pop (not pop-inflected goth or whatever) with the kind of easy, a capella style harmonies that come easy to siblings. I like to picture Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim, all in their early 20s, singing along to Hanson in their parents’ car together as kids. Then, like, they grew up and moved to L.A. and started making music that references ’80s pop curios like Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks. I don’t actually know their real story — I’ll have to investigate this further. For now, I can’t stop listening to their three-song EP, particularly the dancey “Forever.” Get it free here.

 

White Arrows – “Fireworks of the Sea” 

White Arrows have been making it happen for a while now with superb live shows and a handful of released recordings hinting at the cool things they’d be doing down the line — I once called them “Paul Simon in space,” and I can’t really think of anything better than that at the moment to describe their sound, so we’ll just go with that. Their new song, “Fireworks of the Sea,” certainly fits that mold, with swirling synths intimating some digital acid trip over Mickey Schiff’s snaking vocal. Their debut EP hits April 3 from Votiv Music. They’ll be at the Roxy March 27. Listen over at Spin. 

I am thoroughly obsessed with the new Grimes single, "Genesis." I wasn't familiar with her until hearing this track and now I can't wait to hear the full album, Visions (out 2/21 on 4AD), to see if she can pull off what she has done so masterfully in this initial single - that is, combining the most seemingly disparate genres into one coherent piece of music and somehow making it work.

"Genesis" starts with this synthy piano bit that could come from an Enya album or something. Then her ethereal vocals kick in around the 0:39 mark. I can't, for the life of me, understand what she's saying, but it's beautiful. But then at 1:02 the track veers left into the world of electronic beats. Every time the track is over, I hit repeat to see if I can finally, finally make some sense of it on the next listen. So far, no dice. 


Amoeba.com is offering a free download of "Genesis" by Grimes.


Grimes is the project of Canadian Claire Boucher and Visions is her fourth release in two years (it's also her first for 4AD). 4AD and Arbitus Records describe the influences on her new album "as wide as Enya, TLC and Aphex Twin, whilst drawing from genres like New Jack Swing, IDM, New Age, K-pop, Industrial and glitch resulting in a record that is both otherworldly and futuristic."