La Blogotheque: Beach House

xx The Elephant

The Notorious XX

I think free music is a really beautiful thing. There are so few things in life that are free, and giving away one's work for the sake of everyone's enjoyment, thats good people. I also really admire wait what, because he works at a tech company in San Fran, but still finds time to do something he loves. Respect that. So give it a quick listen and let me know what you think. Its a pretty amazing release... It takes my favorite things about hip hop/rap and combines it with my favorite things about indie rock. It's melodic, and a little bit bittersweet. Download your FREE COPY here. Thanks wait what!!!

xx Th Elephant

Review: Ruby Suns w/ Toro y Moi at Brooklyn Bowl

You know, I can't decide how I feel about Brooklyn Bowl. Its disarmingly big, and the crowd is odd...both times I've been there for shows there was a huge crowd for the opener and it diminished as the evening wore on. Its sort of like people wanted to stop in a get a beer before they really go out, so they watch the band, drink a couple of beers and go. It feels like only 20% of the people there have even heard of the bands.

As a result, there was a big crowd for Toro y Moi, the one man act from South Carolina. He came onstage wearing a pink zip up and some serious specs. At first I thought he was a DJ, but then he sort of stopped messing with the loops and started singing. Ah yes, I see the problem. He can't (yet) sing and do sound at the same time...This causes some of his transitions to be a bit choppy and with some awkward halting moments in his music. The desire to be a singer and a DJ at the same time is cool, and I can see where he's going with it, but it needs a little bit more time to get used to performing. I think that a lot of energy went into creating the loops and beats, which unfortunately caused him to be sort of unprepared to sing. He wasn't really able to divide his attention between singing and his sound board. I think he has solid underlying ideas and they will be able to shine a little bit when he doesn't have to focus so much on the technical aspects of creating the music.

After his set ended I guess the crowd lost interest in the venue, because the audience thinned out quite a bit. This was cool with me, I was pretty interested in seeing Ruby Suns, and didn't need to be in the armpit of a sweaty hipster whilst doing this. Right off the bat, my brother pointed out something that I wouldn't have ever been able to pinpoint on my own: the drummer should really play the synth, and the keyboardist should play the bass. How did we come to this crazy conclusion? There was almost no bass, at all. The keyboardist was playing beats on the synth, and the drummer was using an electronic kit, making essentially similar sounds as the keyboardist. This creates sort of an eerie sound, but it also sounded a little bit thin where we were standing.

The music is one part Cut Copy, one part Animal Collective. Since they are Kiwis, I'm going to let them off the hook for sounding almost too much like AC (like Dusty Fruit). There was a whole group of songs that had a really strong Caribbean influence (also, Like Dusty fruit). These felt like their strongest players: they had solid rhythms and good dance potential. They played a couple of songs off of their previous album, and I must admit, I was not impressed. They were jumpy and all over the place. Their newer work feels fairly cohesive, both on record and live. The old stuff was sort of out of left field. Don't play so much of that stuff guys, you are giving yourselves a bad name.

In short, I like the Ruby Suns. There are some great influences that need to be explored (dance-y Caribbean inspired tunes maybe?). The crowd wasn't going crazy and dancing, but I think the potential is there. Give them some time to get radio play, and I think the crowd will get into it.

x The Elephant