Thursday Bears: New No Age Video - Losing Feeling

The video for No Age's new single "Losing Feeling," directed by Gil Kenan, (Monster House, City of Ember) is a fast-paced tale of a stop-motion animation mouse journeying through the corners of Los Angeles (or San Diego, I'm not sure), meeting up with another mouse and simultaneously explaining how No Age's Dean Spunt and Randy Randall came to be.

The song is featured on the band's four song Losing Feeling EP, released earlier this month via Sub Pop. "You're a Target," one of the year's best songs, is also featured on the EP, available here.

No Age - Losing Feeling



No Age - You're a Target - MP3

Wednesday Bears: Dam-Funk Mixtape

né Damon Riddick's (Dam-Funk) mixtape, "Beautiful Music for Beautiful People," is an mish-mash of 80's-ish style dance tunes with the analog turned to the fullest.

The mix, brought to you from the people at Clae Footwear, is a fuzzy blend of city soundscapes lost in a mirth of 80's synths and harmonies. The product, styled in a crisp rust of analog and drum beats, is in a way a call to the oft-forgotten, oft-idolized sounds of late 70's and 80's pop and soul, complete with heavy baselines and swollen voices echoing in the fog of the music.

Beautiful Music 4 Beautiful People - Dam-Funk - MP3

MP3 Courtesy of Pitchfork Media

Tuesday Bears: Another Atlas Sounds EP

Only a month after the release of Atlas Sounds Logos LP, oft-mentioned workaholic Bradford Cox has just released another Atlas Sounds EP, compiled of tracks made during the re-working of Logos after the album was leaked last year.

The new Rough Trade EP, available via Rough Trade, features several different versions of Cox's work on Logos including an electronic version of "Criminals." The songs are more of a nice bonus addition to the aforementioned LP rather than just taking the EP in as it's own entity. Still, anything by Cox usually it's worth a listen.

Atlas Sound - Criminals (Electronic) - MP3

Monday Bears: You, me, and Weezer

Weezer, the iconic band of the 1990's the produced such enjoyable and endearing gems as their 1994 debut Weezer (The Blue Album) and 1996's emo-friendly Pinkerton, is scheduled to release their seventh studio album, entitled Raditude, November 3 via the band's longtime label Geffen.

The album, which features collaborative works from such artists as Lil' Wayne on the track "Can't Stop Partying," and Jermaine Dupri, who also helped write a few tracks.

For the select few who unabashedly adore the band for their frequent mentioned works in the 90's and 2000's Green Album, Raditude isn't so much a departure from the hallowed sounds that created "Buddy Holly" and "Susanne," but rather a stagnant continuation (or deprivation, if you will) of sounds more commonly heard from 2005's Make Believe and 2007's The Red Album.

Those aforementioned sounds fit more into a category that remains more "novelty" than iconic. Asking for earnestness from Harvard graduate lead-singer Rivers Cuomo is something entitling that what Cuomo is attempting is not earnest to him and his band mates. It is that little detail what may pain Weezer fans (past and present) the most - that the band who made such adoring, everlasting songs is not so much gone but completely carefree of what made their name so relevant.

Of course, fans will always be fans in one way or another. For every person who proclaims their illicit distaste for what Weezer has become in 17-year history, there will always be another, young or old, still standing for the band that filled their heads with the staggering, alluring sounds of "Say It Ain't So." Those fans will stand by, after future records with the same distinguished affection for the band that to many of us, are lost amid a pop-culture induced mid-life crisis.

Maybe the horribly titled Raditude will enlighten the sounds and senses that seem lost in that decade, but more likely the album will feature the songs that stir a minimal amount of imagination and ingenuity. With song titles like "The Girl Got Hot" and "Get Me Some," the latter seems to make more sense.

Weezer - (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To