Featured over at Gorilla vs. Bear, "Water Damage," the new cut from Dick Diver's upcoming Calender Days LP, is a startlingly pleasant take in the mold of Real Estate. Stream/download the track below, and grab the Australian band's LP will be released some time this March via Chapter Music.
Ducktails, the side-project headed by Real Estate member Matt Mondanile, just released this gorgeous new single "Letter Of Intent." The track features the help from some familiar names, including Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) and Joel Ford, whom you may recall was his partner on Ford & Lopatin. Additionally, Jessa Farkas provides some heart-warming vocals.
Check the track out below, and grab Ducktails' new album The Flower Lane January 29, via Domino Records.
As usual with Pitchfork Music Festival, a large amount of late-adds have been etched onto the July 13-15 billing. Included with the previously mentioned big names of Vampire Weekend, Feist, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Hot Chip are a solid class of additions, which are:
Wild Flag, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Beach House, Real Estate, Dirty Projectors, Atlas Sound, Big K.R.I.T., Nicolas Jaar, Cults, Chavez, Oneohtrix Point Never, Youth Lagoon, King Krule, Dirty Beaches, Lotus Plaza, Lower Dens, Milk Music, The Psychic Paramount, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Outer Minds, and A Lull.
Familiar with Bears and Bullets and summer music festivals? Well, if you aren't, whatever acts play Pitchfork Music Festival cannot play Lollapalooza. That being said, while there are a few very solid acts I'd like to be able to see (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Atlas Sound, among others), the lineup doesn't take too much away from what Lollapalooza could end up being - which, by the way, will be revealed at midnight, Tuesday. Stay tuned for that.
Three-day passes for Pitchfork Music Festival are sold out, but single day tickets are still available. Check which acts are playing which days here.
Real Estate's "Easy," which will be released as a 7" April 10th, features "Exactly Nothing," a new B-Side cut not featured on the band's last fantastic album Days. You can listen to the stream below and grab the digital download of the single today.
A couple days ago, Pitchfork released a video featuring Real Estate playing at, yep, a mega-sized Chinese buffet in Queens eating and playing songs from their recent album Days. I haven't done this myself, but this seems like an amazing idea, tacky or whatever. Watch below.
We''ll continue our countdown today with songs #20 through #16.
#20: Rustie - Ultra Thizz Glass Swords, Scottish producer Rustie's first full-length debut, is full of songs like "Ultra Thizz," which takes a smart man's look in between dubstep and electro pop. In that regard, however, it rarely sounds like either of those genre's take collective footing in Rustie's underrated technique. "Ultra Thizz" simply does what Glass Swords does best; putting together recognizable pieces into something completely different.
#19: Real Estate - It's Real There's nothing demonstratively complex about "It's Real," Real Estate's most endearing and memorable take to date. The band sounds, if anything, lush here, breezing through soft guitar and "Ohh" choruses, it makes the more unnecessarily produced tracks of the year seem somewhat preposterous in comparison, taking a page from Kurt Vile's book. There's nothing a song needs sometimes than a memorable hook, solid timing, and the ability to take itself less seriously.
#18: The Weeknd - The Knowing The finale to The Weeknd's pretty fucking good debut House of Balloons, "The Knowing" is Abel Tesfaye's six-minute epic to clearly being cheated on. For all of memorable moments on House of Balloons, or even Thursday or Echoes of Silence, the two follow-up albums, none are nearly as personal or as easily to relate to as "The Knowing." But there's nothing tedious or petty that comes through, regardless of however Tesfaye really dealt with it.
#17: Bon Iver - Perth Bon Iver's emphatic opener, "Perth" sets the unreal pace for the rest of the album that, for the most part, does its best to match it. Justin Vernon and the rest of Bon Iver sound deceivingly huge, backed by multiple drums, horns, and a rhythm section, but still manage to keep the quiet allure of the group and Vernon's intimate vocal style close at hand. It speaks volume for the rest of the album, the band keeping itself in tact with its large world sensibilities and small world sounds.
#16: Mastodon - Spectrelight The Hunter, Mastodon's latest effort, wasn't what most fans wanted from the group. The idea of the Atlanta metal band becoming too radio-friendly can't be good for their image, regardless of whether that notion has any true merit. Maybe songs like "Curl of the Burl" were a bit too soft for the Leviathan fans at heart, but "Spectrelight" sounds like prime Mastodon any way you shape it. The song burst through the opening like every crash of thunder cliche you can call it, drums and guitar roaring, almost unstoppable, making you forget any of the album's lighter moments.
We'll continue today with our top 25 countdown with albums #20 through #16.
#20: Tom Waits - Bad As Me If I told you that Bad As Me starts off like a "roaring train," you'd have every right to disregard whatever I have to say about it. Of course it sounds like a train - it's Tom Waits; the man who in his decades of work has become a physical manifestation of a midnight train and a misty back alley. From "Chicago" to "Hell Broke Luce," Bad As Me sounds in every way like Waits' machination: gritty, plunging yelps pacing an industrial pounce, making you wonder if the world is much worse than you ever thought.
#19: Big K.R.I.T. - Return of 4Eva Justin Scott, the 25-year-old Mississippi rapper, hasn't totally made it. Building a reputation on free mixtapes, an all-the-more common internet era version of handing out your demo on the corner, Big K.R.I.T.'s biggest moments on Return of 4Eva skip the southern-rap regularity and shine through pitch-perfect sampling (also done by Scott). That being said, "Country Shit" with Ludacris is all too fun to ignore. There's a future here.
#18: Radiohead - The King of Limbs There's a well-documented subsequent frustration with The King of Limbs. In all, it's hard to say it stacks up well against any of the landmark records the band has put out since their emergence with The Bends in 1995. Going back 16 years on a band that has become crowned the kings of the current era was certainly confounding for some who expect nothing less than titular perfection from the band of evolving (and aging) perfectionists. But for all its retractions (mull vocal styling, length, etc.), Radiohead have yet again pushed through something that doesn't totally replicate anything from their previous years. And once you get yourself past the fact that it's not an awe-inspiring mountain of perfection, there's definite value that goes over head.
#17: The Roots - Undun The latest entrant in the list, The Roots have to be forgiven for what could be called a "tired" pass. Undun, the (almost) concept album of the morally righteous criminal drafted into a world where he doesn't want to belong. You have to forgive it because much like the rest of what the Philadelphia band has crafted since in the late 90s, it comes out too beautifully, too resonating. And those moments come collectively crashing with the band's final movement; a four-song lashing that makes you wonder if there's something more that The Roots can do.
#16: Real Estate - Days Days lingers. It comes off like an entrapped memory long distant in those teenage years - the forgetful moments where no one says a word because no one knows what to say. It's a lot to say from Real Estate, who may not come across as anything more than another member of the new class of indie bands worth your attention. The details of Days are hardly profound, but that's part of the backwards endearment. Call it toned-down fuzz rock for anyone who isn't apt to a predictable title, but it's still one of the finer products of 2011.
We'll continue our countdown tomorrow with albums #15-#11 ...
Like we started last month, here's how I rank the best albums for the month of October.
3. Real Estate - Days
Since 2009, with the Ridgewood, NJ band's self-titled debut, Real Estate seemed destined for Pitchfork-aura supremacy. With Days, an intrepid trek through the crew's soft lo-fi exteriors, Real Estate confirm they were never a group for the truly visceral at heart. There is, instead, a truly multi-layered scope to the songs, like in the eerily accurate "Wonder Years," with its patterning guitars and soft lulls transgressing seamlessly into the next track - a clever pattern you don't even need 10 songs to notice.
2. Tom Waits - Bad As Me Tom Waits is in an invincible pantheon. Everything he touches turns into dirty Zatarains gold. With Bad As Me, Waits' first true studio album since 2004's Real Gone, Waits new work is a snarling, spit-stomping (an idea that only exists in Waits World, the most depressing theme park in town) anthem wedged in between the dreary soul four decades into his storied career. There are very, very few, if any, that can touch the level of poetic drag, again and again, that Waits so easily sneers at.
1. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
In some ways, M83 was due. It's not as if Anthony Gonzalez's previous efforts weren't good - they were, very good in fact. But Hurry Up, We're Dreaming had a varying degree of hype surrounding it after Gonzalez three-year in between period. And with everyone's first listen to "Midnight City," the double-album accrued an even higher potential appeal. And what we have is a daunting, 74-minute slow climb of M83-esque haunting beauty immersed in the soft, ethereal atmosphere that was, in a way, expected. Going through each side it's easy so see, for me at least, why it's #1 for October.
Real Estate's new album Days was released today, and to celebrate the litany of positive reviews, check out this old New Jersey backyard rendition of the band on Tunnelvision (via Chocolate Bobka). Enjoy.
The newest track from New Jersey band Real Estate, "Green Aisles," from the group's next LP Days (out next month via Domino Records), drips through nostalgic causeways, as the band has so cued in on. Listen below.
Apologies for the long, unregulated break(s) that I went on last Thursday and Friday. As I usually do with my short-winded apologies, I'd like to just sever all memories from that time period and continue as I normally would, without any regard to my lazy lack of offerings.
Real Estate, a New Jersey band slowly making a name for themselves amongst the swirling new crop of acts like Best Coast and and Smith Westerns that have no directly discernible genre to plug them in to.
The video for their single "Black Lake" is not so much an actual music video, assuming the band has not yet reached that portion of their career. The group performed in front of the Tunnelvision crowd (presented by Chocolate Bobka), sponsored by Underwater Peoples and Twosyllable Records.
