El Guincho - "Bombay"

Spanish musician Pablo Díaz-Reixa (who is apparently "an expert lullaby-singer for small children throughout Spanish-speaking countries") AKA El Guincho has released an awesome/super-catchy album titled Pop Negro. 

El Guincho's music resonates with me particularly as a Spanish-speaker yet I would argue even if you don't understand a word of what he's saying, you will still enjoy it immensely, as most people I know have. There is a lot of melodic subtlety that goes into his music that I find to be awesome.

There's really nothing that you can't enjoy about the song.

That being said this music video is a totally different creative undertaking that is absolutely awesome.

First off, the video starts with El Guincho reciting what I'm pretty sure are the opening lines to Carl Sagan's Cosmos translated in Spanish.

Carl Sagan is one of my most favorite people ever, and any of you that know me personally know that I have an almost creepy fascination with Carl Sagan (but how can you blame me? The guy talks like Agent Smith from The Matrix, not to mention he is one of the coolest dudes ever)

The part that's awesome is instead of exploring the cosmos in Sagan's "Spaceship of the Imagination", Guincho sits a a grassy pasture, loads a tape into a catapult gun-like thing, and fires it into the distance as the song begins.

Love this intro.

The rest of the video is a super-eclectic collection of bits of tape. There's really no other way to describe it. Just watch it for yourself.

Logic - "Numbers"

This song is officially my new jam.

My friend linked me this video to this dude's song on YouTube and I wasn't sure what to expect. The song opens with the beat from Paramore's "Decode". If you read my previous post about Twin Atlantic, you'll know that I used to be (...and I guess still am) a Paramore fan so this caught my attention. But the song takes a turn that makes it pretty sick as a hip-hop song.

This dude has a style like Drake with the singy autotuned voice and it fits him super-well, and his lyrics are pretty edgy and ambitious, as is his flow. In this song he also claims to be independent, and if that is indeed the case it'll add to my list of favorite rappers that are independent (like Macklemore).

The music video isn't badly done either. It's shot in Chicago and has some beautiful scenes of the city in it.

Check it out.

Bonobo - "Black Sands"

I love this song. I've been listening to Bonobo for a while now and I love his music. This song is "Black Sands" (from the album Black Sands). As far as the feel of the music is concerned, the album cover really does it justice; it's somewhat melancholic at first but as the song progresses it feels more pensive and thoughtful.

I envision someone walking through the cityscape of New York, or Chicago, or maybe London, in a soft rainy haze on a dark, overcast day. I see this person walking around aimlessly with no immediate obligations thinking about life and where he, and all of us fit in it. Perhaps that was the mood the artist was in when constructing this album.

Sorry for the melodramatic description. I let myself get carried away with envisioning the scenery within which music is constructed.

 I love studying to this album, with it's smooth, melodic tones. The fact that he named himself after a cousin of the chimp throws you off a bit, but don't let that fool you, give it a listen and see what I mean..

Twin Atlantic - "Dreamember"

I just started listening to these guys. Love them.

From around '06-'09 I was  enthralled with bands like Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and anything that sounded remotely similar to them. Yet as the years went on, either the coolness of these bands in my young mind exponentially decreased or they just fell off the face of the Earth on a random hiatus (...FOB), yet Twin Atlantic has an eeriely nostalgic feel to them that I haven't felt in a while, almost exactly like how it felt to listen to these earlier bands.

I know that many people didn't fancy the emo/pop-punk/alt.rock scene as much as I did (if at all) but these guys really bring back that style of music for me without feeling super lame. If I listen to FOB now (which I do from time to time) I feel like I'm indulging in some guilty pleasure that I shouldn't even be thinking about. With Twin Atlantic it feels like they're a band I can be into without being ashamed. Maybe it's the fact that they are Scottish and the accent is cool, or maybe because their bassist doesn't say things like "if it's above the waist it's not gay".

Yep. That's probably it.