So it turns out that all the BFF-ing Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne did with Miley Cyrus over the past year was actually in service of art. It’s called Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz.
I just woke up and have nothing more to say about this, other than: it sounds like Miley Cyrus backed by The Flaming Lips. Or rather, it sounds like a particularly fizzy Flaming Lips album with Cyrus on vocals. I’m only a few tracks in and it’s… not bad at all. Enjoy?
On a weekend in August of 2015, I discovered Maggot Brain. I may have been 44 years late, but I’m just now realizing the depth and power that Funkadelic were capable of.
I’ve been on a funk kick, spurred on by the incredible new Dam-Funk album, and stumbled up on the evocative cover of Maggot Brain, with a woman’s head planted in the dirt, face frozen mid-scream.
It’s deeply unnerving, an iconic image that immediately sears into the memory. It fits the music completely.
Listen yourself:
Dam-Funk has finally returned, and he’s taken funk right out of the atmosphere and into the deep reaches of space.
I know I just wrote about Stereolab, but I’m in the middle of a binge. Indulge me?
I just listened to my brand new vinyl edition of the band’s 1997 masterpiece, Dots and Loops. It reminded me that, through all the jazzy sprawl and monastic focus of the album, this dreamy pop song lingered in my mind the clearest.
I’ve been really feeling Stereolab lately. Their incredibly unique mixture of old fashioned jazzy pop, electronics, and the motorik pulse of krautrock was the reason they were one of the first bands to ever be called post-rock.
If you’ve never heard them, you’re in for a real treat. This is the 18 minute epic centerpiece of their second album, 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements.
A lot of bands ape their influences, and a few even do it successfully. Far more rare are the artists who completely breathe in the essence of what made their heroes tick, exhaling something uniquely infused with the original spirit but unfolding its own logic.
Beach House has been a solid band for years, trading in dusky dreampop that bloomed into technicolor and leaned to the pop side of that sound as the albums went on. Their new album, Depression Cherry, sounds like a confident leap into the rarefied territory of legends like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive.
This is hard to explain, but I promise that Elysia Crampton has recorded some of the most ecstatic and staggering music you’ll hear all year. There’s a deep spiritual undercurrent to her new album that elevates it far beyond mere conceptual music. This connects to my heart, my head, and my gut, rendering me speechless.
The album is only 30 minutes, but covers a galaxy of feeling that I’m feeling unprepared to describe this morning. Just listen if you want to hear something startling and beautiful.
Optimistic Underground 