Just a few days ago PolkadotStingray uploaded another track from their new album; the song is called Surrender and in just those few days it has received over 185,000 views. The second track, Mizuho Dance, was posted on October 25th, and has collected just under 1,140,000 views to date. I am not sure if that one is part of the new album, since it was put together in honor of the Mizuho Financial Group’s Jump Project, but it was too good a tune not to share it with everyone.
New York group Phantogram played on the first of Triple-J’s Like A Version segments for 2017 this week, and they sounded sweet so I had to share them here. If you are not already watching them every week, in Like A Version a great Alt Rock band comes into the broadcast studio at Triple-J and plays two tracks, first one of their original songs, and then a cover by someone else. This time around, Phantogram played their song Cruel World, and followed it up with a cover of Radio Head’s Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. And then a studio track from them with amazing video construction, Fall in Love. Triple-J has been my favorite alternative rock radio station out of Australia since I first heard them in 2006, if you like that musical format they would be worth adding to your streaming collection.
Crimson Apple is a band from Hawaii (now based in LA) made up of 4 sisters and sometimes a friend or two, who have cranked out some excellent music. The first song is Run Along, the second is called Hello, the third is One Time, and they finish up with the track Replace This Heartbeat, all from their Hi Sessions episode. Hi Sessions brings Hawaii’s best music to the world from their studios which appear to be located most of the way up on the side of a volcano. They write their own original music, but they have also posted some great covers of One OK Rock songs which are well worth watching.
Björk’s Stonemilker is a 360 degree video that she posted around this time in 2015, ready to be played in your VR headset of choice (as previously mentioned, mine is Google Cardboard). Before it was released to You Tube it was a Museum of Modern Art installation in the VW Dome, where they set up 7 VR headset stations so museum goers could have the full experience. Now she is touring the world with the Björk Digital Exhibition, which currently includes Stonemilker and three other VR tracks from her album Vulnicura. She plans to render the other 5 pieces from that CD into VR format, and release the entire thing as the Vulnicura VR Album. Thanks to VR Scout for the heads up on this one.
The German band Guano Apes got together in 1994 and they have been creating solid rock music ever since, with the occasional break. The first track is Close To The Sun from their new album Offline, the second is 2014’s Fake, released on the same album. The final song is Sandra Nasic singing Fever, possibly from a solo project. I love that one of their several Best Of albums has the title Planet of the Apes. The band broke up in 2005, but when they got back together in 2009 they were reborn, releasing more music each year than ever before, lots of it climbing the charts, some of it making it to number 1.
Based out of Seattle, Washington, KEXP is public radio at its finest, and tonight we are featuring their presentation of The Dø. The band is percussion driven, but the percussion instruments they are playing are synthesizers controlling MIDI command strings and sample collections, which gives them a rather unique musical flavor. And with songs like Do You Really Want To Go Back In Time? you know I had to include them here. This is one of my favorite US radio stations for listening to great new music and learning about new bands from all over the world, but quite a few of them turn out to be from North America. The Dø is an excellent example of the kind of quality you can hear from this station…