Music For Your Summer

     Summer. Time to Brillo pad the vinyl lawn chairs and let the euphoric return Vitamin D to your bloodstream dictate the boom from your box. Of Montreal? Hot Chip? The Rapture? Only if you have them on cassette, cuz you OLD SkOOL! Here are five "Kite Approved!" albums for your summer consumption. Lets indulge: 

Studio: Yearbook 1

     “Have a great summer!” “It was fun having you in science class.” “Call me sometime!” Far from a highlight reel of empty sentiment, Yearbook 1 makes true on all its well wishing. Swedes Dan Lissvik & Rasmus Hägg craft long playing pop grooves, which never dip into indulgent hooks or anthem chorus like a particular sandwich-named cross-section of their countrymen. With a mean song length of 7 minutes, Studio synch reverb laden dub sections with a Lindstrom-esque space disco progression. The result is thrillingly mellow: just the right mood for really enjoying doing not much.

Kavinsky: Dead Cruiser

     Kavinsky, an extremely cool dude, crashed his Ferrari Testarossa in 1986, and was declared DOA by the Los Angeles (or some So-Cal city) general hospital. After an arcane revival in the morgue, zombie Kavinsky took a cab to the county impound and retrieved his iconic Italian sports car. Reunited with his ride, Kavinsky now cruises the streets fulfilling the terms of his resurrection: to be cool, and to be from the 80’s.

     Nostalgic to the point of kitsch, Kavinsky (artist and character) has no intention of existing in an artistic realm outside style. Drawing from Italo-Disco, John Carpenter soundtracks, videogames, and (obviously) Miami Vice style noir, Dead Cruiser is a fully realized electro fantasy world for our electric/hybrid/smart car society. Even if you aren’t struck by it initially, take a nighttime trip down Aurora or 15^th Ave and you will be.

Kocky: Kingdom Came

     When Europeans do Rap it’s spelled F.U.N.  Somewhere over the vast, dissonant space of the Atlantic, rap loses its legitimizing social qualities and becomes a vessel of pure form.  I use this phenomenon to explain why people like Uffie, and Kocky, a white Swede with a Samurai ponytail, can write tracks like “Pop the Glock,” and “Kocky is like” (with chorus, “smoking crack”) and still maintain some amount of cred.

     Whatever weather pattern or Bermuda-triangle-related mishap is responsible, Euro Hip-Hop has lots of space to do some very non-legit things. On the more enjoyable end of things lies Kocky’s Kingdom Came. A part of his self declared “Rapclash” (L) genre, Kocky blends Euro friendly electronics with soft-core rapping into a potpourri suitable for iPod dance mixes and bumpin’ in your Echo. Guest singers include crooner Jens Lekman (whose appearance on “Be Part of it All,” is a highlight), pop singer Rosanna, and the three black people in Sweden.

Black Moth Super Rainbow: Dandelion Gum

     Psychology tells us there is no such thing as a random word association. There are always subconscious through lines that provide a causal backdrop to what we might describe as ‘Random.’ For example: if I say “Pancake” and you say “Delectable,” it probably means you want to kill, have sex with, then eat your superego. Lets try it with the title and artist of this record!

Black: A shade of hue. In European culture, black is associated with impurity or deviation. In other cultures: maybe, maybe not.

Moth: An organic, almost folksy symbol. Generally associated with wooded areas, wool clothing, and as an antithesis to butterflies.

Super: An abundance of everything awesome. When teamed with “rainbow” it might lead to an over abundance.

Rainbow: A symbol of idyllic, or fantastical conditions. Rainbows are often linked with the science of light, and childhood learning.

Dandelion: Highlights the conflict between the eternal beauty of the pastoral and the progression of human development. While the prevalence of dandelions means the arrival of warm weather, they are also an invasive species that diffused across the world with European settlers. Can invade even the most cultivated lawn. [see also Moth]

Gum: A tasty diversion popular among youth. Can ‘Bubble’ and ‘Pop.’

Very enlightening.

Jana Hunter: There’s No Home.

     Time to clean up after the BBQ. Cover the last quarter of watermelon in plastic wrap, mine sweep for crushed PBR cans on the lawn, and retire to the back porch with the few, lingering guests. You don’t mind if they smoke; it’s nice the way the lit cigarettes glow on their faces. Inside the house, next to the cutting board and clipped carrot ends, There’s No Home plays on the table top CD player you’ve had since high school. Audible like the neighborhood park is audible: the music attends to the mood, and never fills attention.

     When the last guest ushers down the front steps making a final acknowledgement of your hospitality, the front door is shut. Passing back through the kitchen, Jana Hunter sings “My God/my own God/I’m tired/I’m so tired/of being around,” over slow acoustic arpeggios. You throw what dishes are stashed about the kitchen in the sink, take out the recycling, and flick the CD player off as you head for bed. As your liver gurgles a thoughtful resolution to the beef gristle and beer, sleep quietly steps in.

Seefeel: Quique (redux)

     Too Pure could not have chosen a better time to reissue Seefeel’s mostly forgotten Quique. As the critical success of The Field, Panda Bear, and Pole albums will attest, people are starting to come around to long playing minimalism. No longer a genre for Reich/Eno/Cage nerds, minimalism has come into a new popularity by emphasizing a sort of sonic clarity. Garnering adjectives like “essential” and “idyllic,” neo-minimalism (or whatever) provides a thoughtful space for our attention shifting, media addicted lives.

     Over what was essentially a fourteen-year gestation period, Quique more off putting experimental qualities have gained new appreciation. In ’93, when shoegaze was all but dead, and the more complex IDM style electronic music had begun to hit its stride, nobody was interested in spacey ambience. Now the slow arcing progression of tracks like “Charlotte’s Mouth,” and “Imperial,” seem like the long lost blue print for modern dub and micro-house. In addition to its aesthetic vintage, Quique now comes bundled a second disc with additional track versions, singles from EPs/compilations, and unreleased tracks, including the shamefully forgotten “Clique.”

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