Music Meet-n-Greet!! "Pastoral Hipster" meets "Cloud Rap"

LET'S CHECK OUT SOME PASTORAL HIPSTER SONGS!
(and it's pastoral as in pasture, not as in religious)


Yellow Ostrich
I read a review for their music which coined the phrase "pastoral hipster" which is in itself a pretty cool term and can describe the music of this trio, who have a multi-instrument member and their singer does some neat stuff with vocal looping so it sounds like a larger group.  I heard them first on KEXP's Music That Matters Podcast, in "John's Awesome Mix Tape." The song Marathon Runner has not left my head since.  While the guitar drives the tune, a deeper listen reveals some amazing lyrics that are so applicable to where most mid-20s folks and just people in general might be in their lives right now.

Marathon Runner off of the recently released Strange Land

(If this gets so wonderfully stuck in your head and heart as it is in mine, they offer a free download of the song from their website mylegsaresore.com)

Speaking of heads and hearts, that's a direct and not at all contrived segue into the next musical group: The Head and the Heart.

The Head and the Heart

This band has been highlighted by many different sources, so Imma add myself to that list. It's just a matter of time before they hit it big, they have a sound you expect to hear in the background of some rom-com or smaller indie film. and the shifts in the song Sounds Like Hallelujah are creative and done well to really tell a story. 

Sounds Like Hallelujah, from the 2010 self-titled album

The Lumineers
Hailing from Colorado (I know a couple of awesome things that have come out of Colorado), this band is poised again to have some great mainstream appeal. And they also have enough fun making their music that they should thrive under the opportunities that come with recognition.

Ho Hey, from their self-titles debut out on April 3, 2012.  I want someone to sing this song to! I want to just be cool enough to be in this band, are they holding auditions?

Matt Corby
A FANTASTICALLY AMAZING solo artist out of Australia.  Apparently a couple years ago as a teenager he was the runner up in Australian Idol, and "losing" was probably one of the best things that could've happened for him, his music, and us listeners.  He had time to cultivate his own music/personality/unique point of view and has emerged with some wonderful songs of folksy introspection (not to mention his skill on an acoustic guitar!) If only I could've seen him live in in LA or NY last week (not complaining cause I did have another mind-blowing concert experience, read about it here)!

My False, off of his Into the Flame EP

Brother, this was the #3 song off of Triple J's Hottest 100 (it recently displaced Gotye's Save Me as my ringtone)

Imagine Dragons

I discovered this band off of the wonderful website (youmeandcharlie.com) run by Dianna Agron of Glee fame.  She is so incredibly artistic and open minded it is kind of crazy how different she is from Quinn, the character she plays on the show.  Anyways, there is a section of the site called Yo!DJ that is a must to at least check out some great artists.

It's Time, performed live. And while it doesn't necessarily match the genre, their song Tokyo is FANTASTIC! I want to go back in time and be in the music video for it.  Search it and you'll see why!

AND NOW PRESENTING "CLOUD RAP"
(Kudos to those who've made it this far)
"Cloud Rap" refers to an emerging trend to compose and rap over "ambient or glo-fi washes" or a type of a mash-up of rap and indierock, the blog Space Age Hustle coined the term. 


LushLife
Yet another KEXP Podcast find, you can find it on the Music That Matters Podcast as well as the Song of the Day Podcast (I think it was mid-February it came out). My goodness! How dope is this, right?!? And how much did you cringe to hear me use the word "dope"?

Teenage Dream off of No More Golden Days

Emancipator

The artist I know the least about but he is apparently a big name in the semi-newly dubbed genre of cloud rap.  I'm a sucker for anything Sigor Ros (YouTube videos of their songs accompanying Planet Earth clips are a finals-break favorite of mine), so this mash up drew me in instantly

Shook (Sigur Ros X Mobb Deep), Emancipator made this song available for a free download on his bandcamp)

LAST SONG: Not Cloud Rap but a pretty cool collaboration

I dig the hip-hop meets mod vibe of 360's Boys like you feat. Gossling, he provides the beat, she provides the hook in a sing-song wispy lost-innocence sort of way.

Boys Like You 360 feat. Gossling (and Gossling herself has some FANTASTIC stuff out there too, I just felt like no one would really even get this far or further so I had to end this post some time)...


Next up: Dance Party Hits for the Non-Top-40-Crowd! I had to blog about Tokyo somehow =)

"State of the Art" is an Understatement: GOTYE & KIMBRA IN CONCERT!

 

Kimbra joining Gotye for "Somebody That I Used to Know"

"Come into My Head" and "Save Me" cause I might need to "Settle Down" after seeing this "State of the Art" concert with my "Eyes Wide Open", my "Heart's a Mess" with joy and there's no "Easy Way Out"! Gotye and Kimbra, "Thanks for Your Time"! We arrived full of "Good Intent,"  to bask "In Your Light" for just awhile, and we got something way more exciting than a "Bronte" novel.  You see, between us "Love is a Two Way Street" all the way from Kimbra's shimmy-shaking "Limbo" moves and "Cameo Lover" appearance on "Somebody That I Used to Know" to Gotye imploring us to "Learnalilgivinanlovin." "The Only Way" it could have been better was if you had come out to meet us fans after the show (or if you played "The Only Thing I Know," or just more songs)!

Me and my two AWESOME sisters before the concert. 

So I have been looking forward to this concert since an e-mail conversation July 7-10, 2011 WITH GOTYE HIMSELF!  I had just discovered "Somebody That I Used To Know," and bought a copy ASAP from the website.  Unfortunately since I use my older laptop for all my music (this new one is strictly Law School and Photos, I want as little chance of a crash as possible, so far so good), I had issues downloading the song and just so I could stop streaming it online on REPEAT(REPEATREPEAT!) I e-mailed the person in charge of orders. Got a great and quick response, (considering this person was halfway around the world), and after figuring out the issue, this person went out of their way and made sure I got the song, problem solved.

Then I realized that I had no idea how to buy the CD when it would be released August 19, 2011 in Australia so I sent another email a couple days later.  Imagine my shock and complete freeze-up/freak-out when I received this response:

Hi Julia

Thought I'd just answer myself, you can get the my direct experience :)

...

Thanks very much for your support and interest. Where in the States do you live? I hope I'll see you there sometime soon
Looking like I'll be doing some small shows in LA and NY around October

Cheerio

Wally 

I composed myself the best I could and sent out some semi-coherent string of words basically trying to convey how AWESOMELY STAR-STRUCK I WAS without seeming star-struck and being really gracious and praising while staying cool about it (I think it took a good hour before I hit send).  His response the fact I lived in Virginia, and asked him to come to DC was as follows:

Cheers Julia *(I seriously think I swooned at this)

Hope to see Virginia sometime, maybe 2012 is the year! But yes, keep your eye out for NY date and perhaps see you there first

Thanks again for your interest
Wally 

I spent the next few months listening to Making Mirrors, developing my Rock-Opera using the tracks from Like Drawing Blood, following @Gotye, @Kimbramusic, and @timshiel (Gotye's band member) on Twitter and SoundCloud, hyping "Somebody That I Used to Know" on Facebook, and trolling his website for show announcements (Not a creeper, just a super-fan).  Indeed 2012 was the year and as soon as tickets opened mid-December for this date, I dropped everything, got my sisters on board and bought the tickets!  And then couldn't stop smiling FOREVER!

Through this time, I also became a big fan of Kimbra and her music, the way that girl just feels the music and just let's her emotion and spill out her whole body while belting those lyrics is inspirational.  When she announced she would be joining the tour in DC, I probably got another cramp in my jaw from smiling too much.

So my sisters agreed they liked the music and were pumped to go.  I drove up from Richmond and we headed into DC for the concert.  They were awesome-sauce and promised to wait up to 90 minutes after the show so I could try to get an autograph (even though I already had the signed version of the album).  So now here's what you really came for, the concert recap:

Kimbra was a bubbly, bellowing, ball of FANTASTIC frenetic energy!  Not to forget, that girl can SING!  She played her better-known songs as well as 2 I hadn't heard before, never stopping her swirly, spastic, animated dancing.

Kimbra takes the stage to sing "Cameo Lover", her band was TIGHT! Also, check out the drummer's hair, early-90s-SWAGtastic! 

She moves like nothing else, drastically-spastically-WONDERFUL! 

Kimbra and I are BEST FRIENDS, see she took a picture with me! 

I think she might've bruised her arm with how hard she was shaking that tambourine!

Gotye takes the stage to "Eyes Wide Open"

Playing that synthesizer-sampler-button-thing, whatever it's called

Easy Way Out

Let's just pretend that microphone is my face? K, thanks (just kidding (not really!))

Wally got some dance moves too!

Jammin' to "Save Me" He actually got the audience to help sing the "yeah-ee-yeah-ehhhs," and it sounded pretty awesome.  You can catch my amateur tribute to it here

No, really, Thanks for Your Time!

 "Now and then I think of" how GREAT THIS WAS!

Unfortunately, even after skillfully and somewhat forcefully worded request that the audience quiet down for the sad, slow, soft "Bronte"; there were enough people there who seemed to only care to see the song that is an internet sensation, and not at all for enjoying the music (I'm talking to you, stupid drunk girls behind us).  Rather abruptly, Gotye bid us "Cheers" and adieu and left... 

Luckily he came back for a three-song encore!

Sing it, bruthah!

Too excited to even care that I look like a cheezing dweeb, but seriously though it was awesome!

Learnalilgivinanlovin!!!!!!

Look it's Michele and P-Dunc...  we met up after the show and briefly thought of trying to pass him off as Gotye's cousin to get on the bus (apparently he caused a few double-takes before Gotye went onstage)...

This is Ben, he plays the guitar, the electric mandolin, and the "steel-stringed-lap-guitar," I saw him outside the bus and decided we would be friends.  We bonded over a mutual love of mandolins, Appalachia, and the fact that I caught him searching his suitcase for clean undies...

Unfortunately, we also learned from Ben, after waiting with my sharpie and poster and two very tired sisters who had to work the next day and were troopers about my obsession  love for this Belgian-Aussie's music, that Wally took a nap after the show, and had yet to awaken.  It was the only disappointment of an otherwise perfect day!