Surfer Blood

vitaminsforyou – “Shelter (The xx Cover)”

If I haven’t made it clear over the past few weeks that I love this band, let me make it evident: I fucking love The xx. In just three weeks their self-titled debut album has become a lock for my year-end “Best Album” list, and their covers and various remixes (like this one) just add to my appreciation. So you can only the imagine alarm bells going off in my head, when I read this week that the band recently cancelled gigs because of “exhaustion”, and keyboardist-guitarist Baria Quereshi’s departure for unnamed reasons. However, the band’s tour dates with Friendly Fires are still on – and that’s good news for North American fans. To tide you over until then, here’s an (even more) spaced-out cover of “Shelter” by a gentleman whose stage name also shows a blatant disregard for proper capitalization, Toronto-based producer and musician Bryce Kushnier’s electro outfit vitaminsforyou. If you missed out on getting tickets to the December 2nd show at the Phoenix, The xx will be back in Toronto on April 20th, opening up for Hot Chip (!!!) at Kool Haus.

Hexes & Ohs – “H-H-Highschool (Hexes & Ohs Hip Hop Mix)”

Is anybody else surprised that it took this long for Hexes & Ohs to put out a remix album? The Montreal duo (and perennial Lamb favourites) of Edmund Lam and Heidi Donnelly make ridiculously catchy and hyperactive electro-pop songs, with plenty of keyboards and synths, that seem perfectly suited for remixes galore. Last week, fans of the band finally got a eight-song digital EP entitled SHARE (Remixes), which is only available on iTunes and Hexes & Ohs’ website. As their website describes it, “SHARE (Remixes) is a remix project featuring collaborations between Hexes & Ohs and seven of their admired fellow Canadians friends. They are the Bicycles, Camaromance, DT666 (aka Patrick Pentland of Sloan), Montag, OPOPO, Sloan and vitaminsforyou [see above]. Unlike typical remix albums, this one here is a two way street, Hexes & Ohs have their songs remixed and in turn remix others’ songs. The result became a sort of dialogue between the artists. It’s colorful and diverse, but unified by the common ingredient.” My favourite is the hip-hop rework of “H-H-Highschool”, a song that is pretty damn catchy to begin with, but the remix of the Sloan song is pretty nifty (and slightly unexpected) too. If you are looking for the soundtrack to your next dance party, look no further than this EP.

Wale – “Triumph”

So Wale’s official debut album just dropped, but thanks to the “magic” of Internet leaks, you could already listen to the entire album online several weeks previous. And while everyone was so quick to drool over the Lady Gaga-assisted “Chillin’”, there are plenty more hidden gems on Attention Deficit. The album features a who’s who list of producers including Cool & Dre, The Neptunes, and frequent collaborator, Mark Ronson. This is one of two songs produced by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek (the other, the possibly ironically-titled “TV in the Radio”, features K’Naan); who contributes a horn-heavy beat on this one, which perfectly suits the rapper’s jubilant lyrics. Criticize the Washington-born rapper all you like, but you can’t say he doesn’t have his charms: he has a great sense of humour (“She swallows everything like Kirby”? Hilarious!) and has plenty to say (past material has dealt with race relations, misogyny against women and intelligent commentary on the state of rap music circa the 21st century) – something that’s missing for the dreck passing as Top 40 rap these days. On “Triumph”, Wale boasts, “Cause you slumdog, and I’m the millionaire.” Not yet, but he’s getting there. This album should get the attention that Wale feels he’s been missing – what he does with it next is his move.

Juelz Santana feat. Yelawolf – “Mixin’ Up The Medicine”

Fair warning: if you thought K’Naan releasing a mixtape which featured him rapping over Bob Dylan songs was a little bit “out there”, than this song is going to probably going to be too much for you to handle. This time its Dipset-affliated, Harlem rapper Juelz Santana (white folks might recognize him from his 2005 hit single, “There It Go (The Whistle Song)”, or more recently from his guest vocals on “You Ain’t Got Nothing”, Lil Wayne’s most gangster song on The Carter III), who bites the chorus and flips the beat from the most unlikeliest of songs: Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Suffice to say, the line “Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine” takes on a whole new meaning coming out of the rapper’s mouth. Sure, Santana’s original lyrics leave something to be desired, but the way the sample is turned into a hypnotic, drug-addled groove, you can’t help but feeling like someone slipped you some of said “medicine”. Take the trip for yourself here.

Lil Wayne – “I Feel Like Dying (Flying Lotus Remix)”

And speaking of drugs…My roommate recently turned me on to Los Angeles’ Steven Ellison, an experimental multi-genre music producer, DJ, and laptop extraordinaire, who goes by the name of Flying Lotus. He also happens to be the nephew of American jazz great Alice Coltrane. FlyLo’s latest album, last year’s very-stellar Los Angeles, is a mixture of headphone-friendly psychedelia, electronic blips, and hip-hop that you might hear on an Adult Swim program. This is the second time he’s tackled a Lil Wayne track, his “Robo Tussin” remix of “A Milli” is staple in his DJing set. This time he takes the woozy “I Feel Like Dying”, a song which I have to admit isn’t my favourite that Weezy has ever done (that Auto-Tune chorus annoying as hell), and makes the rapper somehow sound like he’s on even more drugs. I’m not one to advocate recreational drug use but if you do, than you need to give this song a listen over at Flying Lotus’ MySpace here.

The Very Best feat. Kano – “Julia (Remix)”

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the next big indie music scene: Africa?!?! That’s right you read correctly, it would seem that the newest mecca of buzz-worthy artists and bands, is none other than Joseph Conrad’s so-called “dark continent” (in an semi-related note, is it weird that I actually enjoyed reading that novel?). It seems like these days you can’t click on your favourite music website and/or blog, without reading about the latest face-freshed band from Freetown or Johannesburg. I’ve already featured Jo’Burg’s BLK JKS on the Tuesday Twelve before, but this week I have two new African groups worth your time. Chances are that you’ve heard of The Very Best – Malawian-born, London-based singer Esau Mwamwaya and European production team Radioclit – before, or at least read about them on P4K. The group first came to music media’s attention with Mwamwaya’s versions (sung in his native Chichewa tongue) of “Paper Planes” and Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, which lead to a mixtape (2008’s Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are the Very Best) and this year’s debut album, Warm Heart of Africa. Warm Heart of Africa features thirteen sunny, upbeat Afro-pop tracks that also has plenty for hipsters to love – the album features vocal assistance from M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, and borrows samples from songs by Architecture In Helsinki and MJ. On this remix, British rapper Kano gives shoutouts to The Streets’ Mike Skinner, references Pretty Woman, and promises a girl, “[that] I’ll never Chris Brown you”. Funny stuff.

Desmond & The Tutus – “Kiss You On The Cheek”

Who’d have thought that a band named after a iconic activist could make music so gosh-darn catchy? It kind of makes you wonder if Nelson & The Mandelas is taken for a band name… My second African band this week is Desmond & The Tutus, a quartet that hail from the city of Pretoria, South Africa. They aren’t quite as well known as The Very Best yet, but these guys are too talented to stay a secret from North America much longer. Desmond & The Tutus want to get you up off your ass and jiving, and their saccharine-laden pop songs full of snarky digs like “Your girlfriend looks like Willy Nelson”, will do just that. “Kiss You On The Cheek” reminds me of Scottish band The View, and features the best harmonica solo you’ll hear this year not on a Bob Dylan record. Plus, you have to love a band whose mission statement says, “You will have fun or else you will die. Not because we’re going to get all offended and poke your eyes out with sharp sticks or anything but rather because you’ll be trampled to a bleeding pulp by all the happy dancers jumping around like little crazies. You’ll dance. You’ll cry. You’ll eat. You’ll touch yourself [maybe]. You’ll cut your hair. And then you’ll dance again.” Give Desmond & The Tutus a listen here and let’s hope we see them on this side of the Atlantic in the near future.

King Khan & BBQ Show – “I’ll Be Loving You”

You know who’d I love to hang with out? That King Khan dude. I can only imagine what spending a day with the Montreal-born, Berlin-raised Arish Khan would be like, but I’m guessing he would first teach me his fashion and guitar-playing secrets, followed up by jamming out with his good musician friends whom include Black Lips and GZA, and our day would end with taking magic mushrooms with BBQ Show (also known as Mark Sultan) and his manager and probably end up in jail (on second thought…). Until that day comes, I’ll have to make due with Khan and Mark “BBQ” Sultan’s new album, Invisible Girl. If you know these guys, then you know what to expect: Khan’s Little Richard-style vocals, 60s doo-wop, and straight-up psychedelic garage rock with delightful double-entendres and a message of love. Sweet album artwork too. Check out the video for the song, which features the duo playing in a demolition site, over on Pitchfork here.

Surfer Blood – “Swim (To Reach the End)”

Has the quickly approaching Canadian winter got you feeling all gloomy and down? Want to get away from it all, but the deteriorating state of the economy has left you too poor to afford your annual vacation to Cancun? Never fear, ’cause I have the band for you! Surfer Blood are five twenty-somethings from Florida – guitarist and lead singer John Paul Pitts, drummer Tyler Schwarz, guitarist Thomas Fekete, bassist Brian Black, and percussionist Marcos Marchesani – who make reverb-heavy, lo-fi garage pop tunes that sound like they were recorded in someone’s basement. Their forthcoming debut album, Astro Coast (scheduled for a January 19th release), was actually recorded in the band’s dorm room during their freshmen year at the University of Florida. And although these guys hail from West Palm Beach, singer Pitts’ Brian Wilson-esque harmonies and hooks that are reminiscent of early-Nineties Weezer, make the band sound more like they are from the West Coast than anything else. These guys had a major coming out at New York City’s CMJ Music Festival this year, and these songs should fit nicely into the iPods of fans of Japanese Motors and Japandroids (who Surfer Blood is opening for on the Vancouver duo’s upcoming American leg of their tour). So slip on a good pair of headphones, make yourself a nice tropical drink, put on this song, and let your thoughts take you to a warmer place. The shoveling can stand to wait a few more hours.

Dr. Fox’s Old Timey String Band – “Kids (MGMT Cover)”

One of MGMT’s biggest singles, covered by a banjo-fuelled Irish outfit? What kind of strange, alternate universe is this? There’s not much info to be found about this band, other than a MySpace page (on it, there’s also a version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack), and this incredibly catchy take on “Kids” that is now making the blog rounds. It shouldn’t work as a novelty cover, but it kind of does, and that’s enough. In MGMT-related news, the New York duo recently announced their new album (entitled Congratulations), will be out in early-2010. Mark that down on your calendars and get pumped.

Woodhands – “Electric Avenue (Eddy Grant Cover)”

Its hard to believe that Toronto-based label Paper Bag Records has been around for seven years. The little indie label that could started in 2002; and has been responsible for launching the careers of Broken Social Scene, Tokyo Police Club, and European acts like Denmark’s Under Byen and Swedish-Italo disco singer Sally Shapiro, among others. To help celebrate their seventh anniversary, the label has put on an EP of rare and previously unreleased covers by Paper Bag artists, which is available as a free download here. The Seven Year Itch EP includes Toronto darling Laura Barrett’s tinkling kalimba version of Beck’s “Gamma Ray”, Montreal’s Winter Gloves covering Nirvana’s grunge classic “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and Outkast’s “Behold A Lady” like you’ve never heard it before, as re-imagined by Toronto’s one-man-show Slim Twig. But the highlight here is Woodhands’ electro-pop take on “Electric Avenue” – originally sung by 80s one-hit wonder Eddy Grant – a song that perfectly suits the duo’s high-energy performances and one that has been a regular in their setlist since early summer (On a semi-related note: guys, new Woodhands album in 2010? Please?). So here’s to Paper Bag Records – can’t wait to see what the next seven years bring.

Various Artists – Indie Music Filter Presents: Hand Drawn Dracula Mixtape

While I’m on the subject of Toronto-based indie labels, there’s no way I could go without passing on mentioning this free online collection of songs from the folks over at Hand Drawn Dracula Records. The label was formed by Toronto artist/musician Casey Mejia and Holy Fuck frontman/solo artist Brian Borcherdt, and has a small-but-talented roster of artists and bands (mostly from Toronto), all of whom appear on this mixtape in some fashion. The mixtape includes songs from By Divine Right (whose debut album on HDD, Mutant Message, is scheduled to come out next month), folk-pop sweetheart Julie Fader, newest HDD signees and definitely a band to watch for Bishop Morocco, experimental trio of a dozen genres Off The International Radar, Montreal meets Halifax rock band Contrived (members of Holy Fuck and Wintersleep), and of course, Borcherdt himself, who seems to be pretty damn prolific these days (I spoke to him several weeks ago at an in-store, and he told me that a new H.F. record is on the way next year). All of these artists have played, toured and recorded together, which makes Hand Drawn Dracula feel more like an extended family rather than a Canadian record label. And though the days are getting colder, listening to these songs is like the musical equivalent of cup of hot chocolate – they make you feel warm and content inside.