groove

Best of the Rest #11 – It’s a Twofer!! (AKA I Have Commitment Issues)

~ kbo27

Chet Faker – Gold

Chet Faker – Blush

soundcloud.com/chet-faker

Sometimes you can’t just pick one. If you are me, that’s most of them time. Heck, that’s why I post 5 songs a week instead of my one favourite song. Now…I’m notoriously a singles dude. I just don’t seem to get into albums. There are very few artists on my playlist who have multiple tracks. Chet Faker is one of the major exceptions. I could have picked upwards of 6-7 songs to feature on a BOTR post. However, there are two that stand above the rest for me. Gold is the easy-listener. It’s the track I’d show to a friend if I was trying to convince them to come to Chet’s show with me. It’s radio-friendly. But above all, it’s downright groovy. It makes you sway and fills you with confidence and swagger.

Blush is a bit more on the experimental side. It takes a bit to really get going. It lulls you in for a while with repetition… but then it let’s loose and Chet’s killer vocals shine through. I’ve seen Chet Faker live twice now, and he is up there at the top of my “must sees” list. He blows me away every time, and is one of the few artists I’ve seen who can not only deviate from the album version of a track and just wing it live… but actually somehow make the track better than the recorded version. A very close honourable mention is the cover of No Diggity, which is probably the best track I’ve ever seen performed live (by any artist). I saw it in some tiny little club in Vancouver, but for the 4-10 minutes he covered that song (again, he deviated heavily from the studio version), I felt like I was the coolest person the planet in some super swanky NYC nightclub. It was mesmerizing.

Songs of the Week 25: August 30 – September 5

~ kbo27

ryder#5. Ryder – Pretty Little Gangster

soundcloud.com/thisisryder

The debut (I think? remember, I’m lazy…) from Ryder is an easy-on-the-ears pop track with an electro bent. Based on the strength of this debut I expect we’ll see a lot more from Ryder in the future.

skies#4. SKIES – Too Young

soundcloud.com/skiesaus

There’s a sound that Too Young has – which is prominent in a lot of music I like – but I just can’t put my finger on what exactly it is. Maybe it’s something borne out of their Aussie background (as I tend to like a lot of acts that are coming out of Australia)? Maybe it’s the catchy hooks and poppy-RnB groove? Maybe it’s that falsetto?! Yes, definitely it’s that falsetto.

noreenpure#3. RÜFÜS – You Were Right (Nora En Pure Remix)

soundcloud.com/noraenpure // soundcloud.com/rufussounds

I shocked myself when I dug through my post history to find out that I never posted You Were Right by RÜFÜS. It may be one of those songs that I didn’t really like on first listen and grew on me with time. Regardless, the song gets it’s due now, albeit in the form of a killer remix by Nora En Pure. She’s been on a tear with some amazing remixes, and gives this track a nice tropical vibe. (Don’t forget to check out the original, since I wasn’t hip enough to post it the first time around)

foals#2. Foals – London Thunder

soundcloud.com/foals

I love me some Foals. This past week (or perhaps the week before) they released their newest album What Went Down, which is well worth a listen. I rarely like full albums (I’m more of a singles-type guy), so the fact that I give a call out to a full album carries some weight (if you happen to even remotely respect my musical opinion). While I loved the whole album, my favorite track (by a mile) is London Thunder. It’s one of those “floater” songs that just … well… floats. I also expect that it’d be an absolutely killer track live.

aviddancer#1. Avid Dancer – I Feel It

soundcloud.com/avid-dancer

OK, get your head out of the gutter. Those are fingers in the wall. FINGERS.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, it’s time for some surf rock! Or at least what I’d lump into surf rock. Usually a song will win my “favourite song of the week” honours by being catchy, and Avid Dancer’s I Feel It is no exception. I mean, how can you not belt out “yeaaah” with him every time the chorus comes around? Also… DAT FADE OUT at the end. Man, no one fade’s out anymore. It’s the best.