Bandcamp Picks of the Week 1/4/16
Bandcamp Picks of the Week is back with a brand new bag.
In Love With a Ghost – LET’S GO
Genre: Chillwave
Favorite Tracks: “we’ve never met but, can we have a coffee or something,” “flowers (featuring nori)”
D’aww. With Southern California’s recent, quite literal chillwave, it finally feels like the winter we’ve always heard about. As such, releases such as LET’S GO are just the ticket for quiet seasonal contemplation. Although it doesn’t quite have its own genre tag just yet, there is a unique brand of Japanese ambient that features beautiful, melancholic melodies almost exclusively played on the piano. In Love With a Ghost has clearly done their SoundCloud and anime soundtrack digging, as that sound appears in spades here, but with a poppy electronica touch a la local Los Angeles producers such as Meishi Smile and Spazzkid. It’s just a lil’ four-track EP, but it’s accessible, easy to repeat, and will charm the pants off of you if you’ll just open up your cold, dead heart. Like staring out the window for hours, wishing you were somewhere far, far away with someone you love. You can listen to it here. [Thomas Seraydarian]
Moon Loves Honey – APART
Genre: Dream Rock, Shoegaze
Favorite Tracks: “Tell Me More Of Your Lies”, “Balloon”, “Start Over Again”, “Quiet Goodbye”
If you strip away the politics that pervade the music industry and focus solely on the artistic merit of music, you end up in a world where bands like Moon Loves Honey are headlining major festivals. Despite being faced with the challenge of making a name for themselves in an industry where few are willing to listen, Moon Loves Honey rewards those that are. Many artists find it necessary to appeal to a wide audience by emulating the types of music that already exist in order to gain an audience, but Moon Loves Honey boldly blazes their own reverb-drenched trail on their debut EP, APART. Although only six tracks long, Moon Loves Honey displays a level of depth and detail that many artists fail to even on full releases that are backed by a major label. To put it succinctly, no amount of money can trump pure creativity and talent. They are able to channel driving psychedelic energy in songs like “Tell Me More Of Your Lies” and “Start all Over Again,” but also build and release tension in slow burning shoegaze tracks like “Balloon,” “My Friends,” and “Nothing Will Change” (each of which last over seven minutes). While these tracks display signs of influence from musical titans such as Beach House, Tame Impala, and Washed Out, the pieces are so refreshingly original that one can only think that the aforementioned acts would be paranoid that Moon Loves Honey are coming to dethrone them. Patience is a virtue that, in music, can either grow boring and dull, or develop in exploratory and hypnotizing ways. Moon Loves Honey’s APART is a textbook example of the latter, which is impressive considering that it’s the band’s debut release. With that in mind, I am ecstatic knowing that its members are currently busy recording and mixing their follow-up LP to APART. I anticipate that they will soon reach their deserved level of stardom. You can listen to APART here. [Daniel Cole]
