This latest Weekly Roundup might be a quick one, but it's still full of great new music. Get ready to dig in.
–Seapost is Brooklyn musician Renee Maskin. She has an EP out next week (May 7) and I've been giving the single "Sailor" some major spins. Anchored by an acoustic guitar and a strong vocal performance, the song adds other layers over time and really drew me in. Sorry this is a minimalist description, but it's really a lovely track you should listen to.
-Being from Iceland and making richly emotional and evocative music makes it pretty easy to play the Sigur Ros card, but I think Ourlives should be treated of their own merit. A song like "Where is the Way?" proves that they are a band worth hearing. It's atmospheric and rocks pretty hard. Also, I love a good build and release, which is masterfully done on this one. Their Out of Place EP is now available.
-We are going to stay in Scandinavia, venturing over to Sweden and the deep ambience of ZiD. It's a long track of a more contemplative nature, but "Broken Heart" starts off the Music For Your Soul EP in an entrancing fashion. Take the time to listen to this one and forget about everything else. It's like the arctic tundra: serene, powerful, and so blank you can apply whatever mood to it that feels right.
-Listening to "Runaway" by Qualms may have produced the biggest gut reaction of all this week's songs. Crafted mainly upon slabs of synth and electronic production, there is nevertheless a glowing human essence that struck a chord in me just about immediately. The vocal interplay is engrossing and I was totally floored by the line "Anything you learned to love will one day turn it's back on you, " and its delivery. Follow the Bandcamp player to check out the Big Broken EP.
–Rah Rah will release their third album The Poet's Dead this fall and in advance of that are putting out the 7" non-album single "Little Poems" on June 12. This band includes previously featured on the dig Erin Passmore, who shares vocals with Marshall Burns here, and both of them sound awesome. This one is a grooving rocker with a lot of interesting lyrical details, many of which seem to be about bad decisions. I feel like this one would be really cool to hear live too.
-We are closing this edition of the Roundup out with my favorite new video of the week. It's for "Nightly Youths" by Mode Moderne, a Vancouver band with an EP called Strange Bruises out May 15. This is just so cool for its artistry: all hand-crafted and brought to life through stop motion. It's cool to look at, like the details of the city and the forest and how the fox and the dog (or is it a wolf?) look, but it's also a bit harrowing.