It's been a lovely weekend here in Brooklyn, I hope it's been nice everywhere else too. Here are six new songs & videos for your Sunday afternoon courtesy of the latest Weekly Roundup.
–BRONCHO is an Oklahoma band in the midst of a national tour, and I'm betting their live shows are raucous affairs. I've been digging the frenetic blast of single "Try Me Out Sometime" very much. I like how the vocals plead for attention with an urgency that seems to prevent full thoughts from forming, yet there's an undercurrent of confidence that the singer will be just fine regardless. The rest of the band lays down some fine garage pop. BRONCHO will be playing in NYC tomorrow and Tuesday.
BRONCHO – Try Me Out Sometime
-Onto another all-caps band, NYC's SKATERS. This band has a debut EP out called Schemers and they just made a video for the title track. It's meant to evoke a 1980's bad acid trip and it certainly is a little bit unsettling. There is some cool art made to craft the space itself – large wall paintings, a miniature city – which mixes with images that fuse violence and sexuality to give the video its more nightmarish vibes. But all that really takes a backseat to the utterly amazing song itself. The verses crest into a spiky, jubilant chorus. A very diggable tune.
-This week seems heavy on energetic, psych/garage jams that pulse and crackle but still have a good sense of song craft. First, BRONCHO, then SKATERS, now we have Tiger High. None of the bands sound exactly the same, yet they all are doing something similarly exciting. Tiger High is from Memphis and have recently released their debut Myth Is This. The single "Don't Want To See You Til You Go" is hard to listen to just once. It's like a roller coaster that you want to get right back on after riding.
-Take a moment to catch your breath with the German duo Me and My Drummer. Well, the song "You're A Runner" may be more sparse, contemplative and electronic-based, but it certainly has its own dynamism and in fact will likely take your breath away if you listen closely to the lyrics. It's a powerful look at someone on the edge, and while it certainly begins by acknowledging a bleak situation, it seems to find some catharsis and perhaps even a measure of hope. Not a bad introduction to a cool new act.
–Two People Playing Music (or 2PPM) certainly are an appropriately named band. This Florida duo has a delightful instrumental track called "Beehive." It's hard to describe exactly what the song sounds like or know where to place it within a style or genre, but I believe with band's name doing such things is beside the point. It seems meant to be treated on its own terms as a creative work that emerged from this specific partnership. It's a lovely soundscape to immerse one's self in, so I hope you'll take a few minutes to do so.
-Australian rapper Drapht is readying his latest album The Life of Riley for US release and has put a video for "Rapunzel" that's highly diggable. It's an animated clip that illustrates most of the lyrics of the song, which is about a relationship that's not working out. The use of the title character is neat, for how it takes "let your hair down" in a metaphorical sense to symbolize the narrator's exhaustion and frustration. There are a lot of funny rhymes, and the track itself is very catchy musically with a vintage 60s pop sound. I don't know a lot about Australian hip-hop, but this has definitely made me curious to hear more.