WATERS

Woah so Megazord made a video for Air Waves. Pretty ballin', as usual, with weird technology ad sequences and synthetic doldrums contrasting with Nicole Schneit's ultra sincere pop.

myspace / vimeo

TOP 2010 SONGS: Max

2010: it was pretty great! I saw Inception like three times and listened to all the best music I've ever heard. Plus, Rose Quartz went to New York (SEE ABOVE) and hung out with all our new best friends. We also got to witness some of our favourite labels and bands just kill it this year: Olde English Spelling Bee, R.I.P. Society and Chapter put out a billion great records which everyone loved and bands like Street Chant, Big Troubles and way too many others did massive stadium tours of Brazil. Holla! Anyway, here's my top 10 songs of this year:

10. Wild Nothing - Live In Dreams
Gemini out through Captured Tracks // myspace

Love how relaxing this whole album is; that's not a popular adjective but it's true about Wild Nothing, all smooth and subdued like it's been lifted from the saddest '80s teen movie of all time.

9. Air Waves - Knock Out
Dungeon Dots out through Underwater Peoples // myspace

I'm a total sucker for this kind of sweetly shambolic alt-country w/ '70s Cali pop sensibility (clean bass, jangly guitars etc).

8. Royal Headache - Splash
7" out through R.I.P. Society // myspace

Frenetic, fuzzed-out pop-punk thrashers like this are what Royal Headache do best; just total odes to shit like swimming pools that feel kinda profound cos you get bamboozled by all the hooks and then you're like wha?

7. Danger Beach - Apache
Milky Way out through Dream Damage // myspace

Real "tender" instrumental surf-pop from inland Australia: maybe that's why the rolling guitars sound melancholic and the reverb'd out, faraway drums are ever so slightly askew.

6. Straight Arrows - Bad Temper
It's Happening out through Rice Is Nice // myspace

After literally years of teasing us with sporadic 7" releases, these power popsters finally dropped a (terrific) full-length record. This is my favourite from it: lo-fi but technicolour with vocal harmonies I still can't figure out after dozens of listens.

5. Deerhunter - Helicopter
Halcyon Digest out through 4AD // myspace

Maybe you didn't know, but Deerhunter put out another album this year!

4. Surf City - Crazy Rulers Of The World
Kudos out through Popfrenzy/Fire // myspace

Warm, fuzzy, completely enjoyable "surfgaze" beamed to you directly from the teenage summer you discovered Daydream Nation.

3. Hammocks and Honey - Undone
Spellbinder out through Special Award // myspace

Find of the year, for sure: this jam from Melbourne's Hammocks and Honey is beautifully, wistfully hypnotic; months after I first heard it I still can't stop listening to it.

2. Nobunny - Live It Up
First Blood out through Goner // myspace

I listened to this song exclusively for about two weeks after I first got this album, which might be because it sounds like the Ramones covering the Cars but whatever. It's totally jaunty, totally catchy, with a philosophy you can live by; winner, right?

1. Outer Limits Recordings - $20 Dollar Bill
7" out through Olde English Spelling Bee // youtube

This total 2010 h-pop classic sounds like it was recorded to a tape that had been recorded to way too many times before, but that can't hide how goofy/hilarious/catchy it is. It's a sound that's been mined before, for sure, but never as consistently well as Sam Mehran and his various projects mine it: the run of singles from Outer Limits Recordings and The Sweethearts in 2010 has been absurdly high in quality. If this was recorded in pristine hi-fidelity it'd probably be a hit; too bad, pop fans.




OTHER FAVES:
The Sweethearts - Burning Through The Nite
Big Troubles - Bite Yr Tongue
MGMT - Flash Delirium

Ducktails - Hamilton Road

Street Chant - Yr Philosophy

Boomgates - Bright Idea

Matthew Dear - Slowdance

FORT TILDEN

Air Waves - Knockout Sept 2 Better
Really enjoying these great instant-classic-style short indie pop songs from Air Waves (who I first heard about via Underwater Peoples' Winter Review), an obliquely cosy guitar pop band from Brooklyn who remind me of lots of good things in a slightly scruffy/bedheaded sort of way ie family beach days, pizza, Dunedin pop, college radio that I never actually heard. I think there's tropicalness akin to the likes of Ducktails or Real Estate imbued in these songs that is still present even with the lyrics right at the forefront and somehow avoiding hackneyed sentiments. I interviewed Nicole Schneit over at Dazed Digital about that stuff just prior to their UK tour that starts this week! Dates at Air Waves MySpace.



[Air Waves MySpace]

[Buy Air Waves EP from Insound]

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