Review: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Let it Sway

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Let it Sway

7.8/10

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin creates tantric pop. They are able to identify that climactic moment in a pop song, that fleeting micro-second that saves pop music from the over saturation by the Biebers in the world. Upon identifying it, though, they exploit it. They dissect that one instant into minutes. Stretching it out over repeating riffs and building handclaps they let us experience that perfect moment for longer than we ought to. And it feels pretty good. 

Let it Sway is the third release from Springfield, MO pop quartet Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. They recruited heavy-weight Chris Walla (of Death Cab For Cutie) to help with the production and mixing, and though Walla's influence is definitely noticeable in the album's aesthetic, the arrangements of the tracks shows a return to the patience that gave Broom, the band's first release, its rich texture.

How Kanye West Broke the Internets

Did you know that Kanye West likes this chair? Or that his shoes are Dries? Or that he thinks you should keep good friends around? What about that he needs a flight to Brazil as soon as possible? How about that Skal means 'toast' in Swedish?

This collection of random-synapse-firing-manifest-in-text are extracted from Kanye West’s newly established Twitter feed. They all came within a 12 hour time frame, some only seconds after the other, and are only a small sample of his general activity. What’s most surprising here, though, is that it took so long for this union to develop.

Twitter is a platform for people who like to see their imaginary audiences come to life. Kanye West is a person whose imaginary audience is so endless, so grandeur, that platinum records, arenas filled with fans, and the mishap-hungry media outlets aren’t enough to sate his desire to be paid attention to. So, he turns to the only other place where people are willing to listen- all day long – to his shameless flaunting and hardly insightful commentary on, well, nothing.

District Dialect: Moving the Tradition Forward

District Dialect: Moving the Tradition Forward by igorgerman

Igor explores the history and development of Bluegrass Music in DC, focusing on some of the challenges the genre is facing as the demographic of Bluegrass listeners begins to shift. He interviews some Bluegrass hosts from WAMU as well as local musician, Bob Perilla.

Feature: When THE VILLAGERS Come to Town

Igor caught up with Villagers front man Conor O'brien before his solo set at DC9 to talk about being on tour and how he feels about the album Becoming a Jackal now that its getting a good deal of attention. Listen to the feature below!

Villagers Feature by igorgerman



And a video after the jump

Album Review: Sleigh Bells, Treats

Sleigh Bells

Treats

8.3 Broken Ipod Headphones out of 10 Broken Ipod Headphones

I was sitting in my apartment in Edinburgh last October when I first saw Sleigh Bells as Stereogum’s artist to watch. Upon hearing ‘Crown on the Ground,’ I thought two things:

1)      What is this song that just disfigured my feeble HP speakers beyond the point of recognition?

2)      Thank you.

It seems like ever since then, Sleigh Bells had just been buzzing and buzzing (or ringing, I suppose). Perhaps even more so at Georgetown as we gave our best shot at bringing them to Bulldog Alley in the spring, only to find they were just out of our reach. What was especially weird about all this buzz though, was that we had all only heard four songs on their Myspace. There was no EP, there was just this rumor of a soon-to-be album. So, when it dropped nearly seven months later, we were all expecting a debut of Snoop Dogg proportions. 

Battin' Lashes: The Fruit Bats

“You don’t happen to be from the Northern suburbs of Chicago, do you?” It was with this immediate, intimate connection surrounding the strip-mall-scattered suburbia of the greater Chicagoland area that Eric Johnson, lead singer and chief songwriter of Fruit Bats, answered my phone call. Area codes can be so telling.

Click through to read more and hear the full interview!

Review: Broken Bells

Broken Bells

Broken Bells

Grade: One Golden Dove

It’s never easy to learn new things about things you already love. Because, if you love that thing, then you probably don’t want it to change that much, and if it does, you run the risk of loving it less. That’s never a good thing. That’s how I felt a few years ago when I listened to James Mercer’s acoustic set of a whole slew of Shins Songs. I was totally infatuated with the set, which he did for about five people at a radio station (don’t ask me where I got this, because I actually don’t know). I thought to myself, “Shit! Maybe I don’t like the Shins that much. I just love James Mercer’s songs.” With the rest of the band absent, I heard the songs louder and richer than ever before. It was only then that I was able to fully appreciate the genius of Mercer as a song writer. That doesn’t mean that I think that the rest of the members of the Shins are expendable. I really don’t. But, when I first heard news of Broken Bells, my immediate thoughts weren’t lamenting. 

Concert Review: Surfer Blood

Who knew there were so many Floridians in DC? The crowd at DC9 Wednesday night seemed to be littered with little conglomerates of Florida folk who came out to see that band that made it out. Florida isn’t quite renowned for the indie-rock it produces (are we counting Dashboard? No. But I want to), and perhaps that made the experience all the more special. The show had an appropriately casual feel to it; without an elevated stage and the performers eye-level with the crowd made the show more like it was at Jeff’s house party than a DC bar.