During our repeated repeats of the In The Air dance video yesterday, good ole Derp intruded with one of those “yeah, but have you seen this?” messages we’ve come to expect.  Check out the forwarded dance video featuring Marquese Scott “interpreting” a Butch Clancy remix of Pumped Up Kicks (the lyrics of which are particularly disturbing in the Aurora aftermath).  Everywhere are phenomenally talented “humans” (robot Gumbys?).  After watching the video you might, like us, feel a little seasick and hope for more flow.  Regardless, impressive.

This just says summertime.  For those needing a recipe for a thoroughly infectious dance video, please see below and the video of the resulting dance plague:

Take one driving dance song entitled In The Air, created by Angela McCluskey (Scottish singer-songwriter who has performed with bands Wild Colonials, Curio and Télépopmusik, and been featured in multiple soundtracks and commercials), and composers Morgan Page, BT and Sultan & Shepard.

Add clips of various gifted young dancers of all varieties (our fave appears at 3:46, but all good).

Bake on high with direction and editing by “Bernadette Stuff.”

Repeat.  Repeatedly.

IN THE AIR featuring Angela McCluskey, Morgan Page, BT and Sultan & Shepard from bernadette stuff on Vimeo.

What a long, strange trip it’s been for Santa Barbara’s Gardens & Villa.  Seems like just yesterday Adam was crafting macchiatos at The French Press.  A year or so later the band has signed to Secretly Canadian, put out its first album (highly-regarded, produced by Richard Swift), and toured extensively, capped off by playing at this year’s Coachella Music Festival. To add to the largesse, the band has now contributed its cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy to the new FM covers compilation, “Just Tell Me That You Want Me.”  You can check out Gardens & Villa’s cover over at Paste.  And below you can check out 10 other tracks off the compilation, including those by the great Antony (doing a surprisingly straightforward read of Landslide), The New Pornographers, and Lykki Li.  As we’ve said before, we preferred the pre-Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac (with the late, great Bob Welch), but acknowledge we’re virtually alone in this preference.  Enjoy.

Having confessed to becoming belatedly enamored with the band Allo Darlin’ and their phenomenal 2012 album Europe,  we were pleasantly surprised to discover that R0ugh Trade Records had included a bonus EP of cover songs by the band with Rough Trade’s distribution of Europe.  Included on the EP is a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s seminal song, Atlantic City.  Turns out the song was instrumental (if you will) in the band’s formative years (2009).  Check out below their disarmingly clever and winning cover in which the band throw ever instrument (we might have dropped the recorder/flute bits) and the kitchen sink at the song.

Allo Darlin’–Atlantic City

As a bonus, check out Allo Darlin’ below covering The Go-Betweens’ great, heart-rending song, Dive For Your Memory.

Despite only recording and releasing a three-song EP thus far in their career, Adelaide, Australia’s Atlas Genius have garnered a burgeoning buzz.  Brothers Keith, Steven, and Michael Jeffery have already had their songs reach the top five of SiriusXM Satellite Radio’s Alt-18 Countdown, fourth on Hypemachine, and designated an iTunes Single of the Week for Australia and New Zealand.  The band is putting the finishing touches on its first full album and is coming to Soho in Santa Barbara on Friday, August 17th with Animal Kingdom courtesy of Club Mercy.  Check out two studio versions of songs Trojans and Back Seat, followed by an acoustic version of Symptoms for Sirius below.  They present breezy pop that fosters a bit of Foster the People, though the lyrics (on Trojans particularly) and playing portend depth and promise.  Time will tell.  Come out to Soho on 8/17 and see for yourselves.

Here’s a bit of sunshine for your Saturday morning.  Lyrically, Baby Blue by We Were Evergreen isn’t going to win any Pulitzers.  But it’s a perfect song to have on this blue morning to ease you into the day and assuage the darkness of yesterday.  Check them out courtesy of The Line of Best Fit.

Drive-By Truckers’ leader Patterson Hood will soon release a new solo LP, Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance.  The album’s first single, Come Back Little Star, can be streamed now via Rolling Stone.  Hood told Rolling Stone:  “[Kelly Hogan] began the lyrics as a song for our late, dear friend Vic Chesnutt, and I rewrote it with the intention of her recording it for her album.  She ended up letting me put it on my album and it’s a highlight to me….It may be my favorite song I’ve ever recorded.”  We’re not going to disagree with Hood, though there is a lot of stiff competition within Hood’s fine song collection.  Come Back Little Star can be streamed HERE.

We’re not gonna lie.  We like virtually everything Brandi Carlile does (musically).  Comes now Carlile performing on The Artist Den’s new, stripped-down “Spotlight” series with longtime collaborationists Tim and Phil Hanseroth.  Check them out below performing three songs from her latest album, Bear Creek.  Check out especially the first song, a new favorite of ours entitled 100.  A superb song sung so very well.

To borrow from a fabulous Fruit Bats lyric, we can merely manage mouthfuls of the musical Niagara Falls that geyser past us these days.  Entire albums spew by un-apprehended.  Only later may we find ourselves (and others) reaching cups way downstream into Lake Ontario and pulling up quenching music that had previously escaped our agape gullets.

Such is the case with Allo Darlin’, the shimmering, London-based, jangle-pop band whose members hail from Australia and England.  A frequent musical co-conspirator (thanks J-Hawkes) kindly tossed Allo Darlin’s new album, Europe, at us and regaled with concert tales of the band (regrets, we’ve had a few more).  We somewhat skeptically listened in (after all, how could WE possibly have missed any good music?).  And now, weeks later, we rank it amongst the most affecting and best albums of the year.  And we’re not alone in this, with the album making many discerning critics’ Best of 2012 So Far lists.

It doesn’t hurt Allo Darlin’s cause that we are hopeless jangle-pop addicts.  Allo Darlin’ have taken a page or two out of the musical playbooks of some of the best purveyors in that genre:  The Church, Heavenly, The Concretes, Belle & Sebastian, The Bangles and The Go-Betweens come to mind (odd that many bloggers cite only Australia’s Go-Betweens and leave it at that—you don’t think they’re just plagiarizing each other do you?).  Though there’s nothing new under the sun, Allo Darlin’ stamp their unique imprimatur on the sound with strong melodies throughout, some added softer and harder musical touches, and especially through the emotive lyrical atmospherics conjured by leader Elizabeth Morris.  Morris, guitarist Paul Rains, drummer Mike Collins and nimble bassist Bill Botting are a tight-knit pop ensemble that have evolved impressively from their first album (which was no slouch in its own right, but featured much more of Morris’ ukelele playing).  In addition to Morris’s uke, guitar and vocals, the lads play and sing with aplomb throughout, whether on the slower numbers or the more uptempo.  While the sound is often summery, the lyrics are frequently wistful and filled with nostalgic melancholy, though leavened with countervailing optimism and encouragement.  You know, like life and living.

The album begins with Neil Armstrong, another song by Morris referencing (loosely) a historical figure (she’s previously done so with Woody Allen, Stephen Hawking, and Henry Rollins, amongst others).  With a proto-jangle musical backdrop, Morris name-checks the astronaut and assesses the heavens while expressing her desire for faith and belief (“Well I am tired of feeling confused, and lest my words be construed, I can’t separate what’s real but I know that I believe in you…And I won’t fly until the day that I die, but we can’t keep out dreams in jars so I’ll keep yours close to mine.”).  Next up is a perfect pop song, Capricornia (the official video for which you can check below).  Despite its upbeat sound and feel, Morris bemoans the loss of friends (“Could you ever understand how you ended up here? Any friend you’ve ever had has disappeared, and the tug of heart string is the line that pulls you home”), but vows to never let them go (“And I will come to you, when you fall down and when the lights go out, and we set the world to rights”).  Another musically upbeat song follows, the title-track Europe, which alludes to the trying economic and political times “on the Continent,” and the tangential effects on the band.  Regardless, Morris vows to soldier on (“But it feels like we’ve made it, and before these memories faded, you will ask again if this is really happening…when i pick you up off the floor, because you’re what i came here for”).  Some People Say slows things down a bit, but Morris nonetheless manages to provide solace (“I’ve got you and a bottle of wine…I have a feeling that this day will be amazing…And when you listen to these songs, if you’re ever lonely, you’re not alone”).

Northern Lights kick-starts matters anew with Paul Rains’ fluid guitar work shining “like a light upon your face.”  Wonderland follows in a similar musical mode, but with a sonorous multi-tracked chorus (“Feels like the world is ending, but I’m with you and I don’t care”).  With a strong sense for the dynamics, the band then steps out of the spotlight to leave mostly Morris and her ukelele on Tallulah, one of  the centerpieces of the album.  Tallulah is the most well-formed song here with its comparatively straightforward, but resonant, nostalgic narrative in which Morris reminisces about Australia and a friend (“As the radio played another terrible song, but lucky for me you found a tape with Tallulah on [TLR—Tallulah Gosh, an earlier Morris band, or the vaunted Go-Betweens’ song?], and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen all my old friends…And I wonder if you would wanna go there with me, when I’m finished over here, if you’re not finished with me”).

The Letter follows at mid-tempo with beautiful melody and pensive penmanship (“And If I told you I was never cool, and all I wanted was just to have you, and when I see you I will put my arms around you, it will be hard to let you go”) and just-so homages (“And I pictured you singing the Silver Jews”).   The band kicks it up again with Still Young, another punchy rocker featuring Rains’ intricately helixing guitar playing, Mike Collins’ driving drums and Bill Botting’s agile bass playing.  Morris sings to her hard-drinking youth, and the band closes with the rousing call-and-response of “We’re still young, we’re still young.”  The album closes with My Sweet Friend, the musically soothing sounds of which belie disquietude (“On the day a famous pop star died…But maybe I’m not right, can I call you up when I cannot get to sleep at night?”).

What is particularly impressive about Europe is while you may be initially thrown off by a couple of cringe-worthy lines (“The way she dances on the stage is so awesome”–can we please have a pact that no songwriter can ever use the word “awesome” in a song?), we still find ourselves repeatedly humming and singing particular lines and stanzas of these songs, as if they were hymns.  In short, Europe is an affecting, near-perfect pop album, and particularly for this summertime season.  Do yourselves a favor, and go pick it up and stream it over at Bandcamp HERE.

Below are the official videos for Capricornia and Tallulah:

And while you’re at it, check out an unplugged version of Europe:

This is for those (Millennials or Gen-Y) that think Vampire Weekend was the first band to incorporate African music elements into American pop music.  But seriously, this is for those (Gen-X and Boomers) that think Paul Simon was the first to use African music in pop.  Thirteen years before Simon’s much-vaunted Graceland was released, Fleetwood Mac’s Bob Welch, Mick Fleetwood and the McVies were dabbling in African-influenced pop music.  As Exhibit A, we give you their 1973 song, Forever (penned and sung by Bob Welch) off of their fine album Mystery to Me.  Listen in and hear, amongst other things, juju elements a la the great King Sunny Ade.  Bob Welch, you are missed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiavWgXBI3A