photo credit – Kelly Knapp

In our latest installment of the newly-revamped Weekend Playlist, we look back on some of the week’s posts, accompanied by music from our featured artists.

Cameras – Matt and Kim:
Last Saturday, Cervante Pope reviewed Sidewalks, the latest album from Matt and Kim.

Cervante wrote, “The album opens with ‘Block After Block,’ the typical electro-indie dance pop ‘hit.’ As the album’s opener, you’d think it’d be a strong enough song to really make you curious of what’s to come from the rest of the CD. But the taste it leaves you isn’t anywhere near anticipation of what’s next. [...] ‘Cameras’ employs a good use of a horn section in the beat and definitely has a repeated verse that mildly hits sing-a-long status.  Yet ‘Red Paint,’ the song after ‘Cameras’ on the album, falls short.”

Read the rest of Cervante’s review here.

Fluorescent Half Dome – Dirty Projectors:
Also on Saturday, Sherene Hilal featured Dirty Projector’s 2009 album, Bitte Orca.

Sherene wrote, “[Bitte Orca] pushes the traditional pop rock envelope with a classical twist and all of the reverence of R&B.  A timeless doo-wop indie feel penetrates songs like ‘Fluorescent Half Dome’ and you can be lulled into a head bumping rhythm with the beats behind ‘Stillness in the Move.’ The sound is a little unorthodox, even with the popularity of Passion Pit and My Morning Jacket, and  the eccentric sounds swims in your brain like an unsolved puzzle . The jingle-jangle of faster paced songs are thrown into balance by slow ballads like ‘Two Doves,’ a sugary love-song  that is so folk and so innocent it sweeps you into submission.”

Read the rest of Sherene’s review here.

Girl With One Eye – Florence and the Machine:
On Sunday, Claire Gallagher posted a concert review of Florence and the Machine at LA’s The Wiltern.

Claire recalled, “Florence, outfitted in white and topped with her signature bloody copper tresses, conquers the stage with her presence and captures the open space with her voice.  By the second song, ‘My Boy Builds Coffins,’ you conclude she is some sort of animal, but you’re not sure what kind.  By the third song, ‘Girl With One Eye,’ you’ve now taken notice of things on the stage that aren’t Florence: the stunning purple backdrop printed with branches and leaves and neon green finches; the big ass harp on the left of the stage jamming just as hard as the rest of the band; the quirky birdcages enclosing dim light bulbs that speckle the scenery.  You take a moment to look around to the rest of the crowd bathed in the rusty red light and see them staring and swaying, entranced.  You look back. It goes dark.”

Read the rest of Claire’s review and watch a video of the concert here.

Some Are Lakes – Land of Talk:
On Tuesday, Kelly Knapp shared her concert review of Land of Talk at The Bowery Ballroom.

Kelly recalled, “Although she came out at first looking like a dainty singer-songwriter, this girl rocked it harder than the boys, smiling with her tongue out the whole time. Trust me, it’s cute. She turned an already stand-out album into a mesmerizing performance, and obviously enjoyed it.  [...] From singles like ‘Some Are Lakes’ off [Land of Talk’s] first album to ‘The Man Who Breaks Things’ off their Fun and Laughter EP, the crowd was with hands in the air for every one. Her distinct voice did ultimate justice to her songwriting, cascading up and down while she strummed and bobbed intensely, and all the while being totally in tune with the audience.”

Read more of Kelly’s concert experience here.

Persona – Superhumanoids:
Tuesday also brought about our BackStory series, which featured Superhumanoids’ song, Persona.

Said the band of their song, “Persona uses Ingar Bergman’s film of the same name as a reference point to explore the emotions of love, longing, and despair. The narrator in the song is conflicted – a split-personality of types – and changes their-self to please others. By the end of the song, this person regains their own confidence, shedding their persona and the baggage that comes with it. Sonically, it is very Kraut influenced – the structure isn’t standard pop and there is a lot of vamping on single notes and chords.”

Lyrics and a Vimeo video for Persona can be found here.

Pyramid of the Sun – Maserati:
Katrina Nattress featured Maserati’s new album, Pyramid of the Sun, also on Tuesday.

Katrina wrote, “The opener seamlessly merges into the album’s title song, which brilliantly showcases the paradox that is Maserati. Like the band’s general sound, ‘Pyramid of the Sun,’ is simultaneously roving and focused, primal and sophisticated, chaotic and structured. The powerful rhythm guitar, bass, and drums pave the song’s direction, while treble-heavy guitar riffs scurry atop, testing the aptitude of the rhythm section to stay its course.”

Read the rest of Katrina’s review here.

All Around and Away We Go – Twin Sister:
Jesse Diener-Bennett reviewed the new Twin Sister double EP, Vampires With Dreaming Kids and Color Your Life.

Jesse raves, “Twin Sister, like its chillwave contemporaries, specializes in mid-tempo tracks enveloped in rich, warm blankets of sound. However, unlike most of these artists, Twin Sister’s warmth is carefully orchestrated, with sudden changes of texture and wonderfully strange harmonic progressions. The songs on this release can change course without warning, morphing a disco dance track to radio noise (‘All Around and Away We Go’), or Brian Eno ambience to electro-rock (‘Galaxy Plateau’). Instead of relying on loops to do the job for them, it sounds like they spend time sculpting each second of every track. In other words, Twin Sister sounds genuine.”

Read the rest of Jesse’s review here.

Helicopter – Deerhunter:
On Wednesday, Cervante Pope highlighted Deerhunter’s song “Helicopter,” as well as the band’s show in Nashville that night.

Cervante wrote, “Granted, Halcyon Digest just came out in September, [but] whoever attends the show will be ever so blessed to witness the songs performed live. Halcyon has a more down tempo sound than some of Deerhunter’s earlier stuff, mixed with little hints of Pavement and The Velvet Underground. ‘Coronado’ and ‘Memory Boy’ speed it up for your hips to slightly groove to with synthesizers and horns.”

The rest of Cervante’s post, along with a music video for “Helicopter”, can be viewed here.

2 Weak – K. Flay:
Also on Wednesday, Kelly Montgomery interviewed “genre-hopping” artist K.Flay. Here’s a sample of their conversation:

Kelly: How would you describe your sound?
K.Flay: Like if you french braided hip hop & indie rock. Which is a highly flawed simile.
K: Who are some of your sonic influences?
KF: I absolutely love a badass girl who can sing, so I’m a huge fan of Portishead, Metric, Liz Phair, Lauryn Hill, and Fiona Apple, to name a few. On the hip-hop side, it’s A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast, Dizzee Rascal. Artists who are just the right amount of crazy. CRAZY GOOD.

Read more of Kelly’s interview with K.Flay here.

Love Electric Soul – Atypicals:
On Thursday, Sherene Hilal interviewed Atypicals after watching the band perform at NYC’s Crash Mansion the night before. Here’s some of the Q&A:

Sherene Hilal: The name Atypicals, where did that come from? I hear there was a campfire involved.
James Muschler: There was a campfire involved. We were in Cleveland, which is [my], Adam’s, and Jacob’s hometown, and we were all sitting around a campfire. I can’t remember what the exact phrase was that came out of Jacob’s mouth, but my friend from back home said, “Well that’s atypical”, and I said, “that’s a great band name. . .the Atypicals”.
SH: So is that how you three know each other?
Jacob Bergson: We all went to high school together, and then moved in together. That’s how we met Wenzl, we went to college with Wenzl. Then we started playing with Adam. Then Wenzl started playing with us.
Adam Zucker: I moved to New York after I finished school, I went to the University of Michigan. I moved to New York to play with these guys in the summer of ’09. When I moved here Wenzl joined and started playing with us.

Read the rest of the interview, and watch a video from the concert, here.

Love Kills – Robyn:
Kristina Villarini recently had the opportunity to watch Robyn‘s performance at NYC’s Terminal 5 and wrote a review of it.

Kristina recalled, “Creating live remixes and feeding off the crowd, she performed at Terminal 5 as if it was a stadium.  Robyn performs without the add of any sonic trickery or backup singers, and the exchange is authentic: We dance, she sings.  That’s why we showed up, to dance and watch in awe as she tore through ‘Love Kills,’ ‘Indestructible,’ a cover of ‘Cobrastyle’ by the Teddybears, and performed two encores, closing with a cover of ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen.’

Read the rest of Kristina’s review, including concert footage, here.