Category Archives: Music

Albums of the Year, Music

The Best Albums of 2014 – First Batch (31-21)

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If there’s a staple to what Everything Ecstatic has done over the years, it’s undoubtedly the Best of the Year Albums List (since 2006!). For the last two years, it’s evolved into a daily featured album for 3 weeks, with the “Best of The Rest” post kicking it off. So here we are, with numbers 31 thru 21.

There are albums that didn’t make it on the final chopping block and there are hundreds of other ones that never even made the initial long list. But I can assure you, these are the 31 best records that marked the year in music across all genres. It’s scientifically proven (sorta.) There’ll be a spotify playlist of each album below the entry and after this post, all posts will focus squarely on ONE album per day until we arrive at the #1 Album of 2014.

Follow @EcstaticBlog on Twitter  and like the Facebook page as well for updates on when each new album is announced. Enough babble here’s the list:

31. Beck – Morning Phase

Man…Beck? Still got it. Morning Phase seemingly picks up where Sea Change left off. In fact, Beck himself calls it “a companion piece of sorts.” I turned to this record and it’s guitar-driven ballads and melancholy on slow moving afternoons.

30. Bear In Heaven – Time Is Over One Day Old

Bear in Heaven is a prolific rock band from Brooklyn that infuses tribal drums and electronics into their sound. This is their 4th LP and it’s the kind of album that wins you over twice. It finishes as strongly as it comes in and there’s more than a handful of memorable tracks on this one. Everything comes together on tracks like “Demon” and “If I Were To Lie”, led by singer Jon Philpot’s wonderful voice.

29. Souls Of Mischief – There Is Only Now

Oakland represent! 20 years after the release of the iconic 93 ’til Infinity, the East Bay kings of hip-hop put out their 6th studio album. There Is Only Now succeeds largely on the effort of producer Adrian Younge, who is flat out one of the best producers in the game. Part of me just wants to talk about how much I love Younge’s instrumentals of this record…Seriously, dude is like J-Dilla good and drops classic soul samples throughout. But A-Plus, Tajai, Opio and Phesto step to the mic with conscious rhymes, tackling relevant themes like police brutality and the justice system with multiple appearances from Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg. This is a money hip-hop release and on the real, def bump the deluxe version of the record with 2nd disc of instrumentals (linked below.)

28. Allah-Las – Worship The Sun

Continue reading The Best Albums of 2014 – First Batch (31-21) →

Albums of the Year, Music

The Top 5 Music Videos of 2014

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Ok…Did the two day wait effectively build enough anticipation for the Top 5?! If you missed numbers 6-10, you can see them here. One last word on why music videos are relevant and such an important part of an artist’s output: It allows for an additional opportunity to affect another one of your senses; the visual side as well as what you hear in a song. A music video allows us to relate and attach to the music even more. It’s like how I feel like I’m spinning every time I hear Hot Chip’s “Flutes” because of that video. As MTV shifted away from a music video platform to one that favors bubblegum programming instead, the internet has become the landing spot for artists’s videos and it’s totally worked. No commercials, no more “VJ’s” (I still love you Kennedy and Bill Bellamy), just the video. I encourage you to experience an artist’s music in this medium and allow yourself to connect even more with the music.

Ok, enough babble, here’s the Top 5 Music Videos of 2014:

5. SBTRKT ft. Ezra Koenig- “New Dorp, New York”

The thing that gets me with this video is how ties together the visual theme of one of my favorite albums of the year. We didn’t know much about this mammal on the cover of SBTRKT’s Wonder Where We Land, but this animated music video tells the story of it and other predatory creatures of the night. The shadows are dark & spooky and there’s sweet subtle details like a SBTRKT bobblehead on the dashboard of a car as the mammal runs through the night, Later the mammal approaches the camera for us to see how similarly his face resembles the mask. In the end, he makes his way through the dark cesspool (looks like Bushwick), that’s just one of the worlds created on the brilliant album, only to perch above the clouds with a birds eye view of it all.

4. Cathedrals – “Unbound”

Fuck, I love this video. Had an opportunity to meet and write about Cathedrals off a chance encounter soon after moving back to SF and this video was one of my first interactions with their music. Suffice it to say, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s an artistic achievement to say the least and getting to know all of the nuances that went into the production and the roles of it’s many collaborators opened it up for me.  It’s a passionate display of visual arts, dance and raw emotions, marvelously produced and set to music from an up and coming band that belongs on your radar. One love to Cathedrals.

Continue reading The Top 5 Music Videos of 2014 →

Albums of the Year, Music

The Top 10 Music Videos of 2014 – Pt 1

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You are now in tune to Everything Ecstatic’s annual “Best of The Year” project. The 8th year highlighting albums of the year and this is the inaugural EE Best Music Videos of the Year list. These videos are a combination of artistic production, artists that hit, engagement and cool concepts. Breaking this up into two editions and this post begins the countdown starting at number 10 through number 6. Enjoy!

10. King Tuff – “Black Moon Spell” 

The black and white component here really reminded me of one of my favorite videos from 2012, Cloud Nothings’ “Fall In,” with the Busby Berkeley theme. The “Black Moon Spell” vid sees Tuff spinning around on a Marshall stack, with the wind blowing his long hair behind his cap. The spinning motion seemingly moves with the epic guitar riff that plays throughout the song. It’s like a scene out of a fucked up road side biker bar. Love it:

9. FKA Twigs – “Two Weeks”

Everything about FKA Twigs is visually stunning. The “Two Weeks” vid feels like that old Michael Jackson video for “Remember The Time” with Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy and Iman. It’s the kind of extravagance that we’ve come to expect from Twigs as she’s dressed like an Egyptian queen with dancers flanking her from all sides. The beautiful irony here, is that she herself was a prominent video girl before her solo stardom.

8. Sinkane – “How We Be”

A video about dance, in all it’s many global forms. Hip-hop, krump, African, pop-lock, break and ballet with Sinkane’s Ahmed Gallab, looking cool as fuck walkin’ through different parts of NYC. It’s a dope anthology of dance, much like Sinkane’s new record, Mean Love is an anthology of his many global musical influences.

7. Vic Mensa – “Down On My Luck”

Ok…let’s get one thing out there: I fucking LOVE Vic Mensa. Dude is part of the bright future of hip-hop and he works his ass off. He’s tireless, straight up…All day, all night, he’s working on his music. Now “Down On My Luck” is a bit of a depart from Vic’s usual style. It’s a club banger and that’s new ground for him, but the video is solid gold. It reminds me of Kylie Minogue’s classic “Come Into My World” video directed by Michel Gondry, where Kylie goes around town 4 times over and the video just builds visually and conceptually, much like Vic re-creates his potentially disastrous night on the town over and over until it comes out roses. It’s an incredibly clever video and shouts to Vic for experimenting with new styles and creative shit.

6. Ibeyi – “River”

I stumbled onto these French/Cuban twins randomly on a late night and I’ve been enamored ever since. They sing beautifully in their unique tribal style, taking turns holding their breath under water as they harmonize in and out of the track. The detail of the air bubbles when one of them is submerged and then quickly rises above water to sing the verse is mesmerizing. As far as debut singles and videos go, this one is as good as any and no surprise, they’re signed to XL Recordings, who’ve been masters of artistically marketing their artists with a perfect balance of releases.

Check in later this week for the Top 5! 

Bay Area, Music

Tennis Plays to Sold Out Crowd at Great American Music Hall

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Tennis descended upon San Francisco’s classic Great American Music Hall with an animated sold out crowd in tow. Singer Alaina Moore stood behind her keyboard on one side of the stage, donning a black deep V-neck top with laced edges, singing songs off of Tennis’ recently released 3rd LP, Ritual In Repeat. Her husband and guitarist Patrick Riley commanded the other side of the stage, flanked by a drummer and bass player, ripping through riffs reminiscent of Dick Dale and just generally wowing the crowd throughout the night.

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Even before opening track “Solar On The Rise” began, the crowd was in a frenzy. “Wow…we haven’t even played anything yet!” An elated Moore said as they settled onto the stage to massive applause. Moore’s vocals were dialed in from the get-go and she carefully chose a few instances to come out from behind the keys to own the center of the stage. You got the feeling that pretty much everything about their live set was dialed-in this time around, where at a past show at The Independent, when they were touring debut LP Cape Dory, this wasn’t the case. There was an excitement and exuberance from Moore that was present from starts to finish.

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“Petition” off of 2nd LP Origins was a crowd pleaser, as was the Ritual In Repeat’s “Never Work For Free.” The new material was the most well-received and the crowd was well versed on the new record. On “Night Vision,” Reilly wowed with his twangy guitar riffs, that while reflect their signature doo-wop/pop, also evolve into dexterous solos. He managed to find his moments to shine, even with Moore’s lovely vocals being the welcome center of attention.

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Moore talked with the crowd just before going into “I’m Calling,” with the proclamation that “I wrote this next song..I’m serious…I wrote in a dream…that’s why the lyrics mean absolutely nothing.” It was a refreshing playfulness from a band that I’ve come to know as a stoic and methodical one. But this time around there was an element of fun infused into Tennis’ set.

The encore opened with “Bad Girls” and Moore explained that “We’re gonna play this last one exactly the way we wrote it.” As it came to a close, the crowd erupted and a nearby bro yelled “That was your best sooong!” Bros and teenagers alike were floored at the all ages event and Tennis gave the crowd what they came for: A polished set from a group that’s starting to settle into early stardom.

Opening Act

Portland’s Pure Bathing Culture churned out a solid opening set with songs from 2012’s self-titled debut and 2013’s Moon Tides. I had spent the afternoon relaxing peacefully with their discography and will be looking forward to their 3rd release in 2015 on Partisan Records.

Pure Bathing Culture's Sarah Versprille leading the charge on stage.
Pure Bathing Culture’s Sarah Versprille and Daniel Hindman leading the charge on stage.

 

Music

Listen to Ser Mareas

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New York City-based Ser Mareas is the brain child of producer and multi-instrumentalist Dustin Balint. His music is the kind of sublime soundtrack to daydreaming in your bedroom, window open…sun pouring in with a breeze by it’s side. It’s beautiful. From gorgeous guitars and sputtering cymbals to an ambient cello and a soft trumpet, it’s nothing short of mesmerizing.

His recent demo of “Ceiling View” was published to the Fat Cat Records’ Demo Site. They called it “a cohesive instrumental soundscape” and it’s rightfully turning heads. Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/fatcat-demo/ser-mareas-ceiling-view

Go to sermareas.com to hear the whole You Above All album and lose yourself, if only for a short moment.

Ser Mareas is on Twitter and Facebook.

Follow @EcstaticBlog on Twitter.

Peace.

Bay Area, Drinks, Food, Music

Best Quotes From Culture Collide SF

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Culture Collide descended on SF for the first time in it’s 5 year lifespan. The LA-based music/culture festival has a SXSW-style setup, with panels in the early part of the day, followed by happy hours and shows from the late afternoon into the evening. The festival was headlined by Cloud Nothings and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, along with a slew of bands from around the world. I was there for the panels, to try and get a feel for the nexus of music and business in San Francisco, but what I got was much more than that; Music, Burritos and Beer reigned supreme and here’s a slew of awesome quotes to help tell the story of the festival’s 1st year in SF.

On Music and Business

“Tech is human…Let’s use it to strengthen the human connection instead of use it in place of humans.” — Grammy award winning audio engineer Starita in his keynote address.

“Your tour is now navigated by your fan base” — Shazam’s Jeff Roberto speaking on artists and touring.

“15 years later, we’re still undecided on how we feel about streaming. It’s not doing it for the recording industry. I buy vinyl and listen to digital streaming, but fundamentally, its not working for artists. Its not perfect, theres a lot to be done, but i remain optimistic.” — NoisePop’s Kevin Arnold

“Asking how many pennies per stream misses the point. You have to engage fans.” BandPage’s Doug Scott

On Burritos

Question: What will Mission burritos looks like in 2067?

“They’ll be wrapped in gold”

“Hover burritos”

“Burritos cannons”

“Drones”

“Doctors will realize the health benefits of burritos” – Broke Ass Stuart takes the cake.

“Shrimp do not belong in burritos!” — @BurritoJustice

Continue reading Best Quotes From Culture Collide SF →

Music

SBTRKT at The Belasco in LA: PHOTOS & Review

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SBTRKT’s Aaron Jerome descended upon The Belasco Theater for the 2nd of a two-night-stint at the Downtown LA venue and despite not having usual companion Sampha on stage with him, managed to wow the sold out crowd into oblivion.

DSC_3929 The vocals were dialed in to the point where it felt like the many collaborators from the just released Wonder Where We Land and 2011’s classic self-titled LP were there on stage. Jerome provided the hauntingly distorted vocal hook on single “New Dorp New York” and he along with two new stage musicians gave us an hour and a half of bliss.

There were spellbinding elongated versions of “Something Goes Right” and “Hold On” and a trippy video projection of  “Look Away,” reminiscent of the recently released interactive video. Atlanta MC, Raury jumped on stage to perform “Higher” and commanded the crowd, but the highlight of the night was Jerome’s ambitious Radiohead remix of “Lotus Flower.” It takes a special talent to tastefully remix Thom Yorke and Co & SBTRKT pulled it off masterfully.

“…a remix from this band called Radiohead” Jerome joked just before dropping the track. It drew into SBTRKT’s signature tribal drums, staying true to the mask he still adorns on stage. It felt like SBTRKT is one of the few acts who could make people happy with a simple DJ set if he wanted to. Jerome carried the show and it was a pleasure to see this evolution of an artist who carefully plucked so many wonderful collaborators for Wonder Where We Land to commanding the stage as the focal point of the night.

DSC_3909DSC_3910 DSC_3982 DSC_3974 DSC_3930 DSC_3948 DSC_3958 DSC_3927All photos by Adrian Spinelli and Jason Chiang

 

Music

10 Questions with San Francisco MC Frak

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Kickin off our 10 Questions series with an up and coming MC from San Francisco, the homie Frak. Dude just dropped his Bagels mixtape, which has garnered over 30,000 spins online and he’s now living in Spain for the next 6 months. He was killin it on the MC Olympics circuit this past summer, opened for Shad and Earth Wind and Fire?!!?! So we sat down to get to the bottom of this and wax about Bagels and tapas.

“Am I a lab rat?”  he asked me as we were about to start the first of Everything Ecstatic’s 10 Questions pieces. “Nah…you’re more of a guinea pig.” Here we go:

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EE: I bumped Bagels a bunch of times…30,000 spins? That’s awesome. Tell me about it.

Frak: Yeah…I wanted Bagels to be an experiment in style, to try on all the sounds and flavors in hip-hop and see where I fit. That’s why it’s a baker’s dozen, 13 tracks with a different vibe every time around…So throughout my little rap career, a lot my fans have been my friends…my social circle, but my goal with Bagels was to transcend that circle. Thats what I’ve been doing all summer. the internet game is its own thing, but this summer i tried to put myself out there…do as many opening shows as i can and do as many gigs. It worked. I made it to the final round of the MC Olympics in Philly, Bagels got featured on Lupe Fiasco’s blog, reddit was huge…I opened for Shad and Earth Wind and Fire.

EE: Earth Wind and Fire?!

Frak:  Haha…yeah, my school had them there for the 50th anniversary party and the president of the college had heard my song “Date With A Feminist” that was getting passed around and she personally e-mailed me and asked me if I wanted to open for Earth, Wind and Fire…and I was like “Are you kidding me? Of course!”

EE: That’s incredible man…So staying with the theme of the record…Talk about the intro, “A Dozen Cosigns.” You got Percee P, Denizen Kane from Typical Cats, Shad, Watsky…All of them were featured on that shout-out to kick-off the album. Talk about how you got in touch with those peeps and then talk about your relationship with Watsky. 

Frak: With all the MC olympics, traveling, competing I was meeting a bunch of awesome MC’s that are inspiring to me and I wanted to utilize them to get more people to listen. Shad was watching me as i opened for him and sat me down and said “keep doing this man. keep doing this shit and happy to do a co-sign.”

I met Percee P at Rock the Bells, he had just hopped off stage with J5…Kills the set then he’s just walking around the festival and handing out CD’s…and all these peeps were there to see Macklemore and shit and didn’t respect this dude’s legacy, didn’t recognize him so I was all “Percee fucking P! You just killed it out there man.” He comes up to me and says “You look like an MC man” and I was like…what gave it away, the blue eyes and jewish nose? So i spit 32 bars for him and asked him if he wanted to do a co-sign for my record.

EE: Hell yeah! Dude is a legend. 

Frak: Word…and Denizen Kane works with Youth Speaks and he’s a mentor now out of the rap game for me. I knew him for years and didn’t even know he was in Typical Cats when I first met him.

Continue reading 10 Questions with San Francisco MC Frak →

Bay Area, Music

Zola Jesus Opens Tour at Bimbo’s in San Francisco

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Nothing made me happier than knowing Zola Jesus would be opening her US tour here in San Francisco the day after her stunning 5th LP Taiga was released on Mute Records. The term Taiga, refers to boreal, snow-covered forests in the northern hemisphere, typical of places like Russia, Canada and the Northern US. Zola Jesus is a child of Russian immigrants who grew up in Wisconsin, so we can see this record as an exploration into herself. Taiga hit me hard on a day where albums by Flying Lotus, Caribou and SBTRKT were also released. No easy task to stand out, but dammit if I wasn’t immediately blown away by her ambitious yet elegant electro-pop stylings and off to the show I was on Wednesday night.

Her stage set-up was extravagant. An ornate geometric mountain behind her, a 6 piece horn section to her left and a drummer and keys/synth to her right. She opened with the album’s title track, “Taiga” and thundering drums and her frenetic movement gave me the same chills I got when I first heard the track on the record. There’s a certain elegance to her presence…Like, this is electro-pop, but there’s a level of radiant class that Zola brings and I immediately started to question whether she was too big for this stage, despite the non-sold out crowd. I felt lucky to see her play at a venue this intimate.

She has a distinct ability to settle into the drums and often dances so furiously that her flowy black jacket nearly falls off. With her platinum bracelet tightly clad on her wrist matching her three finger ring, she took us into an energetic climax on the anthemic single “Go (Blank Sea).” There were times when she seemed to be conducting the orchestra, it was brilliant.

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I had some issues with the the way the sound booth was isolating her voice on certain tracks, or wasn’t. It could have come across more powerfully and I felt like the sound didn’t put her voice front and center at times. But to her credit, soon after the show started she thanked the crowd and said “This is our FIRST show! We have no idea what were doing right now! The album came out yesterday!” and laughed excitedly. I expect these types of issues to be tightened up as the tour progresses.

My favorite track of the night was “Long Way Down” from the new album. She’s quickly becoming the quintessential vocalist to accompany a harmonious blend of elements of both organic and electronic sound. This is what made her work so well with M83. She came down into the crowd for one of her 4 encore tracks and it was a special experience, when you realize that this larger than life voice is like MAYBE 5’4″ as she struts through the crowd with such sensuality and confidence.

The closing track was “Vessel” off of 2011’s Conatus, eliciting screams of approval from the crowd and ending a spectacular performance. I couldn’t help think of how much this reminded me of Banks’ performance at SXSW this last March and it really made me feel like Banks took A LOT of her style from Zola Jesus. It kinda made me angry at Banks for biting Zola’s style…except where Banks’ ascent has been ruthlessly fast, Zola has had a more controlled career path and it lends to sustainability. At one point, Zola told the crowd “This is strangely exhilarating,” but there was nothing strange about it. She killed it and there’re surely many great things on the horizon for Nika Roza Danilova (Zola Jesus.)

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Music

Why Kiesza’s “Hideaway” Video is Pretty Much The Greatest Thing Ever

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I remember walking up Kent St in Williamsburg a little while back and seeing a half dozen or so girls looking all 90’s and dancing in the street while being filmed. A car came and they stopped what they were doing and had a laugh.

“What’s goin on?” I asked them. “We’re filming a video!” they said excitedly.

I kinda laughed at the idea of filming a video in broad daylight, no blockades or anything and just chalked it up to some amateur-ish Williamsburg hipster stuff and went on my way.

Fast forward to less than a year and 132 million youtube views later, I realized that I had walked through the filming of Kiesza’s “Hideaway” video, in all it’s fantastic dancing wrapped around spectacularly minimal cinematography. And oh yeah, it’s one take:

I love this video. Plain and simple. It’s one of my favorite things to watch. In fact, you can consider at least a dozen of those 132 million views mine. It makes me happy whenever I watch it, the dancing is so freaking cool and it’s just wonderful.

The dancers are clad in clothes straight out of 90’s hip-hop and dance videos. The song sounds like something you’d hear on KIIS-FM in 1996 and Kiesza is so damn cute in the middle of it all. The way she eases in and out of complex dance moves from scene to scene of the video is so smooth. The video just feels like Williamsburg…that stretch of Kent St where it was filmed is so cool, because it faces Manhattan…You can even see the Empire State Building in the background. The people in the video are from different backgrounds: White, black, Asian, Latino…Keisza herself is Canadian and the cast represents unity through music.

It’s such a low-budget marvel. There’s people jogging in the background, Dudes are skating through the set…I definitely tried to see if I made it in the footage while walking up the side walk. I didn’t 🙂 Kiesza’s label, Lokal Legend has 238 twitter followers and if you click on their “website” at lokallegend.com, you’re re-directed to their modest FB page. LOL. I love it. From Kiesza’s acid washed jeans, held up by black suspenders, to how subtly she pants from all the dancing at the end of the video as she hails a cab to exit. It’s fucking great. Enjoy.