15-09-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX

15-09-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from the recent past] # Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Cigarettes After Sex, Halo Maud, Palm, La Luz, Tunng, Maston, Quilt, OCS aka Orinoka Crash Suite, Gorillaz, Cowboy Junkies

M U S I C

pres_perf_mix # The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza. 

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Folk-informed indie pop guided by Thao Nguyen, whose songwriting tends toward the musically playful and lyrically heavy-hearted. 
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down
Fool Forever 3:08
Nobody Dies 3:48
from A Man Alive 2016
Having constructed prior albums with the likes of Tucker Martine (the Decemberists, Camera Obscura) and John Congleton (St. Vincent, FFS), bandleader Thao Nguyen enlisted longtime side project collaborator Merrill Garbus to produce her band's fourth LP, A Man Alive. A match that sounds as good on the final product as it does on paper, Garbus brings the musical moxie associated with her tUnE-yArDs outfit and reinforces that same quality in Thao & the Get Down Stay Down for an especially muscular outing...

Ambient pop collective started as a recording experiment in an echoey hallway.  Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex were formed almost accidentally in 2008 by songwriter and bandleader Greg Gonzalez. While living in El Paso, Texas, Gonzalez was experimenting with capturing the spacious sounds of recording songs in a four-story stairwell at the University of Texas.
Cigarettes After Sex
K 5:20
Flash 4:34
from Cigarettes After Sex 2017
After a slow start, Cigarettes After Sex saw their fortunes swiftly reversed by a whirlwind of YouTube hits. Although they formed in 2008, CAS waited nearly a decade to release their debut record, and rather fittingly it unfolds at a lethargic pace. The music that Greg Gonzales and his fellow bandmates produce is slowcore in the extreme. The shimmering guitars, placid percussion, and wistfully delivered vocals also reveal their debt to dream pop and shoegaze. More than anything, early supporters of the band have praised Gonzales' unashamed sentimentality and dyed-in-the-wool romanticism. You don't have to venture beyond the opening track to experience his hazy passion...

Psychedelic pop with touches of proggy and space age indie played by French musician Maud Nadal and friends. 
Halo Maud
Wherever 5:23
Je Suis une Île 2:3
Dans la Nuit 4:11
from Je Suis Une Île 2018
Lots of bands were making ethereal, hypnotically drifting, modern psychedelic pop in 2018 and lots of them were really good at it, especially those fronted by women, like Death and Vanilla and Gloria. Add to that female solo artists like Gwenno, Jane Weaver, and Melody's Echo Chamber and the field starts to get a little crowded. To make a record that stands out next to all the high-quality work of those artists, one would need to go a little outside the lines to add something extra. On her debut album, Je Suis Une Île, the French artist Halo Maud (known to her parents as Maud Nadal) does just that. With the help of producer/multi-instrumentalist Robin Leduc, Pablo Padovani from Moodoïd -- a band she played in in the early 2010s -- Benjamin Glibert from Aquaserge, and the members of her live band (Olivier Marguerit, Stéphane Bellity, and Vincent Mougel), Nadal crafts a sound that is indebted to the epic psych-pop of the '60s, but also adds some oddball prog touches, a little bit of electronica here and there, and a hefty dose of the kind of space age indie that bands like Broadcast and Stereolab did so well in the '90s...

Experimental outfit formed in the 2010s who offer a warped take on math rock.  Formed in the early 2010s by college undergrads in Upstate New York, Palm is a four-piece with a warped and circuitous take on math rock.
Palm
Walkie Talkie 2:33
Shadow Expert 2:16
Trying 2:30
from Shadow Expert 2017
Shadow Expert is the Carpark Records debut of Palm, who formed in the early 2010s and formulated their own warped take on math rock. That take is full of what sound like contradictions: a lack of recognizable song structure that is nevertheless followed with precision, a loose performance demeanor that's still notably exacting, and songs built from a relentless four-part counterpoint that they often make sound breezy. The quartet is led by guitarists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, who also act as co-vocalists. Drummer Hugo Stanley should not be overlooked, however, nor should bassist Gerasimos Livitanos; there's no room for slacking here...

Seattle-based quartet that mixes up doo wop, surf music, girl group sounds, and indie rock into one smart package. 
La Luz
Floating Features 2:13
Loose Teeth 2:47
My Golden One 4:14
from Floating Features 2018
La Luz had their formula firmly in place on their debut album, 2013's It's Alive, and they're a group who've managed to grow and mature without major changes to their aural signature. Their fusion of vintage surf sounds, garage rock, and smart indie pop sounded clever and well-crafted right out of the box, and there's been a certain sense of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" in their subsequent recordings. That said, their third full-length, 2018's Floating Features, is a step forward from their first two albums, if not an especially dramatic one. Musically, La Luz sound tighter and more emphatic here, with the performances boasting a bit more muscle, Alice Sandahl's vintage keyboards taking more chances, and the harmonies revealing more sparkle. Guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland has always believed that surf music doesn't have to be silly or facile, and her lyrics on Floating Features are intelligent and thoughtful...

U.K. indie collective often dubbed "future folk" or "folktronica" due to their hard-to-pin-down hybrid sound. UK experimental indie collective Tunng formed around the songwriting partnership of Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders, who brought in various members to fill out their creative core. 
Tunng
Dream In 4:38
Sleepwalking 3:45
Dark Heart 4:16
from Songs You Make at Night 2018
U.K.-based collective Tunng formed in 2003 when core members Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders began weaving samples of film dialogue and other found sounds into their songs. They honed their approach over the course of several beautiful albums, always moving between staid traditional British folk trappings and more curious experimental electronics...  Songs You Make at Night sees Lindsay and Genders reunited for the first time in over a decade, bringing along the rest of the original Tunng crew in a return to the watery, surreal tonalities of their earliest output. The album succeeds in cultivating the same dreamlike atmosphere that marks the band's best work, but moves forward to achieve this rather than returning to tested formulas...

Frank Maston puts his own spin on the retro studio stylings of inspirations like Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Ennio Morricone. Multi-instrumentalist Frank Maston grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, soaking in both the summery atmosphere and the musical and cultural history of his surroundings. Early on, Maston developed a love for the sunny chamber pop of Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson, as well as more California-inspired moments of rock magic from Harry Nilsson and Phil Spector. He eventually sculpted these influences into what would become his own music, a completely self-sufficient menagerie of dark pop sounds informed by '60s and '70s studio magicians and loner geniuses.
Maston
Swans 1:55
Old Habits 2:03
Rain Dance 2:53
Hues 2:00
from Tulips 2017
... the Los Angeles native's follow-up, Tulips, shifts focus to the era's European film music, specifically that of the French New Wave and Ennio Morricone. Maston was drawn to these overseas influences after extensive touring in Europe that included living part-time in the Netherlands (hence, "Tulips") to play keyboards for Jacco Gardner. Completely self-made until it was sent to Jasper Geluk for mastering, the almost entirely instrumental album relies on grooving electric guitar and bass, Mellotron, and other vintage sounds to craft loose, whimsical lounge music for the indie crowd...

Quilt weave a tapestry of float-away guitars, Eastern melodies, and languid, intimate harmonies for a modern take on psychedelic folk. The brainchild of Shane Butler and Anna Fox Rochinski, who formed the band while studying at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Quilt craft psychedelic pop that evokes '60s idealism without feeling too indebted to it.
Quilt
Passersby (Quilt) 4:16
Searching For 3:07
Something There 3:46
from Plaza 2016
After spending much of 2014 on the road touring in support of Held in Splendor, Quilt began working on songs for their third album in a historic building in Atlanta -- a long way from their Boston home base. Being so far from home may have contributed to the rootless, restless feeling underpinning Plaza; nearly all of its songs are about being in flux... Even if Quilt don't always find the answers they're looking for on Plaza, they've found some of their most confident and cohesive music.

John Dwyer's post-Coachwhips lo-fi psych-folk band, put on ice for Thee Oh Sees, then brought back to life in the late 2010s.  While playing in the bands Pink & Brown, Zeigenbock Kopf, and the Coachwhips in the late '90s, guitarist/vocalist John Dwyer found he needed an outlet for songs that didn't reach the same level of frenzied noise as those groups. He chose the name Orinoka Crash Suite, or OCS for short, and began recording the folky psychedelic songs in a lo-fi manner, mostly on his own at first.
OCS
Memory of a Cut Off Head 4:47
On and On Corridor 5:50
Lift a Finger (By the Garden Path) 4:27
from Memory of a Cut Off Head 2017
As if he weren't busy enough cranking out records with the Oh Sees, making weird electronic albums as Damaged Bug, and co-running the prolific Castle Face record label, John Dwyer needed another outlet for songs and sounds, so in 2017 he brought the OCS name back to life and released Memory of a Cut Off Head. OCS was the early incarnation of the Oh Sees, making lo-fi and experimental records before the band evolved into a garage punk juggernaut. Memory of a Cut Off Head doesn't revert back to the scruffy, sometimes off-putting sound of those early records; instead, Dwyer and co-conspirator Brigid Dawson take a step away from the pounding power of the Oh Sees in favor of something hazily psychedelic and expansive, a little bit folky and rustic, with every nook and cranny filled by a wide array of instruments meticulously arranged into something that would make the Incredible String Band sit up and take notice...  She and Dwyer fit together like a warped hippie version of Lee & Nancy, or George & Tammy, each complementing the other perfectly. Her contributions show that she should definitely start working on her own stuff soon. Really, they should both work on more OCS music soon, since this album is a trippy, spooky delight.

Virtual hip-hop/electronica/indie group comprising fictional cartoons voiced by Blur's Damon Albarn and a revolving all-star cast. Conceived as the first "virtual hip-hop group," Gorillaz blended the musical talents of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Blur's Damon Albarn, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori, and Tom Tom Club's Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz with the arresting visuals of Jamie Hewlett, best known as the creator of the cult comic Tank Girl...
Gorillaz
Humility (feat.: George Benson) 3:17
Fire Flies 3:53
from The Now Now 2018
It's not an unusual move for Gorillaz, releasing a brief, breezy record swiftly on the heels of a magnum opus. The Fall followed Plastic Beach by a matter of 13 months, but that 2011 record was deliberately positioned as an afterthought, promoted as being written and recorded on the road and initially released to the cartoon band's fan club. The Now Now, delivered a mere 14 months after Humanz, echoes The Fall, particularly in how nearly half of its songs carry titles that salute the presumed place of their composition, but this is quite a different beast than any previous Gorillaz album. Recorded in February 2018 so the group could have new material to play on the festival circuit that year, The Now Now by design has fewer collaborators than Humanz, the record Damon Albarn toiled over for the better part of a decade...

Soporific Canadian country dream poppers, captured Americana imagination in the late-1980s & early-'90s. Canada's Cowboy Junkies' create a music grounded in traditional country, blues, and folk, filled with languid guitars and ethereal vocals courtesy of Margo Timmins. Over the late '80s and '90s, the group recorded a succession of critically acclaimed albums...
Cowboy Junkies
All That Reckoning, Pt. 1 3:52
Sing Me a Song 4:20
All That Reckoning, Pt. 2 4:19
The Possessed 3:23
from All That Reckoning 2018
It's remarkable in itself that in 2018, the Cowboy Junkies still have the same lineup that recorded their debut album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, in 1986. But it's even more surprising that more than three decades into their career, the band's essential formula remains very much the same, and what's more, that it still works. Released in 2018, All That Reckoning is less spare and severe than the group's most celebrated early material, with the occasional report of a jagged synthesizer or electric guitar, but even though the arrangements are more fleshed-out and the production more ambitious, the Cowboy Junkies continue to lay out languid, contemplative melodies favoring the low end of the register, with the rich but spectral vocals of Margo Timmins drizzled over the top like honey...