soon we’ll be in the open and the day will start

Another all-star cast assembled for a jam I should have brought you weeks ago! Everyone doing what they do best! The Knocks whipping up beats, St. Lucia crooning so smooth, and me being late as shit! Tag team! Enter Goldroom for the finishing move!

Update: Amtrac remix!

it’s always a maybe with you

Sure, I’m a few weeks late kicking this jam your way but it IS Friday so let’s (re)visit the groove party that star chefs Viceroy and French Horn Rebellion have cooked up for us! Take small bites at first. ‘Aint nobody time to be cramping on the dance floor!

you break the surface, take the wheel

Glasgow’s prides share more than just a hometown with Chvrches, both full of big synthy grooves that cut right through the spring fog. Prides only have this jam out so far but fingers crossed that can keep the quality up with their next tracks. That would set them apart from their neighbors… (Burn!)

drinking till we fall, strong but feeling small

It’s time to move that body! The tropical dance party train is busting out of the fresh young coconut and spilling margarita on everyone! Jump in the pool to wash it off! Summer is here! More Fashions please!

Vampire Weekend are an institution. Or at least they feel that way to me. Looking at their name on my invitation to see them live at KCRW’s Apogee Berkeley Street Sessions brought back so many memories. The 2008 Los Angeles live show that left few concrete memories in it’s wake of dancing and fun. Two months later in Berlin they showed up to play ping pong at my all time favorite bar. (Ezra is pretty ace). There was the time a year an a half later when I pecked out my disappointed Contra review from the freezing winter hallway of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. More than most other bands, my associations with VW are weirder and run deeper.

So I was pretty stoked to see them live in such a small setting. (Thanks KCRW!)

Photo by Brenda Janair

Vampire Weekend’s first new single “Diane Young” gets weird quick, but that is exactly why its so great. Those farty horns, Ezra’s tripped out “baby, baby”, and the high speed at which it wraps you right into their latest world. Other jams like “Step” and “Unbelievers” tone things down a bit, allowing for the sprinkling of Rostam’s signature VW production to shine through.

Tune into KCRW tomorrow morning to hear the whole performance.  It will be on air at 11:15am PST but the HD video will be available on demand starting at 9am. In the meantime you can catch a sneak peek of “Unbelievers” above and scope some photos here. It was a pretty damn fun way to hear the new songs and see the band in great spirits. Jason Bentley hosted and played a fun “guess which member” game with the guys. A must-listen for any hardcore Vampire Weekend fans.

you’re fucking beautiful and i can’t pretend that that doesn’t mean a thing to me

Like a selfish moron, I haven’t written about Miquel here but that doesn’t mean his album Kaleidoscope Dream hasn’t been steaming up my bedroom windows for the past few months. Mariah very wisely wants to hitch her limp wagon to this rising star and wrangled this sultry collaboration that runs so smooth on the ears. She has her name leading on “#Beautiful” but really, its a Miquel song. Get into it.

we don’t know what we’re waiting for and we don’t know the truth anymore

Does your car stereo remember Griz Adam’s “The Struggle” as much as mine does? That jams has been getting endless play since October and I recently began wondering when we were gonna get a second track. Turns out that the guys changed their name to GrizFolk and have a handful of jams in the pipeline. 1st one out is the rollicking “Hymnals”, riding an unstoppable wave of percussion, keys, guitar, and singer Adam Roth’s epic vocals. I know what my song of the week is already.

Catch up with “The Struggle” if you haven’t and Los Angeles, come out to see GrizFolk tear it up at Hotel Cafe on Wednesday at 9pm. I caught a secret show a few weeks back (follow them on Facebook!) and will tell you right now that these guys mean serious fucking business. Grizfolk have to be seen to be fully believed.

Yup, another “better late than never” roundup coming at you straight from arctic February. But turn that frown upside down because it is Friday and you have the tunes to do the night justice. With warmer weather comes looser limbs. Move them.

i let you cross that line and leave me hanging out to dry

This kind of angsty throwback synth wave magic has been done before but damn if I don’t mind it being done again. Get sexy!

i want to trend when i die, re-release my greatest hits

Los Angeles’ Leonard Friend topped TBE charts with his party rocker “Middle Of The Night” but now he changes things up with a slower burn groover that wouldn’t have been out of place on Timberlake’s new album. He is just singing it from the heart here and you can taste it. Yes. Get into the rest of his LXLF EP.