In case you were blacked out all weekend, Neon Indian made their Upstate debut at Buffalo’s Soundlab on Friday night. Preceded by local avant-pop group Wooden Waves, the set was tight and danceable, comprised solely of cuts off their breakout 2009 album Psychic Chasms. Things didn’t veer into “unexpected surprise” territory until the encore, at which point leader Alan Palomo emerged and asked the audience’s permission to play material from his other project, VEGA. Cue a stunning live version of that band’s “No Reasons,” one of my favorite tracks last year and one whose strobe-lit power stands above any single Neon Indian song in immediacy.

According to Palomo’s banter, we can expect a full-length VEGA album later this Fall; for now, you’ll have to pull some Google moves to get your hands on their excellent Well Known Pleasures EP, which may or may not have ever been “officially” released in 2009.

Elsewhere, in a calculated move to test the corporate limits of their hipster audience’s allegiance, Neon Indian debuted their new single, “Sleep Paralysist”, via Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound. You can grab that, as well as an exemplary VEGA track, below.

Neon Indian – “Sleep Paralysist”

VEGA – “All Too Vivid” (Original Mix)

Buy Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms via Insound.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

While Ms. Newsom may not be stopping through our beautiful region of NY this time around, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to enjoy these shows!
Look at this beautiful video captured from Joanna’s visit to Toronto last week. Personally, once the bridge arrives in this clip, with the audience claps, I  became a puddle of mush with goosebumps all over.  How about you?

Skipster will be traveling to Philadelphia this week to cover Joanna Newsom and the Moore Brothers. Stay tuned!

Once I saw this weird duo open for of Montreal in 2005. They didn’t have a CD out, but their live show was already impressive. They took off half their clothes, paraded around like ghosts wearing sheets, and then curated a dance party. Years later, this band has two hit songs and is universally known as MGMT.  This week, these indie pretty boys have finally released a sneak peak into their upcoming full-length Congratulations, out April 13th, with the song “Flash Delirium.” Stream the song below, or head to their website to download it for free.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MGMT / “Flash Delirium”

We want to know what you think. Good? Bad?

Tell us!

Tonight, there’s no reason to stay in and fidget about Midterms, or whatever other stress life is bringing you this week. Firstly, remember to always take care of yourself first, mentally and physically, and second of all, the wonderful, Ithaca Underground presents a wonderful show tonight at Ithaca’s The Shop. Evolve, coming all the way from Cincinnati, bring their experimental, socio-political hip-hop to the table, while openers Blow! will caress your ears with their ethreal and dreamy pop tunes. If you didn’t catch Blow! at the Nines last Saturday, this is your second chance.

EVOLVE (Cincinnati, OH : Realicide Youth Records)
Robotic Detective (Ithaca, NY)
Blow! (Ithaca, NY)

The show is tonight, March 10th at The Shop on 213 E. Seneca St. The show will start at 8 PM, and is only 5 bucks to enter.

Okay, make your choice: Will it be the sassy and brassy Thao Nguyen or the Flaming Lips and their magic body bubble?

Sadly, this isn’t even a hypothetical: it’s a real choice you’re going to have to ask yourself RIGHT NOW, considering Thao and the Get Down Stay Down will be hitting Ithaca on April 18th. Personally, there’s no contest. Considering Thao’s frenzied stage manner, the band’s extreme chops, the precise live show, and her brilliant 2009 album, Know Better Learn Faster, it’s an easy decision. In fact, Know Better was in this half of skipster’s top ten of 2009!

Details are coming soon, but we know the show will be $12 and most likely will take place at one of the clubs here in Ithaca courtesy of Dan Smalls Presents.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Thao / “When We Swam”

The magic draws nearer…

First, a bit of background: Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People is arguably the most personally influential album of my lifetime thus far. The album appeared stateside back in 2003, seemingly overnight and without warning, just as all my suburban high school angst was crystallizing into whatever mental state left me predisposed to rapture. Its greatness is a strange affair, achieved indirectly through imperfection and exhaustion, an edifice built from buzzing, collapsable gears. It runs with abandon into the summer twilight, standing breathless on the wet lawn with both palms raised, gestating in that single moment for fifty-six whole minutes. And I still think it navigates between euphoric pop and sonic experimentation with more bracing impact than anything released in the seven intervening years.

This brings us to the occasion of Forgiveness Rock Record, the first new Broken Social Scene album since their self-titled 2005 release. The album will be released via the band’s own Arts & Crafts label on May 4th, and is available for pre-order on multiple formats over here.

Here’s an unusually stripped-down track off their To Be You and Me EP, bearing no relation to the LCD Soundsystem jam of the same name. RIYL Elliott Smith underwater.

Broken Social Scene – “All My Friends”

Tracklist after the jump.

read more… »

With all the excitement and craziness of the weekend, you probably forgot to watch Joanna Newsom performing live on Friday’s edition of Jimmy Fallon. Don’t worry, so did we.

Here she takes on Have One On Me highlight “Soft As Chalk” and emerges triumphant as usual, breaking out some Western saloon moves as she catalogues a dissolving relationship from her vantage point on a descending airplane. (No, seriously, check out the lyrics.)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Joanna Newsom / “Peach, Plum, Pear” (Live at Bottletree)

Friday morning’s traditionally the best time of the week to kick back and let all the feelings you’ve accrued over the past five days wash over you — the good, the bad, the ever-popular somewhere in between. We all need to take stock of whatever’s happening before we hurtle headlong into weekend madness. With that said, here are three tracks I’ve had in constant rotation over the past week, each of which is good enough to help usher you toward self-actualization before you go ahead and melt your brains tonight.

Pictured: Twin Sister in Brooklyn, via Ampeater

First up is Twin Sister’s “I Want a House,” the smoky, slow-burn finisher to the band’s self-released Vampires with Dreaming Kids EP. You can download the rest of that EP for free on their website, and stay tuned for another forthcoming release via Infinite Best Recordings. That one’s called Color Your Life and will be available digitally and on vinyl starting March 30th.

Twin Sister – “I Want a House”

Next is Jimmy Ruffin with Motowon staple “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” a song that Beach House’s Victoria Legrand recently named as an inspiration during the recording of their masterpiece Teen Dream. Opening with a melodramatic stomp before segueing into Ruffin’s genuinely cathartic vocals, his repeated mantra of “I’ll find a way somehow” coasts into the three-minute mark on the wings of pop perfection; it’s a land of despair and heartache, but never total resignation. One to keep on repeat.

Jimmy Ruffin – “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted”

Finally, we have nascent Los Angeles band Pearl Harbor with their latest, “California Shakedown.” As reported on Gorilla vs. Bear last weekend, this song will function as the b-side to their limited-edition, Japanese-distributed Slivers of You 7″. The sibling duo currently occupies my slot for “favorite working band who haven’t released an actual full-length,” and this is just another confirmation of their preternatural knack for opiated-yet-immediately-addictive dream pop. And check out that bassline.

Pearl Harbor – “California Shakedown”

That’s all, folks. Have a good weekend.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Okay, okay, we all get it. Scott’s obssessed with the new Groove Armada, album. Etc. But really. The group just started touring in support of Black Light , and the reviews and this video speak for themselves.  Above is GA, with Saint Saviour and Ben Duffy (0f Fenech Soler) on lead vocals singing Skipster’s current anthem, “Paper Romance.”

More importantly, the band stopped by the BBC6 studios in London, playing stripped down versions of album cuts “Paper Romance” and “Cards to Your Heart”. Check them out below.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Groove Armada / “Paper Romance” (BBC Live Acoustic)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Groove Armada / “Cards to Your Heart” (BBC Live Acoustic)