Outside of "Reagan-omics" and a few hiccups and bumps in the pop-culture road, there aren't too many bad things that we can say about the '80s. We spent our youngest and most formative years fighting for the radio-dial and cassette privileges with our older brothers, arguing that the Crüe were indeed better than Depeche Mode, (boy, were we wrong...), when, in fact, they both rocked in their own separate ways. In a funny twist of fate, we now often find ourselves in the exact same battle. But this time we're on the opposite side of the argument. Today, there's very little that we can find wrong with any of Depeche Mode's voluminous catalog—they were genius and have literally created a genre, more or less. Really, what we're trying to say is that regardless of which band's catalog was bigger and more prevalent at the time, or later in the future, the '80s were a phenomenal time for music—particularly music with synthesizers.

And today, many artists are digging out those old "analog" machines to tamper with them and relearn the tricks of the trade that were lost and passed on in the age of digital sampling and backing tracks. One such group is just now breaking ground. They are Moscow's Tesla Boy, a synth-driven pop quartet. And, although you can follow their musical heritage back to the days of New Wave, et al. like you could follow the breed-stock of a prize-winning pony back to it's greatest-grandfather, there is very little one could say to take away from the sheer, dreamy sensationalism of their music.

We would argue that great music, regardless of its obvious predecessors and influences, is timeless. If Whitney Houston were to have released "How Will I Know" in the summer of 2009, instead of the summer of 1985, there is very little doubt in our minds that that song would have hit the top of the charts in record time today. Just like it did in '85. It was a product of its time, no doubt, and it owed much to its predecessors. But regardless, it was one hell of a track. In much the same way, Tesla Boy has managed to completely capture a sound so perfectly created in the dreamy cloud-pop of 1980s Southern California; complete with Malibu sunsets, rushing waves, and denim jacket-clad, Porsche-driving, awe-inspiring blondes. But they've done more than just capture the sound. They've managed to make new songs that are just as relevant today as they would have been back then. Which is that much more impressive when you think about the fact that they are from Russia and almost 20 years behind the original synth wave.

We like to think of Tesla Boy's "Runaway Man" as our own personal Way-Back Machine, letting our imaginations run, helping us to take comfort in our dreams. So go ahead press play, put it on repeat, and sit back and dream of what it was like to be a kid, feet buried in the sand, sitting on the beach at sunset with your car stereo soothing your troubled mind, and your best girl just an arm's-length away...

Once we take a video down from our "Featured Video" section, it's hard to restrain ourselves from putting it right back up again in the main body of the blog. So without further ado, keep enjoying the trippy video for "My Girls" by Baltimore art-noise outfit, Animal Collective.

Also, if you haven't run out to your local record store, make sure to drop by Amazon and buy Merriweather Post Pavilion. It's an amazing album and well worth the money—and besides, wouldn't it be nice to buy a record once in a while? Enjoy the video, we (still) are.

Animal Collective "My Girls" from Chad von Nau on Vimeo.

A little more than two months ago we recognized the face of one of the other tenants in our practice space building. At the time, we said hello and made friendly, but neither of us could place where we knew the other. It was just a few days later, in the halls of The FADER, that we ran into one another again—this time properly introducing ourselves. In collaboration with friend Ruthy Mirsky, John Majer has been working on a lovely electronic project, entitled Syvia for, roughly, the last 8 months in their Williamsburg practice space. John shared a few tracks recently, and to say the least, I was floored.

Resting somewhere on the line of Scandinavian minimalist synth-pop, such as The Knife, Syvia is occasionally much more, well, "American"; in feel and location, if that makes sense. On their song "Metal Bird", pizzicato female vocals, accompanied by buzz-saw synths and rythmic, almost native, kick-drum give their music a swagger that you wouldn't normally hear from the myth-laden, snow-worn, melodies of the European North. It's rythmic, simple, and subtle pop music whose roots seem to be built off of the linear tones of shoe-gaze and the bumping rhythms of house music, all driven by John's laptop and Ruthy's vocals. "Metal Bird" is one of our new favorite tracks of 2009, even when stacked up against heavy summer hitters, like French rock n' roll-inspired "1901" by Phoenix or the rolling wall of color, dreams, and sound that is Passion Pit's "Moth's Wings".

Syvia is so new, in fact, that we decided to wait to put up their Q&A until they'd had the chance to build a myspace page. After just a few weeks they came back to let us know that not only had they put together a stop on the myspace highway, but they had also managed to put together a page on Blogger. Understanding their technical abilities, we shouldn't have expected less, but we're happy to the be the first to independently announce their presence to the world. Press play below and read on to find out more about their snack preferences and plans to take the project out of the studio and onto a stage.

SYVIA

bad.neighbors. Hey guys, we're absolutely over the moon about "Metal Bird" and the other tracks that you gave us! How long have you guys been working on the music?

ruthy mirsky. We were in a band called What What Where and then that band broke up and we started Syvia in August 2008. We basically just started working on songs or pieces of songs that I had been writing on my own. I would sing it for John and he would either say "Yes, that's cool, let's work on that," or "No, that's lame and cheesy." Sometimes, John would send me a great instrumental riff that he had come up with and I would listen to it and hear a vocal melody and a story that I wanted to tell. We don't have a hard fast way of writing music, but the end goal is always the same--we want to make great songs. If we can strip away all the bells and whistles and still have a good tune with just the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar, then we have succeeded in doing that.

john majer. Yes, as Ruthy so eloquently stated, we worked together in What What Where and got along really well as friends and shared the same love for pop music as well as electronic, indie, undergound, or whatever. It just seemed natural to work together after the demise of What What Where.

b.ns. This is probably one of the hardest questions on the face of the planet to answer. I know that most bands struggle to "define" our own music, or even to say where we take our inspiration from—but can you do that?

r.m. I think we land somewhere in the murky intersection of electronica, pop, rock, and hip hop. The bands that most influenced us I think would be The Knife, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Robyn, a lot of the Scandinavian electro pop. Personally, I listened to a lot of blues music growing up and loved the raw emotion and energy of musicians like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson. Whenever we get stuck with a song we'll go listen to a track that one of us (or both of us) is currently obsessed with and use it as inspiration. Now that we have some songs finished, it will be interesting to see what our live show we be, but we've performed together before onstage so I'm not too worried. I can’t wait to start performing again .

j.m. When we first got together we met a couple times before we even started making music to get our game plan together. We tried to define what style of music we wanted to make. Which basically came out to be “interesting pop” music. We never really thought about how we were going to perform live. We knew that we wanted to and were going to perform, but we also knew that we wanted to write everything on our own on the computer first.

b.ns. What's it like in the studio for you guys—do you both contribute to all parts, or is more of a producer/vocalist kind of thing?

j.m. The first six months for us was a learning experience. What What Where had a third member that was really good at engineering, We had to learn to create music with just the two of us. There was a long learning curve that we had to get over, especially since Ruthy had never used any audio programs before. But now she has learned a lot about using Logic, which is our main sequencing software. But, we get along so well that even though it was trying at times it still felt natural. The songs come from both us with Ruthy having full reign on lyrics. I will come in with a beat or whatever and she will come up with a melody or
she comes in with a melody and even a beat already worked out in Logic. Tag team style.

r.m. We have frustrating moments, and John has been endlessly patient with me as I learn how to work with digital audio programs, but in the end it always works out. All the frustrations pay off when suddenly that surge of creative energy hits, and we both are thinking and hearing the same thing that needs to be done to bring the song over that next hurdle. One of the best things about our partnership is that we have one of those unique working relationships where we come at the music from entirely different perspectives, but ultimately share a common vision for what is great and what isn’t. The songs couldn’t get done without each of us bringing what we have to offer to the table.

b.ns. So knowing that you guys met here in New York, where did you both come from before here? How did you find yourselves swimming this sea?

r.m. I was born and raised in Manhattan, and currently live in Brooklyn. I was looking for ways to sing and started back up singing for a white rapper that I met off of Craigslist. My first audition happened to be at a studio that was owned by our third What What Where bandmate, and the rest is history.

j.m. I have been living in Brooklyn for about 7 years and basically wanted to move here so I did. Ha. We met in What What Where. Ruthy was referred to the band, auditioned, and it’s been nothing but good times ever since.

b.ns. Have either of you been in bands before Syvia and What What Where—what have those projects been like?

j.m. I have been playing in bands for years, my whole life really. I was in a post hardcore band called Lazycain that put out a couple records, then came Jrawls, then I was in an instrumental pirate metal band that was unbelievable fun called The Tori, was in a NYC band called Overnight which, as we are doing this, have written a whole new album that is really great—you should check it out. Then I did some tracks under the Even Odds moniker, What What Where, and now Syvia.

r.m. I have been singing since I was a little girl, but I went to a school that didn’t lend itself to a lot of outside activities so I sang in anything I could, like chorus, musicals, talent shows, whatever. I would write songs and record myself, but I didn’t take it further then that until after college. What What Where was my first real band experience. It took me some time to make the plunge into having music be the main focus of my life.

b.ns. Kind of sounds like this project was ineveitable...So, what do you guys do during the daytime and where does Syvia fit into that in the future—is making music, ultimately, what you want to be doing?

b.ns. We both have day jobs to pay the bills. Making music is very important for us and is what we ultimately want to be doing full time. Yes, we are going to be playing very soon. We are excited to get back at it just don’t know how we are going to do it exactly.

r.m. What he said.

b.ns. I may be getting ahead of myself, but if you could collaborate with anyone in the future, or work with anyone live or production-wise who would it be or do you not really think you'd want to do collaborations in the future?

j.m. Hmmmmmmmm. Not really thinking about collaborating with anyone at the moment. We have been so focused on working on creating this project. Ask us when we are done with this EP. But frankly we would love to work with a proper mixing engineer and learn the tricks.

r.m. First things first, getting our EP and live show figured out. Then we can dream about collaborations.

b.ns. This question could fall flat on it's face, but I've got some really strong attachments to music, and spend a lot of time daydreaming, thinking up how the music "looks" to me. I think every good song I've ever spent any time with, I've gotten a very strong scene stuck in my head. Something like the cover of the latest M83 album and how it just goes with the music so well. Do you have an aesthetic in your mind for your own music or are you too close to it, do you think?

j.m. I don’t really think that way. Not visually at least. For me it’s all about feeling as opposed to how it looks.

r.m. I totally know what you mean. Sometimes a scene will pop into my head while I’m listening to a song of ours, and that’s always exciting when you are that close to a song and it can still conjure up feelings and images.

b.ns. Where, (besides here), can we find your stuff online?

John: We finally did it! We made a MySpace page. I feel like we are an official band now. It’s very exciting. Check us out here:

Ruthy: We also have a blog and a twitter account, which is mostly me blabbering away and John occasionally interjecting his two cents.

b.ns. Any other big plans for the future, i.e. getting married, planned trips to the moon, big vacations, joining a cult, getting a tattoo?

j.m. No.

r.m. Getting something sweet to eat and possibly world domination.

And there you have it. Make sure to give their track below a listen. As well, you can find out more about upcoming dates and new music at their myspace page, blog, and twitter.



Download — Syvia - "Metal Bird".

It wasn't until we started listening to M83—the solo efforts of Anthony Gonzalez—in the early '00s that we started to get what others were talking about with their Francophile obsessions. From Antibes, France, M83 lead the way into shoe-gaze for us, much in the same way The Smiths made twee-pop come alive, or how Braid think about Fugazi in a way that made them genius beyond the name.

There are so many ways to talk about music, but with M83 we can't separate the feeling, or the imagery, from the music. It is massively, wildly deep, emotional, and sweeping from the second the needle hits the record. At least it is for us. They are our favorite band, until the next time that we forget that they are our favorite band...But then we'll hear "Kim & Jessie" again, and remember all over again how crushingly in love we are with them all over. M83 is a late-fall romance, in the falling leaves, in the woods behind our Midwestern homes. M83 is the dream we had of falling in love, with winters bite around the corner, wrapped warm in wool and corduroy, with the low sun setting behind us through the trees.

Whichever daydreams that they may incite, M83 recently released this new video for "We Own the Sky", the single from Saturdays=Youth, out on Mute.

The latest single titled "1901" from French popsters, Phoenix, is pretty much going to be the song of the summer. And, despite the fact that we are about 3 months too late to mention these guys with any real credibility, here's a video of their jam live on Saturday Night Live a while back. They've got this amazing bouncy sound that captures the real energy that only live instruments seem to emote, while still being unbelievably tight and clean—almost like a recorded track. Either way, we couldn't understand how anyone could dislike this track, no matter what side of pop/indie vs. lo-/hi-fi fence you prefer to stand on.

Without further ado, enjoy and we'll let the music speak for itself!

We Have Band - Oh! (Music Video) from We Have Band on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the London-trio We Have Band for The FADER's blog. Here's what I had to say about their new video for the single "Oh!":

"Holy crap, oh my god, it's Jambi, (scroll down), from Pee-Wee's Playhouse! Oh wait, we're wrong, it's We Have Band's new video—the second most awesome floating heads to ever grace the interweb. The barely year-old London-based trio just released their seizure-inspiring new video for the song "Oh!" and we've got the exclusive! Released on the 50 Bones label, we're all still waiting, waiting, waiting for their first full-length. Until then go check out what we had to say about them in the Gen F section of FADER Issue 60—out now."

That said, also be on the lookout for their re-make of the Pet Shop Boys' hit "West End Girls", and the singles "Hear It In The Cans" and "You Came Out"—both the latter were featured on French label Kitsune's—Kitsune Maison 6 compilation. The debut full-length—release date still TBD—should be out sometime this fall according to the powers that be. Consisting of Darren Bancroft (vocals, drums, percussion, sampler), Thomas WP (vocals, guitar, bass, programming) and Dede WP (vocals, percussion, sampler), We Have Band is getting rave reviews in an electro-pop flooded London scene and are being heralded as, perhaps, one of the next big things. Word on the street is that they all met while working desk jobs at EMI's headquarters in London. Thomas and Dede fell in love, got married, and decided to start a band around a year ago, winning Darren's support and participation on the strength of the band name alone.

To quote their publicist at Tell All Your Friends, "Their sound is catchy, fun, familiar and classic-sounding but also unarguably their own, it’s We Have Band, and that comprises of dark dance rhythms, washy electronic synths, post punk funk bass and individual pop vocals from each member, layered in a way that really makes them sound like nothing else today."

This video was recently posted in the "featured video." section of the site, but replaced by Animal Collective's video for "My Girls". Regardless, Fever Ray has been continually pushing the front edges—at least in our minds—of music, art, and now video for a while now, whether it be with her solo project or as 1/2 of The Knife.

Also of note, according to The Knife's website they have also been enlisted by Danish theatre group Hotel Pro Forma's production of Tomorrow, In A Year, which is purportedly based on, and performed in celebration of, Charles Darwin's Origin of Species 150th anniversary. No matter what she is doing, we can't say enough about this video. That said, make sure to go out and buy Fever Ray's debut album, entitled Fever Ray out now on Mute. No matter what she is doing, we can't say enough about this video. That said, make sure to go out and buy Fever Ray's debut album, entitled Fever Ray out now on Mute. She'll be on tour supporting the album in Europe over the summer, but still has yet to announce any dates in the U.S.


If I Had A Heart from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

A friend by the name of Jon Leone started making music videos a few years back and, as it turns out, has gained some notoriety in this neck of the woods for the work he's done. He recently finished a video for Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele for the song "Meet Me In The Garden". Check out the video below and stay tuned for an update to this post including more about the Dent May video and Jon's other work, including Animal Collective's "Fireworks" video and a link to his reel.

Philly-based popsters Drink Up Buttercup are set to release their first single on the Kanine Records imprint—due out April 7. An A/B side featuring "Farewell Captain" and "Sosey and Dosey", respectively. It's trip, a riot, and one hell of a band. Working on getting an mp3 for y'all greedy cheapsters.

Drink Up Buttercup have become known on both sides of the pond for their live show. Obsession Collection Music makes note of the band saying, “It is great to see a young band with so much promise and enthusiasm, who are eager and ready to make somebody's day. They made mine." They also followed up with a recent post, saying, "[...] It is really nice when a group can create different versions of their songs both live and recorded. Drink Up Buttercup traded in the keyboard for piano, garbage can percussion for a more lightweight kick drum and some tambourine [...]". The Music Slut has also commented, “more than just a breath of fresh air. It somehow managed to lift all jadedness from our respective souls (a truly difficult feat, indeed).”

For those of you interested, see them, Japandroids, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and We Are Country Mice at the Crashin' In Party at Cameo Gallery at 93 N6th St, Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Friday May 8.

Check out the new release from Brooklyn band, Suckers. I wrote up a mini-review on their debut EP coming out April 14 on IAMSOUND. To quote myself, "You can't help but feel that New York quartet Suckers are channeling the pop ghost of Talking Heads with their self-titled Suckers EP (out 4/14 on IAMSOUND). Their use of clean, reverb-drenched guitars, simple percussion hooks, a smattering of horns, keys, synths, programmed beats, group choruses, harmonies, other happy noises and good old-fashioned whistling would do David Byrne & Co. proud. This band sounds just plain happy to be here, and they would like nothing more than to make you happy to be here too. On "It Gets Your Body Movin'," Suckers bang out a simple sailor's melancholy chorus with a smile. We don't know how, but they make sad seem happy." Go to The FADER link provided above and get their single, "It Gets Your Body Movin'" for free—then go out and pay for it, because that record is dope.

It's true, we're recording at Scott Rosenthal's Northside Studios, starting this weekend, April 4th! This will be We Are Country Mice's first effort due out as a 7" and digital download in June on Lotion Records.

UPDATE:
Working over the three days of the weekend we managed to lay down five songs—stay tuned to the myspace page, etc. to see what we're going to do with them! Also, dates, showcases, and some lineup listings, (sorry no schedule's yet...), have been posted for the Northside Festival taking place here in Brooklyn.

Rumor has it that We Are Country Mice are set to play the Kanine Records/Frenchkiss Records showcase, hosted by the The L Magazine, at...tsk, tsk, tsk—can't give it all away! More to come on the lineup and location.