“American Boy” featuring Kanye on Estelle’s Shine album is the summer kickoff song of 2008. Listen here!

office furniture in Bulgaria
office furniture in Bulgaria

It took me listening to about 20 acts to get to a musical group that I actually had anything to say about. That’s kind of a lot of groups, you know? There were a few decent hip-hop groups in that midst, but notheinr that really called out to my fickle ear-brain. Maybe I was just looking for somehting a little more…EuroTrash.

Discrete Encounter: It’s like the Eurhythmics and Johnny 5 in a passionate GHB-fueled sixty-nine, and I am ALL ABOUT THAT. The grinding, industrial pulse, the false harmonic pick squeals and chunka-chunka riffage, and ice-hearted, stoic female vocals drenched in reverb and digital delay… Plus, just look at them:

Man, I wish my band was that photogenic. Or that Euro-chic. Either way, listening to their throbbing electro makes me want to hold up in a former slaughterhouse-turned-disco, dressed entirely in leather and dance until my bowels turn to jelly.

Check Discreet Encounter’s MySpace here. YOu can buy their new album, 2B1 here. For $25? Really?

Every so often I find myself flipping through CDs in a jaded attempt to fins something, anything, with a little authenticity, originality or…well, something that doesn’t suck. It can be a tough job, actually. If only there were more bands like Surface of Atlantic, who really spoke out to me through the filter-less din of internet music. With softly uttered vocals, droning guitar repetition, swelling keyboards and minimalist electronica underpinning the unassumingly beautiful songs, Surface of Atlantic can easily knock the copy of Coldplay’s Parachutes or Death Cab’s Transatlanticism out of any sweater-wearing dorm rat’s CD changer. The aesthetic is decidedly mellow, but this is not to say the music lacks the right amount of rhythm to push it along at a simmering mid-tempo. Tracing the musical genealogy of this Montreal quintet back, you might find albums by Slowdive, Sigur Ros, Postal Service or The Poor Rich Ones populating their catalogs. This is truly noteworthy, and we suggest you stop what you’re doing and look into this majestic stuff.

Their latest LP, Ephemeral as we Speak, is available now.

Buy it on iTunes here.

Check out Surface of Atlantic’s really well put together Official Web Site for more up to the minute details (or, you know, look at their MySpace….)

Instrumentation
Dave Douville: vox+guit
Marco Gervais: guitar
Martin Poisson: bass
Francois Graham: Piano/keys
Fred Bujo : Drums

Discography
Ephemeral as we Speak LP - 2007
Fairmount Avenue EP - 2006

Sek Loso is the Thai equivalent of Eddie Van Halen, and David Lee Roth wrapped up into one spring roll. Having achieved mega-superstardom in his home country as frontman of the band Loso, Sek moved to England to learn English, and put together a new band, which included former Oasis guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and toured all over Europe and the US. The video above is a collaboration with fellow Thai musician and actor Bird Thongchai. At this point I don’t really know what could possibly be the downside to living in Thailand: the food is bomb, the women are small, hot, and look like their 16 for EVAR, and their rock music is bombastic, badass, and totally over the top. Fuck it, book me a flight to Phuket (OMG GET IT????!111)

“I got my momma playin very hard / I’m flirtin’ with sin but I’m married to god…”

When you flip through my CD books you’ll find a lot of indie rock and metal, but not too much hip-hop. It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation for the music, it’s just I hate the braggadocio aesthetic that sets the tone for the majority of hip-hop artists of the last few years.
You also won’t find much in terms of Christian music in my collection…my people get blamed for the crucifixion and I hate getting preached at by the misguided and unlearned. So it might strike some as strange that for today’s Synthesis Artist You’ve Never Heard Of Artist Of The Day, I’ve chosen Virginia Beach Christian rap artist El Prezidino.

I like El Prezbecause he’s working through his issues of spirituality and faith in a way that isn’t preaching as much as telling - his missteps handled with the same thoughtfulness as his strides along a righteous path. There’s a bit of bragging in there, but it’s more focused on his wealth of character, not wealth of material goods. And when he does rap about money, it’s almost more as a self-criticism, in that he should be paying more attention to God and self. I can get behind that, you know. Plus, his beats SLUMP. Check out his music on his Space, and you can find his EP The Warning here.

Check his live dates after the jump: (more…)

Although  yesterday was supposed to be my prescribed day to select the Synthesis Band You’ve Never Heard Of…OF THE DAY!!111, I waited until today because the band in question, the pop savages known as We Shot The Moon actually have their debut record, Fear and Love, in stores, TODAY! Though you might not have heard of We Shot The Moon, chances are you’ve heard of the guys in it: Jonathan Jones, former frontman of Waking Ashland and Joe Greenetz and Dan Koch of Sherwood. Though Greenetz and Koch are too busy touring with Sherwood to hit the road to promote Fear and Love, Jones and a few friends will be making the rounds of the US over the next few months, touring the shit out of the record, which, as you might expect sounds a lot like Waking Ashland and Sherwood, so in other words: poppy as F, but in a good way. Check out some of the tracks on the band’s Myspace or just buy that shit today. Tour dates after the jiggity-jizzump.

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