New release spotlight: Communist Daughter, Summer Camp EPs
I like a couple of EPs just released this week, one by Minneapolis band Communist Daughter and the other from U.K. duo Summer Camp.
Communist Daughter’s Lions & Lambs is a real earnest piece of work that will appeal to fans of Bowerbirds, Sharon Van Etten and the like. Summer Camp, on the other hand, offers up another platter of blissful synth-pop. Both EPs are recommended.
New song: Summer Camp releases ‘City’
Here’s another song, City, from Summer Camp off the new EP Always (out next Tuesday).
Summer hits: Dana Buoy, Superchunk, Summer Camp
Every summer needs a playlist. I usually make mine a week or so before Memorial day and update throughout the hot months. For me, the perfect playlist is a mix of power pop, punk, rock, alt country and electronic. My top summer song may be an anthem or a dance track.
While it’s not required that the word summer actually appears in a song, album or band name to mark the season, there’s no shortage of references.
Dana Buoy beat almost everyone to the beach this year with the May release of Summer Bodies, a rollicking Caribbean music-inspired album. Dana Buoy is actually Dana Janssen of the band Akron/Family, a group that sounds nothing like Janssen’s side project. The music on Summer Bodies is bouncy and uplifting. It’s definitely feel-good music and makes a nice soundtrack or playlist for summer.
Indie rock veterans Superchunk just put out a single, This Summer, which gets closer to that anthem thing I mentioned. But mostly, it’s just a great rocker and a cool summer song.
I feel like I have to mention Summer Camp, which is following up its awesome debut from last year, Welcome to Condale, with a five-song EP out July 10. The EP is called Always. Check out the title track below.
I love the new album, Correct Behavior, from Eternal Summers, which also comes out next month.
Also, Sweden’s jj just released a free digital EP, High Summer. You can get it here.
New releases by Best Coast and Beach House also get my vote for summer albums. (And not just because they have warm-weather connotations in their names.)
Also see New Music: Best Coast, Beach House
All the Young Punks’ Top 40: Best Albums of 2011
There was so much good music released in 2011 that I find it’s actually hard to confine a list to the top 40. These are some of the albums that struck me as interesting, exciting or irresistible.
I’ll count down from 40 to 1 in two posts.
40. Bass Drum of Death – GB City: This is such a fun debut from two guys from Mississippi. It rocks hard.
Young Pros – Bass Drum of Death
39. The Obits – Moody, Standard and Poor: Indie vet Rick Froberg plays stripped down, loud rock ‘n’ roll.
38. Male Bonding – Endless Now: Great second album from these London punks.
37. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Lenses Alien: Band pays respectable homage to Pavement.
36. The Babies – The Babies: What do you get when you cross Woods with the Vivian Girls? A pretty boss album.
Meet Me In The City – The Babies
New music: Atlas Sound, Cass McCombs, Kurt Vile
It’s been a good week for new releases, highlighted by Atlas Sound’s Parallax and Cass McCombs’ Humor Risk. McCombs’ album is his second of the year and a more uptempo follow to the somber Wit’s End. For Bradford Cox, it’s his first official Atlas Sound album since the awesome Logos in 2009. A year ago, you may recall, he released a ton of free music, the Bedroom Databank songs.
Also out this week: Kurt Vile’s EP, So Outta Reach. The release features five songs from the recording sessions for the excellent Smoke Ring for My Halo and a Bruce Springsteen cover. (In addition to making one of the best albums of the year, Vile was one of my noted highlights from Pitchfork fest.) As I posted earlier this week, Summer Camp released its debut, a fun, synth pop album that pays homage to the ’80s.
New music: Summer Camp ‘Welcome to Condale’
I thought this ’80s synth pop craze ran its course. I honestly didn’t want to hear another song. That’s until I heard Summer Camp.
I was sold on these guys — Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey of London — following release of the single I Want You earlier this year. But I was skeptical that the full-album release, Welcome to Condale, would hold up to the strength of that song. I’m happy to say it does. The album is out today.
As noted, the songs have that ’80s sound (think of a John Hughes soundtrack) but there’s an original stamp on them as well. It’s very good.
New band: Summer Camp releases ‘I Want You’
Well, not exactly brand new: British electronic-pop duo Summer Camp is about to make its first appearance in the U.S. this week. Check out the single I Want You, which will appear on an upcoming full-length album.
And here’s a video for the John Hughes-inspired Round the Moon from Summer Camp’s first EP Young.
