Skip to main content

Cults

62
Cults

Cults

Cults began as a NYU dorm-room recording collaboration between guitarists Brian Oblivion and singer Madeline Follin, then they went and posted a three-track demo on Bandcamp and music fans took noticed: "Go Outside" went viral in the indie blogosphere, the Brooklyn-based band became an indie-pop success story, and went to the majors with signing to Columbia Records. Cults' music sounds sweet & light - chiming guitar pop, twinkly glockenspiel and quirky samples- but the lyrics flirt with dark, dystopian fantasies. Sunny yet sinister. Music that may not have sounded so out of place on a '60s R&B radio station. For Cults, reinvigorating '60s-style girl-group pop means embracing both light and darkness: it's about deceptive sweetness and haunting quality that makes their songs linger after you're done listening to them. The band has graced us with three albums: 2011's impeccable self-titled album, 2013's Static, and 2017's Offering. The band started off as black & white project but through the years have upgraded to technicolor... going from a bedroom project by a pair of two film school projects to signing to a major label and releasing three amazing albums and upgrading to a five-piece band for touring... this band is more than a lost relic of a girl group no one has ever heard of. Instead, it's a present-day synth-pop band you haven't heard of. Don't worry, it's not your fault...

It's...
Cults

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Billie Holiday

27 Billie Holiday Billie Holiday The first jazz singer to really incorporate blues & move peoples hearts, Billie is immortal. I didn't get into her with her traditional music but rather the 2007 album Remixed and Reimagined . Even through the chops & screws- one thing was unmistakable- that voice- so beautiful, so unique, so pure... She said she tried to sing like a horn & it's evident. She is one of the most accomplish vocal performers of all time. A half-a-century later & her style is still mimicked. Billie is as American as apple pie. In 1935 she was singing at the Apollo Theater. She hopped around labels- Columbia to Decca to Verve- until finding her home. She would battle personal problems (drug use & the like). She would pass away on July 17, 1959. Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington... there's certain artist that are almost as important to American history as they are to the progression of popular music itself. Billie is one of...

Björk

28 Björk Björk If Billie Holiday is an American treasure, well, if you were to put that treasure underwater, froze it, thawed it out centuries into the future and doused some acid & baking soda on it, out of that treasure chest would come Björk. Originally gaining fame in her home of Iceland with her band, the Sugarcubes, Björk was bound to break solo & she did just that with 1993's Debut . Following that was 1995's Post , 97's Homogenic , 2001's Vespertine, 2004's  Medúlla , 2007's Volta , 2011's Biophilia  (the first album where I was truly a fan), 2015's Vulnicura and 2017's Utopia . There's a lot to unpack there... you can't skip her first three or four albums, they're all amazing. I like Volta  just because it seems to be the loosest (and most fun) album she has. Vulnicura  was her break up album, with Björk expressing that the album reflects her feelings before and after her breakup and the healing process. Her legacy...

Grouper

 131 Grouper  Grouper Reverb. Echo. Effects. Acoustic. Droney. These are some words you could use to explain Grouper's earlier work. Grouper is the solo project of Liz Harris. Her first album was self-titled & self-released. Grouper's second album was 2006's Way Their Crept . There was something special about that mid-ought's droney-underwater sounding indie. Grouper would go on to release five (!) more albums before I came on board as a fan: 2006's Wide , 2007's Cover The Windows & The Walls , 2008's widely acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill & 2011's double-album (but separately released) AIA: Dream Loss & AIA: Alien Observer ... just to be followed up by 2012's double album: Violent Replacement Part I and Violent Replacement Part II . It wasn't until Grouper's more structured-releases that I became a full fledged fan. It was with 2013's The Man Who Died In His Boat that I finally jumped on board as a full-fled...