sea of cowards

A proper, rock-and-roll-esque swagger of defiance is born out of indifference towards some of those that one might find to be an audience to them.  What’s produced here by The Dead Weather with Sea of Cowards is very much a product of that, much like it’s preceding album Horehound.  However, despite the bulbous display of self-confidence, there is and element of division between the two works.  WhereasHorehound was born out of the behind the scenes dealings between Jack White and Allison Mosshart as they toured together, Sea of Cowards is born from an extended serving of time and patience, leaving the sense of division to wriggle it’s way through the album’s song composition, interplay of vocals, and lyrics. 

(article by musicvice)

one million lovers

If nonchalance were an art form, The Growlers would be a bunch of Old Masters. "When we started we sucked," explained frontman Brooks Neilsen to JellyBlog. "We called ourselves the Growlers cause we were shitty, and 'growler' is a term for taking a shit." Neilsen & Co. might thrive on self-deprecation, but there's more going on here than scatology. The Growlers exude slackerdom: the languid, throbbing tempos (imagine garagey psych with a reggae infusion), Neilsen's '70s-porn-star mustache and a bandwide love for surfing. But this is deep-feeling music with a well-considered aesthetic.

(article by Vice/Noisey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgQfGZO37OI

spring break forever bitches

Korine’s story Spring Breakers is a searing indictment of today’s hedonistic, nihilistic youth, and his script is loaded with sharp, telling dialogue that exposes the rotten moral cores of its characters. It’s hard to root for any of them, shallow and devoid of empathy as they all are. We are left to morbidly, voyeuristically observe their odyssey of excess. Korine brings an auteur’s sensibility to the film, using repetitive phrases and hypnotic slo-mo visuals, that makes us pause to consider the utter moral decay of the characters. But it also slows down the narrative in some ways and, in the case of the violent climax, draws attention to its implausibility.

Neon bright and all raw energy, Spring Breakers is a pulsating paradox of a movie, both a tangerine dream and a cultural reality check, a pop artifact that simultaneously exploits and explores the shallowness of pop artifacts.

(article by thestar.com)

you around my finger like a lonely lover's charm

Settling in with her loneliness, Lykke Li turned to records she had always loved for inspiration, combing through everything from Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Dr. John to the Velvet Underground, This Mortal Coil, and the omnipresent hex of Alan Lomax’s field recordings. She found herself again leaning towards the raw power of simplicity, something into which she had first tapped via her live show, and she started to write. Once she was done, she returned to her adopted hometown of Stockholm and went into the studio with Bjorn Yttling to assemble her new record. The resulting album, Wounded Rhymes, is one of the most tremendous records you heard in 2011.

(article by Offical Lykke Li Facebook Page)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7GpjWTxDg