Introducing: Sombear

I love a good side project. Sometimes when band members split off and do their own thing they can produce magical goodness, which is exactly what Brad Hale, the drummer for Now, Now, is doing under the guise of Sombear. He made the jump from stripped down post-rock sounding music to electropop reminiscent of Electric Guest and The Postal Service.



His upcoming debut album is being released by Trans- Records, the imprint of Chris Walla AKA The King AKA the drummer for Death Cab For Cutie, and will be out this summer. The album, out 7/23, will be called Love You In The Dark, and the title track (A FREE DOWNLOAD) is absolutely fantastic.



The rest of his Soundcloud is definitely worth checking out for his short electro compositions, like "how my head sounds when you ask me a question". Some of them are free and all of them are worth a listen.

I am something that you'll never comprehend.

CHVRCHES (pronounced Churches) comes out of Glasgow on the other side of the pond, where they've been producing neon-tinged electropop for almost a year now. Their first single "Lies" set the blog world on fire and gave them time to produce their "Recover" - EP.


In addition to their original material, CHVRCHES has also produced some pretty great covers and remixes. My favorite among these is their cover of Prince's "I Would Die For U", which they have stylized as "I Would Die For V". The original is a classic, and one of my favorite Prince tunes. They took Prince's lovelorn ballad and turned it into a declaration of pop.

Introducing: Books of Love

Books of Love is a kinda sorta super group comprised of Vivian Girls' Katy Goodman and The Hush Sound's Greta Morgan. They've teamed up to produce tuneage that sounds gloriously like The Best Coast. Their origin story, as told on their bandcamp, goes as follows:

While hiking past the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, friends Katy Goodman and Greta Morgan were struck with the idea to record a song together: A song about physics and love, science and romance, space and time. Have you ever felt the lovesick pain of falling for someone from a different dimension? We have too.

And the very next day, Katy and Greta recorded "Space Time."
 
In addition to that song, they made a music video to accompany it:

 

Introducing: Boxed Wine

Boxed Wine makes perfectly portable pop music. Great for your jogging playlist and awesome at parties. These Jersey boys sound like a lot of bands that I really like mixed together: Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, Phoenix, Surfer Blood. It's a bit more obscure, but they also kind of sound like local boys The Pass and Wild Party (not so local).


I found these guys last summer when Speakers In Code posted "Feral" as their Jam of the Day and instantly downloaded their eponymous EP. With lyrics about werewolves and silver bullets, this song is a wild trip that reminds me of when I used to read Goosebumps on summer vacation. SO GREAT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------>

Anyways, Boxed Wine just released their debut LP Cheap, Fun on their bandcamp for FREE. It's amazing and summery and fully deserving of your attention. In fact, all of their stuff is free at the moment. You should give a thorough listen to these dudes. They deserve it.

Mixed Up: Backroads Detour

I made a mix filled with good driving music in the vein of alternative country, folk rock, and progressive bluegrass. It has some Dillon Hodges, some Punch Brothers, and tons of other goodness. Check it out below!

Backroads Detour from doperle on 8tracks Radio.