Introducing: Alice & The Glass Lake

Strikingly beautiful, the music of Alice & The Glass Lake is keenly cinematic. I can feel the wind coming in from far off lands, blowing my hair back as I set off on an adventure that will change my life forever. If the light of the full moon made a sound, it would sound like Alice & The Glass Lake. Her brand of pop music is effortlessly brilliant.



Hailing from Wisconsin, Alice associates the Glass Lake with escaping: "It's the lens through which I live my dreams. It's an escapist place of possibility and heartbreak. And it's a sonic space to become lost and find truth." Her music is just that: audio-escapism.

Check out her music video for "Higher," where she conjures shapes out of the air and pulls you into her world and introduces you to her brand of dream pop.



She recently released a stream of her debut EP, The Evolution, which can be streamed HERE. It's awesome to the max and you shouldn't deny your ears the pleasure of listening to it. You can purchase the EP on iTunes and bandcamp (it's also available on Spotify).

Introducing: Karl X Johan

 Karl X Johan makes a curious kind of music. It clearly falls somewhere in the genre of electropop, but has elements of R&B as well. The most telling comparison I can give them is Hurry Up, We're Dreaming M83. Their most recent release is "Never Leave Me", an impressive pop tune that reminds me of M83's "Reunion".



The music video for their song "Flames" actually won a Swedish Grammy. It's symphonic electropop at its finest. The video itself is full of gorgeous hi-def close-ups.

 

These dudes might not make it in America anytime soon, but hopefully they'll drop an album that gets the kind of study-time attention that Hurry Up, We're Dreaming did a year ago.

Introducing: To Kill A King

I've actually known about To Kill A King for a few months now. I first found them when I stumbled onto this blog called Music vs. Misery ran by Megan Forsyth. She posted this awesome video of To Kill A King and a bunch of their friends (including Bastille, who I love unabashedly) performing a rendition of their song "Choices". This blew me out of the water.



Hearing this version inspired me to check out their then-fresh debut album Cannibals With Cutlery, which I soon found out was pretty much the bee's knees. It's full of fantastically arranged folk tunes with pop sensibilities. Sounds like Typhoon and The National rolled into one. Besides "Choices", you should definitely listen to "Fictional State" with it's huge slightly out of place but massively uplifting crescendo.

 

Also, take the time to check out their cover of Lana Del Rey's "Video Games". I like it more than the original, but that may just be me.

Being good isn't always easy

Since I posted about Roo & The Howl a little over a month ago, she's been quite busy. First, she announced she'd be doing a Daytrotter session (which I'm already hype for). Then, she changed up her website and announced some tour dates. And, just last week, she put up a video of her performing the Dusty Springfield classic "Son Of A Preacher Man."



Like I said last time, this girl is going places. She took a brassy over-the-top number like "Son Of A Preacher Man" and turned it into the soft, reminiscent tune it always should have been. Just for a quick review, here's how you can find all of Roo's stuff:

FACEBOOK
TWITTER
WEBSITE