The namesake. (Photo courtesy of http://thirdculturerecords.com/)

As a nomad, David Vincent Reep is accustomed to trying new things. It comes with the lifestyle. With travel tickets that blaze a trail across the United States and Europe, Reep is a wanderer, whose fleeting whims and curiosities can change into passions just as easily as he changes his home. Take music, for example. Inspired by the likes of DJ Shadow and plugged into the local rave scene while in South Bank, London, Reep picked up his first synth, giving birth to a musical science project.

Elephant & Castle, named for the famous London intersection, is the culmination of a few years of experimentation, which has wandered with Reet to his new Bay Area digs. Started on a whim, E&C has been refined at sound engineering school. It’s been polished at the legendary Studio 880 in East Oakland and then in Los Angeles at Low End Theory, the finishing school of Flying Lotus and Nosaj Thing. And now it’s ready with Reet’s debut LP, Transitions.

Despite his travels and influences, Reet’s project remains true to the dreary British landscapes where it was born. Infusing down tempo glitch hop with non-traditional sound cuts, E&C is somber, recalling the British rains and shades of grey. It’s also beautifully eerie, luring in the wary with soft-spoken samples, as on  the first taste of the album “En Memoria.” Featuring Merrill Garbus, the mind behind tUnE-yArDs, the song crackles along, adding an attic-full of odds and ends along the way. A hand drum sample here, chimes there, “En Memoria” is jumbled and majestic, as Garbus coos and coaxes. It’s the subtle–and fitting– announcement of the arrival of one well-traveled producer and artist, whose own transient existence may have him here today and gone the next.

Transitions is out on Plug Research on March 13.

Elephant & Castle- En Memoria (ft. tUnE-yArDs) (download)

Anyone else subliminally reminded of Postal Service? (Photo courtesy of tellallyourfriendspr.com)

What’s the deal with double drumsets? The arrangement always instantly adds depth and variety to music. It always takes a few measures to figure out why the snare hits sound fuller, why there seem to be far more frequent symbol hits than other songs, or why such intricate bass drum grace notes can be played – but two drumsets is nearly exclusively the culprit. We at Treeswingers have seen Radiohead, Brand New, MuteMath, and others add a second drummer at live shows, but this new band has gone ahead and embedded it in their style.

Calling Minneapolis home, Polica is set to release their first album, Give You the Ghost on Valentine’s Day. How cute. The video below shows Polica performing the stand-out track from the album, “Wandering Star”. Watching the unique instrumentation for a four-piece band provides a nice context for later listens of the song, which you can grab below. Don’t miss Polica’s autotuning and double drumming when the album comes out next month.

Polica – Wandering Star (download)

Straight out of the neighborhood where hipsters live when they can’t afford hipster prices, House Of Blondes, seems like your average Brooklyn bedroom project. Adept at twisting nobs and maybe even better at adjusting their laptop screens, the Bushwick pair of John Blonde and Chris Pace may seem like they’re adding to the clamor of ambient indie poppers ready to flood Soundcloud with every fleeting inspiration on their way to piecing together a shoddy album.

That’s not really their point though. Instead of top-down, Blonde and Pace went bottom-up. Instead of beginning with the goal of an album, they started simply with a half-baked idea, eventually recording 20 minutes of ambiance that would be molded into their first song. Idea to song t0 band to album.

After three years of tweaking their sound, House Of Blondes are ready to deliver their first album Clean Cuts, a minimalist endeavor, with tracks recorded on first or second takes to capture the original inspiration and spontaneity of it all. The first taste, “Do It Yourself (Landscape), is a beautifully building track, steadied on a droning synths and a repeated lyric: “You can do this yourself.”  Add in a few organs and an off-kilter drum beat and it’s golden. The video–which reminds me of Will Ferrell’s Old School–isn’t bad either.

Clean Cuts is out Feb. 28 on Glowmatic Records.

House Of Blondes- Do It Yourself (download) 

I am not sure whether it’s politically correct to call an album “anthemic” in the indie world. Perhaps it’s too close a description of arena rock, an antithesis to the exclusivity that the excluders like to define as “indie.” So when I say that The Big Pinks’ Future This is anthemic, I want to make it clear that I mean it in the least offensive sense of the word.

Future This, a follow up to 2005’s A Brief History of Love, is as exuberant and gleeful an album as we are likely to get in the thick of winter (where else will we get “Jump Music” for a track title?). I am sure the release date was chosen strategically; half the songs sound like they should be soundtracking a spring break party on the beach down in Cancún (plenty of time between January and March/April to get those remixes going). The other half is a bit more introverted, with apprehensive beats overlaid by Robbie Furze’s vocals, which at times sound extremely brittle and at others remarkably powerful.

The first single “Stay Gold”, is a blazing start to the upbeat enthusiasm of the album. It comes to life with dry synth and drum lines, and explodes into fist-pumping exuberance with help from Furze’s soaring vocals and renewed vigor from the keyboards. The positivity and sheer energy compressed into these three minutes and thirty-nine seconds is enough to make even the coolest heads thaw. Close on its heels is “Hit the Ground (Superman)”, all reverb and power chanting, begging for a live performance. “Rubbernecking” and “Jump Music”, although meant as another couple of invigorating listens half way through the album, are less successful at transmitting the raw energy of the first two tracks.

The more subdued part of the album is probably best represented by the numerically titled “1313” and “77”. The former–my favorite–is the longest track of the album, a layered soundscape introduced through quaking synth lines and pseudo cat wailings. A drumbeat and guitar tremolo set in right before the vocals, the most dynamic on the album. Reverberating and double tracked to add depth, the producers played with a call-and-response format recorded on several different tracks, which makes for fun listening on earphones. The outro combines guitar feedback with what sounds like a percussion jam by Stomp.

“77”, the album closer, is in stark divergence from the uplifting feelings of the opening singles. The sound bed is frigid, the beats muffled, the piano line crisp and apprehensive, the background sighing foreboding and sorrowful. When strings come in halfway through the song and a distorted monologue interrupts Furze’s anxious chorus line, the effect is harrowing. Furze’s voice returns, repeating the chorus line over and over while it slowly becomes more and more faint, as if he were being steadily smothered. When all is still, the haunting aftertaste is as unexpected a finish to the album that produced “Stay Gold” as any listener could have imagined.

Between these two bookends, Furze and bandmate Milo Cordell explore all matter of emotions while underscoring an infectious dynamic enthusiasm that is yanked away on the last track. It’s a sobering culmination to an album that could easily have come off as a shallow dance soundtrack, and an open invitation to listen once more.

Future This from The Big Pink is out tomorrow on 4AD.

The Big Pink- Future This (download)

The Big Pink-1313 (download)

The Big Pink- Stay Gold (download)

With a voice that cuts to the soul of matters, ZZ Ward seems like everything you’d want from a blooming female songstress. Gritty, confident and wounded, Ward hails from Eugene, but sounds like an old blueshand from the Mississippi Delta.

Already have given us a taste of “Better Off Dead,” a rendition of Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers,” the singer-songwriter debuted her full mixtape this week, an experimental arrival on to the scene that mashes sampled beats with pure soul. With four mixes on deck, including a beautifully reworked rip of Freddie Gibb’s “Oil Money” (see: “Criminal”), Eleven Roses borrows the best from hip hop’s up-and-comers, paving the way for a rising minidiva. Other mixes include “Morphine,” which borrows from Wiz Khalifa’s “Rooftops,” and “OVERdue,” a Childish Gambino collaboration of sorts.

Where Ward really soars, however, is in removing the back hip-hop beats. Singing lonely with only a backing acoustic guitar on tracks like “Til The Casket Drops,” we really start to understand how powerful her naked voice really is, without the affectations or gimmicks. And sometimes that’s how music should be.  Just a woman, her guitar and one mesmerizing voice with everything on the line.

Listen to and download the whole mixtape, Eleven Roses, below.

In 1973, Led Zeppelin’s European tour concluded in France where Led lust, vitriol and general Tricolore fuck all-ness combusted in riots. It was mayhem sparked by zeal, a Les Bleus love affair for a band at the height of its powers. On that tour, the four-piece from London closed their regular set with “Whole Lotta Love,” a song that was never heard at shows in Marseille and Lille, which were cancelled because of the fracas.

Forty years on, the French passion for Led Zeppelin still exists, although in more muted form. Its latest reincarnation comes in the form of Parisian singer, Alice Michel, whose rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” would be enough to seduce Robert Plant. Backed only by a droning cello and creeping piano, Michel slows down the classic, tempting even the most skeptical Led fan with siren song. With plenty of edge and soul, it’s a beautiful listen. Just don’t let it tempt you to bed.

Alice Michel- Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin cover) (download)

Drip, shiver, moan, thump, trickle, pop, shake (repeat).  It’s nearly impossible to translate the magic on Shlohmo’s latest track “wen uuu” into coherent words.  The very title seems like his best attempt of doing just that.  But no amount of onomatopoeia can capture the vividness of the lush sampled layers, the airy synth work, the wide looping melody, or the hypnosis of that skittering percussion.  The track isn’t a complete departure from the sound palette of last year’s Bad Vibes, but it’s definitely not anchored in the same gloom from that record.  The tempo’s turned up, the samples are sultry, and the vibe is decidedly good.  “wen uuu” is one of three tracks off of his Vacation EP which is set to be released next month on Friends of Friends.  Enjoy the late night burner below.

Shlohmo- wen uuu

Of course this is how I shop for music! (Photo courtesy of nydailynews.com)

For me, the new year always brings with it a sense of anticipation for the new and undiscovered—which of course means I can’t help getting really excited over the prospect of new music on my iPod. I just don’t find it as exciting to think about new releases halfway through the year, even if it’s Radiohead we’re talking about. But then, that’s me; while the blogosphere hails the return of unemployed 90s indie rockers this month with new albums by Guided By Voices and Stephen Malkmus, these are the three albums I’m personally a lot more excited to add to my January playlist.

The Big Pink—Future This: January 17

I foresee a college radio favorite in this album. The Brit shoegazers seem to have put together the perfect follow-up to A Brief History of Love with the release of singles “Stay Gold” and “Hit The Ground (Superman).” The beats and reverb are familiar, and the vocals are as reminiscent of fist-pumping arena rock as you can possibly get in the realm of indie rock. Judging from the similarity of the new singles to their first release, I think it’s safe to say this will be a crowd pleaser (myself included in that crowd—“Dominos” was one of those songs I’d have on repeat all the time).

Gonjasufi—MU.ZZ.LE: January 24

The latest album from the San Diego native made its pre-debut with the release of single “Nikels and Dimes” late last year. Crackling and sputtering, the record comes to life with a haunting atmosphere in which playground giggling and garbled vocals are layered atop a syncopated hip-hop drum pattern. Although I’ve never listened to a prior release by Gonjasufi, I’m excited to get a hold of MU.ZZ.LE because the music sounds so unlike the rest of the contents in my music library—and, well, there’s also the matter of new year’s resolutions (#6: take more chances with music).

Chairlift—Something: January 24

I’m sure the teenage girl in me will be a little disappointed not to find a new version of “Bruises” on Chairlift’s new album. If the couple of tracks released so far are any indicator to what Something sounds like, then the band’s sophomore effort is bound to be more psychedelic rock than dream pop. I have a feeling this album will be reminiscent of MGMT’s “Congratulations”, which I find pretty thrilling, not because I was a huge fan of the former, but because it was one of the most electrifying listens by a new artist my teenage self was ever submitted to.

Treeswingers is a great promoter of the arts – and not just music. We’ve previously posted on some great music that just happened to be backing up some juggling, and we’re at it again already in 2012. Here is a RAC mix of Delorean‘s “Stay Close” supporting some fantastic juggling.

Another year. Another list. With 2011 in our rear views, each one of us here at Treeswingers is taking a look back at the year in music. Not quite as star-studded as last year, 2011 still had its gems, from the return of Bon Iver to the arrival of Real Estate. There was the R&B revival courtesy of The Weeknd as well as the meteoric mark of M83. There was also Kreayshawn. Just kidding.

Below are each of our lists for the top albums of 2011. There’s no particular order or reason. Feel free to adore, berate, mock or love our lists in the comments section. Or leave your own top 10 of the year. On to 2012.

Brian
Beirut – The Rip Tide
ASAP Rocky – LiveLoveA$AP
Explosions In The Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
SBTRKT – SBTRKT
Death Cab For Cutie – Codes and Keys
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Kanye West and Jay-Z – Watch The Throne
Kimbra – Vows
The Weeknd – House Of Balloons
Surfer Blood – Tarot Classics EP

charlie.
Washed Out – Within And Without
Starfucker – Reptillians
Antlers – Burst Apart
Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math
T.V. On The Radio – Nine Types Of Light
Phantogram – Nightlife EP
Blind Pilot – We Are The Tide
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
High Highs – High Highs EP
Trophy Wife – Bruxism EP

Dan. Possibly The Man
Balam Acab – Wander/Wonder
Rustie – Glass Swords
Sepalcure – Sepalcure
Nicolar Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
Real Estate – Days
FIDLAR – DIYDUI EP
Toro Y Moi – Under The Pine 
Geotic – Geotic
Destroyer – Kaputt
Atlas Sounds – Parallax

Dan Z.
Real Estate – Days
Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
Peaking Lights – 936
Gardens & Villa – Gardens & Villa
Nicolas Jaar – Space is Only Noise
Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine
Giraffage – Comfort
Craft Spells – Idle Labor
Twin Sister – In Heaven
The Weeknd – House of Balloons

Ellen
Beirut – The Rip Tide
The Weeknd – House Of Balloons
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
St Vincent – Strange Mercy
James Blake – James Blake
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
The Roots – Undun
Black Keys – El Camino
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Elbow- Build A Rocket Boys!

Kyle
Phantogram – Nightlife EP
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
SBTRKT – SBTRKT
Nujabes – Spiritual State
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k I l l
Washed Out – Within And Without
Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine
James Blake – James Blake
Kanye West and Jay-Z – Watch The Throne
Youth Lagoon – The Year Of Hibernation

María
Black Keys – El Camino
Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi – Rome
Cults – Cults
Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Jessica Lea Mayfield – Tell Me
St Vincent – Strange Mercy
Starfucker – Reptilians
Atlas Sound – Parallax
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Tennis – Cape Dory

Marisa
Beirut - The Rip Tide
The Black Keys - El Camino
Cut Copy – Zonoscope
Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Metronomy - The English Riviera
The Roots – Undun
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k I l l
T.V. On The Radio- Nine Types of Light

Matthew
Junior Boys – It’s All True
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Friendly Fires – Pala
SBTRKT – SBTRKT
Feist – Metals
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Big Black Delta – BBDLP1
Cut Copy – Zonoscope
Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine
SebastiAn – Total

Ryan
Real Estate – Days
Yuck – Yuck
Nujabes – Spiritual State
Braids – Native Speaker
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k I l l
Battles – Gloss Drop
Starfucker – Reptilians
SBTRKT – SBTRKT
Metronomy – The English Riviera
Cults – Cults

Sara
Little Dragon – Ritual Union
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Adele – 21
Tycho – Dive 
Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’ 
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Feist – Metals 
Friendly Fires – Pala
Metronomy – The English Riviera 
Junior Boys – It’s All True