HOME NOD IF YOU CAN HEAR ME // GET UP AND LEAVE [FREE DOWNLOAD]

This picture right here, right here, does the job at pretty much accurately describing not just one but in fact both of these songs. I dunno. Do you know? What am I talking about? In any case: I've found some more really nice music and I hope that's ok with everyone. My aim is to find nice music and well most of the time I do achieve that aim. That's not arrogant, it's just what happens ok? Sorry.

This time around I like literally couldn't decide on what song to include here. There are so many lovely songs on this guy's SoundCloud and I recommend - at least, if you like the stuff you hear here - checking out his entire back catalogue. He's prolific and his name is Randy Goffe but we shall refer to him simply as HOME for that is what he has baptised himself in this online world. This Florida-(Punta Gorda)-based producer is making some seriously delicious 80s-flavoured sounds that make me just wanna eat ice creams, drive fast cars, play GTA Vice City, emigrate somewhere tropical, drift on a lilo in a pool in a mansion bought by drug money. Perhaps not that drastic but, you know. It's a College-y, Electric Youth kinda synthpop sound and I love it.

The first of these (yep I'm sharing two: shock HORROR) is called 'Nod If You Can Hear Me' and, well, you'd better get ready to nod cause you're definitely gonna hear him.

This song is alive with synth bass that really helps to drive the song - the perfect vibe for driving along a dramatic coastal road someplace pretty. Rich chords plummet down to your ears from the thumping pace of the song, which is for the most part quite a minimalist experience: a simple beat takes us from start to finish, doubling up on hi-hats for a faster pace towards the end. For me, this is over way too soon. I could listen to this like, all night. Or all day. Wheeling synth with delayed attack time swoop in with an ache, a longing, that feels like squinting on a sunny day. Glorious.

And then there's this other one. It's 3 months old but that has never stopped me from posting a song. No siree. So without further ado, here is 'Get Up And Leave'.

This one has a different atmosphere about it. There's a touch of lingering sadness in gentle electric piano chord progression, in the pattern of the lead synth melody floating above everything. It might just be me, but it sounds as though the bassline doesn't properly kick in until later in the song, after halfway, begetting a heavy atmosphere that isn't completely apparent from the get-go, but which is wonderful to gradually fall into as the track goes on its way. At 1:29 we lose the lead synths, or they just join in with the original chords, to create a less celebratory tone, making for an organic fade-out in terms of passion rather than volume. Like a break-up song, kinda. I can imagine someone driving away from a house having just broken up. I'm welling up just picturing that.

Anyway. It's all lovely. These are just two particular gems in the treasure chest of sounds on HOME's SoundCloud. HOME is a good name; whilst not very googleable, it is a nice statement on the instant familiarity that you feel with his sounds. Given that he's "like 17" as well, it's even more of a nice surprise to hear these great sounds. If he's not like 17 then shame on him for lying. Just kidding, it's fine. It's music, after all, not a registration form.

In other news: you can download a mixtape of "pretty much every song [he's] ever done" called The Atlantic Tapes. All of his songs are free to download, including these two above. MUSIC FOR EVERYONE!

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MAURICE AYMARD & GUI BORATTO HOME

So much of life is hassle, but then again so much of that hassle is life. To live carefree doesn't mean a lack of hassle; it is a lack of perceived hassle. Where do we stand but in our own minds considering our to-do lists, taking hesitant steps towards our futures with our pasts reluctantly shrinking behind? It is all there. And this is the mire of a life too-considered, thought of too-deeply, where merely the weight of reality is unshakeable and burdensome. So, yeah. Music is medicine for the human condition. Music is distraction. Music sounds good. No matter what type you like. Sing-alongs, cry-alongs, dance-alongs - whatever. It's all important.

Sorry about that. Don't mind me. I've just been thinking too much. Luckily I've been doing it whilst I've been listening to music so it's kinda like it could've all happened in a dream or something. And right now I'm sitting on a very housey cloud (no I'm not "on drugs", I just have an imagination) and its the glorious repetition of this kind of music that is good for p much hypnotising you and calming you down. In a different scenario though, like at night in a club, that repetition serves the same purpose - inducing a trance-like state - but fits the situation, making you dance like crazy and not calming but creating euphoria.

What's been doing this to me, you ask? Why, it's 'Home' by Maurice Aymard & Gui Boratto (whom I wrote about in August). This is the lead single from Maurice Aymard's forthcoming debut album, Between Stars (on Aymard's own label, Galaktika), which is gonna be - if this song is anything to go by - a cool collection of Latin-spiced house tunes.

'Home' is a great collaboration between Venezualan Barcelona-based Aymard and Brazil's Boratto, who flew to Barcelona and went "straight from the airport to Aymard's studio for an intense 24-hour session". What I noticed first is that, despite being house/dance music, everything here sounds completely organic, home-grown; there are real instrument sounds here ranging from shakers and bongo drums to bass guitar (complete with actual plucking sound and fingers moving along the strings) and drums in general: cymbals lightly crashing and understated hi-hat shuffle.

An organ with liquid chorus plays out some delicious jazzy chords which evoke watching the manic pace cities at night with tired eyes. The bassline is dripping with groove. Synth sounds join the party (or what could be a guitar) with a really nice tremolo melody, twinned with delayed lead synth that sends retro shudders through the whole thing and high-pitched strings help give that urban sense of drama.

And if that wasn't enough for you, the single includes a remix of the song by Berlin-based English producer & DJ, Jay Shepheard.

He gives it a more electronic twist, turning into something closer to a club track, whilst retaining and somewhat enhancing, with beefed up string section especially, that dramatic nocturnal feel that the original exuded. He takes some of the original tremolo melodies and stretches them out with major delay. Jazzy piano chords are interspersed throughout alongside a female vocal sample. The bass is now synthetic, with an 80s-style 'wah' to it; staccato synth chords also rapid-fire across the board in the second half of the track. Dreamy soft synth and strings lead us out to a medley of percussion.

Please, if you enjoyed this, keep an ear out for more from Mr Aymard to come.

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AUSTRA HOME [VIDEO] // BEAT AND THE PULSE

When I heard the first few bars of this song I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen. I have to admit I hadn't heard of Austra before, so I had literally no idea what expect.

In 'Home', we're graced with singer Katie Stelmatis's vocals which are controlled-yet-teetering-on-the-verge-of-tears, suiting the lyrics, "You know that it hurts me when you don't come home at night". What's most evident in the song is how it turns from a potentially regular piano-driven Marina and the Diamonds kind of affair, into one that seems to be aping house music more than anything else.

And it's great: not too hectic, refrains cut up and placed like samples in strategic locales of the song, nice voice, good beat, catchy melodies, interest during the last half of the song with ethnic-style sounds. This is definitely something that I could get on board with.

Have a listen below. The video, whilst I'm not sure exactly how it relates to the song (am I stupid?) at all, is interesting too.

Then I saw that the band had released a video on YouTube even more recently than this one. But it actually turns out it's an old video for a song called 'Beat and the Pulse' from their first album - Feel It Break (2011) - edited because of nudity or whatever. Naturally, I found the original video. It's weird. See for yourself. Webbed hands an that.

But the music. This is a much more electro-fuelled song, with bulging synths and ghostly vocals that float over the top of the pounding drums. The song title definitely has it right, there's both beat and pulse in the vibe of this one. There is, however, a more basic sound to it that new song 'Home' has definitely dusted away and tuned up for a more interesting and multi-faceted sound that suits what they seem (at least) to be aiming for stylistically with their dream-like realist electro-pop. Nice!

'Home' comes from upcoming album Olympia, out 17th June on Domino.

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