🐣 CLAIRO — 2 HOLD U

Aiii, this song floats with all the optimism of a hopeful romantic, as much as a cute comic strip as a beautiful tract of balladic understatement, the pounds and ounces of a crush fall hard in your hard, the weight of it visible in the happysadness of those chords—those chords, broad and breezy, stuck in a cycle of major-minor grief and grandiose hope, not robust and oaky like a real piano, but stripped-back electronic and lo-fi and tinny and small-sounding like a toy piano, but which gives it this feeling of an impromptu burst of feeling, like if a livelong is getting played now then now it will be and with any instrument I have to hand. There is a spontaneity in Boston artist Claire Cottrill aka Clairo's internetty love letter '2 Hold U', a sudden dazzling flare from the warmth of fond feelings for another human, and one that exudes true versatility and originality as much as being highly relatable.

As the drum machine click and thud of the beat drives the song along, the rhythm of a half-depressed window-gazing gold of a rainy day spent pining and yearning, Clairo's vocal seems to effuse from the music, almost ghostly in effect but vital and current, the sweet tone of it lilting in subtle curves as it spins simple lines like "everywhere i go i just see you, i see you"—glorious down-to-earth listicle lyrics like, "i wrote it down, i told my mom, my friends all know we get along / i want you to want me too." And as if to counter this romance, slices of chiptune-tinged electronica find their way into the track, one such being a descending melodic breakdown in the middle the flavour of lightly salted gloominess; and the other, the song's finale, dramatic melancholy 16-bit chords that crumble the song's otherwise sunny outlook, beneath its breeziness the truth swirls solemn and serious.

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• 🔔 This is one of many great tracks taken from Clairo's SoundCloud, and also tracks that are reposted which she features in. Her most current original track 'Flamin' Hot Cheetos' is an endearing minimalist's dream of lo-fi beats-and-vocals only.

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📠
☟ Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

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🐣 ILLION — BANKA

Inhabiting a place caught between two different worlds, one of lightness, human reality, softness, flesh and blood, heartfelt emotions, and one of gravity, fear, something inhuman, irregularity, hardness, mechanics, uncontrolled urges, Japanese musicmaker illion (solo project of Yojiro Noda, lead singer of rock band RADWIMPS) croons his way through gentle clouds of aching cello and piano chords, creating a wholly balladic feel in 'BANKA'. Beneath this soft surface, where real feeling is told in washes of watercolour with these traditional instruments and with illion's lilting vocals, lies something darker: acceptable emotions and "normal" ways of expressing them cover the bricked-up well of inner turmoil, of the rarely discussed and unspeakable.

So it is that the choked secrets of 'BANKA' bulge beneath the pop ballad beauty, wholly at odds with the delicate piano, this internal conflict begins with indistinct rumbles glossed with sandy abrasions and grows throughout the song, elements of glitch and breakcore and noise infused in these sudden fragmented outpourings of grief and despair—the twinkling piano is cut short at 3:59 for just under 10 seconds of unadulterated chopped sounds with rollicking percussion and grinding distortion gnashing its teeth before the song's crescendo, illion crafting a legible beat, layering vocals that echo strong, awakened, in this final showdown of sound, the culmination of these combined elements now working in harsh heartfelt harmony.

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• 🔔 Though taken from illion's 2016 album P.Y.L, 'BANKA' is the theme song / lead track taken from the soundtrack to the live action adaptation of Tokyo Ghoul. Based on Sui Ishida's manga of the same name, the film hits theatres worldwide on 29th July. This hyperlink leads to a trailer.
• 🔔 The limited edition album P.Y.L [Deluxe Edition] will be released on 26th July via Warner Music Japan—get it here.
• 🔔 The video featured in this post is around half the length of the actual version; stream and purchase the full-sized 'BANKA' by illion on various platforms via this link.

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📠
☟ illion Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ wikipedia

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KODAK CAMEO – EVER COME BACK

Yahoo! Well, not exactly "yahoo" – more like a "whoaaah…" because you're not really going to be exactly leaping in the air over this one. It's not quite the energetic pick-me-up for sort of thing. It is however a soul-cleanser, an atmosphere giver, a set of sounds so vast and emotive that you cannot help but be possessed by them for the whole 4 minutes 11 seconds they exist.

"Wow sounds so nice already," you're saying, "What else?" Since you asked so nicely I'm gonna continue writing. It's called 'Ever Come Back', it's tagged "#pineapple", and it's by Kodak Cameo. Picture this: A warmcool breeze, a textured haze slowly fogging around a voidsome space, fragile melodies inching out from the swirling mists of imagination, '80s love ballad aesthetics rolling out like a panning shot of the Ciucaş Mountains, slowly zooming in until you a single blade of grass is crisp and clear onscreen. It's what the track sounds like.

If we're going to get label-y, then I suppose you could call this vaporwave – the transportive nature of the track (i.e. the feeling that you're somewhere else as you listen to it), the retro or throwback hints in the music, the slightly decayed or damaged veneer of it all. It's not un-vaporwave, that's for sure.

Unrelenting blasts of ambience wash over you with watercolour beauty and oil paint intensity, swathes of sound building a picture of bittersweetness decorated with aching snippets of saxophone snatched from some unknown jam, punctuated with glassy synth chords, rounding it all off with a flavour that's as robust as it is delicate, a fleeting ethereality that like passing clouds is huge and imposing but soon dissipates into nothingness.

The sparse sparkling melodies skipping over the merging meld of modulating synth and subtle rumblings, the minimal percussion in the form of reverbing shakers, the whole glittering mass of it, the gentle panning from left to right, the piercing light of its second third moving into the cooler stalwart sounds of its final third. It is an affecting morsel of sound, a touching example of just how epic and all-encompassing superficially "ambient music" can be, taking hints from cheese-laden romantic ballads and pop with its veilsome aesthetics and melodic refrain, but staying firmly in the realm of atmosphere-making, web-born music, an experimentalism hatched not just from a love of sounds, but a love of making sounds.

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☟ Kodak Cameo Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Twitter

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LANKS – RISES AND FALLS

I've seen a lot of this recently. A lot of what? A lot of SoundCloud pages that are hardly filled, or which have just the one track uploaded, and few followers, but which already shows such a definitive direction, such a polished sound. Maybe it's a kind of perfectionism, in that only a few songs will ever be "perfect" enough for the purposes of sharing with a general public; maybe it's that inspiration doesn't visit often enough; or perhaps it's all just an intricate PR strategy, and everything is ready already— I don't know! I have no idea! But what I do know is that I've seen a lot of them recently.

What does that mean? It could mean that more and more people are paddling their own canoes, making their own music and sharing it with the world – perhaps inspired by others who have done the same (i.e. getting internet famous) – and this is the meaning that I would like to believe, at least for now. People just wanna make music. And let them!

With this said, please allow me to introduce all the way from Melbourne, Australia, LANKS *tiny fanfare*. Who? Well, LANKS is the electronic project, the moniker, of Will Cuming, the creator of the only song currently uploaded to SC, 'Rises and Falls'. Having a little nose around on his Facebook page revealed that this is taken from an upcoming EP – and this, if this one song is anything to go by, is going to very good.

The track is a unique in that you don't often hear stuff in 6/8 timing which this at least appears to be. A slightly disorienting beat juggles toms and slapping kick, scratching hi-hat and dusty electronic snare, leading you effectively into a whirling dreamworld. This is the perfect foundation for the song itself, for the lyrics, which describe a tragic story (I won't ruin it, just listen) in balladesque form. A voiceless chorus underpins the spoken-word/singing's intimate style, guitar arpeggios join in halfway, synth chords gradually rise up out of the deep. The timing changes at around 1:50, with sub-bass kicks booming a 4/4 pattern, a heartbeat for the intense tragedy of this moment; accompanied by female vocals, LANKS and militaristic snares and cymbals builds the track to a crashing crescendo. Fin.

Really interesting stuff, indie-sound (essentially) with a touch of electropop and folk, reminiscent of Alt-J dare I say, but more substantial both in sound and wording. When is the EP out? Dunno.

• But you can download this song for free from LANKS's Bandcamp.
• Also there's a nicely drawn video for 'Rises and Falls' that you can watch now too

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Like LANKS on Facebook
Listen to LANKS on SoundCloud
Hear more LANKS on Bandcamp
Visit LANKS official site
Follow LANKS on Twitter

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VISITOR RNB

Wow. The epicality of this radical track by Visitor is just too much to bear. It's certainly pretty cool, and definitely something that I will look forward to hearing more of. Before you even listen to the music, the artwork to the right of this silly bit of writing will tell you that: yes, this will be a good track. It will be. Just look at it. Of course it will be. Why would anybody spend time creating a cool little graphic like that for music that is no good?

So this is 'RNB' by Visitor. They got a bit of traction recently when Jacques Lu Cont who included them in a mini-mix for Annie Mac - perfect when their EP, Coming Home // RNB, is due for launch on 10th September. This will come ahead of a full album launch - details of which I'm sure will come our way soon.

Onto the song itself. It seems to be aligned with the style of retro 80s-ness that is permeating a lot of electronic music at the moment - especially any of the songs associated with the wonderful film Drive. All the right elements are there: we have that rigid bass synth fuzzing in the background, a bit of standing-on-a-cliff guitar solo stuff, the couldn't-be-anything-but-80s drums, some hollow flute synth hopping around over the top, and most importantly - glittering, mood-making bells.



Second-half of the song seems to, using the same sounds, become more of a majestically huge, electronic pop-rock ballad. The vocals are powerfully catchy and exude a sense of the dreaded sing-a-long - not dreaded really, but I just liked the way that sounded. All in all a track to enjoy and headbang to whilst playing some games on the Sega Megadrive or reminiscing about The NeverEnding Story. Or just rocking out in your own private dreamworld. Love this. What an atmosphere it makes!

Like it? Then remember: Visitor Coming Home // RNB EP out 10th September.

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• More Visitor sounds on SoundCloud
• Here is their official site
• This is Visitor's Facebook page
• Follow Visitor on Twitter
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