Kwaping! Music » song of the day

RJD2 – “Find You Out”

Kwaping — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:05:15 +0000

I recently described this artist to my wife as “Girl Talk, but jazzy”. While not 100% accurate, it’s pretty close. If you’ve heard the Get Shorty soundtrack (highly recommended), you have a good idea of what RJD2‘s latest work sounds like. It also reminds me a bit of some Propellerheads songs.

Find You Out, from the album Your Face Or Your Kneecaps, has some nice vocal samples in Spanish, laid over a jazz-lounge beat. One of RJD2′s signatures is horn samples, and he has plenty of them here. Fortunately, I love horn samples, so count me as an instant RJD2 fan. In fact, I liked this song so much, I went out and purchased one of his (many) other albums, Magnificent City Instrumentals. That will probably be reviewed in another post in the near future.

Camera Obscura – “French Navy”

Kwaping — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:42:29 +0000

“French Navy” by Camera Obscura

Similar in concept to much of Zee Avi’s music, Camera Obscura‘s “French Navy” features a female lead singer and feels like it should be a very old song when in fact it’s brand new. However, where Ms. Avi has a jazzy acoustic/island-girl vibe from the 40′s, “French Navy” is more like a 60′s song. To be honest, I’m having quite a hard time describing it – it’s very hard to define. It’s upbeat, has a great hook, and some nice violin work.

Some might call it a girlie song, and it does have mass female appeal, but I think guys like it too. Strangely enough, I heard it playing in Home Depot lately! That was definitely a surprise.

The rest of Camera Obscura’s new album, My Maudlin Career, is pretty good, but this is the standout single for me.

Deerhunter – “Nothing Ever Happened”

Kwaping — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:51:09 +0000

It’s always weird to like something without knowing it. If you would have asked me a year ago if I liked “jam bands”, I would have said no and looked at you like you were crazy. I’m not much into classic rock or psychedelia, which is how I used to think of jam bands (Phish and the Grateful Dead, for example).

Deerhunter changed all that. I heard their songs on XMU and fell in love. Only after I was a fan did I hear that they’re a jam band. Two of their songs are on my list of all-time favorites, and of those two, today’s Song of the Day “Nothing Ever Happened” is the best. It’s close, though. (The other will have its own SotD in the future.)

Enjoy!

Cold War Kids – “We Used to Vacation”

Kwaping — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:26:30 +0000

Cold War Kids is one of those bands that you hear a lot about, but don’t know their songs. At least, that was the case for me, up until recently. My wife and I caught them as an opening act for Death Cab For Cutie (along with the excellent up-and-coming band Ra Ra Riot) and they blew us away. The best I can describe their music is a male Alicia Keys on the piano and a kick-butt indie rock band backing him up. Oh, and they REALLY like maracas.

They have a popular song out right now called “Hang Me Up To Dry“, but I’ve chosen the first song off their new album Robbers & Cowards for this Song of the Day. That song is called “We Used to Vacation” and it’s a great representative of the rest of the album.

You can take my word for it, or listen to the full song for free over at Last.fm. Enjoy!

White Rabbits – “Percussion Gun”

Kwaping — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:04:48 +0000

As my friends over at Prefix wrote, “There probably hasn’t been a more fitting song title in recent memory than White Rabbits‘ ‘Percussion Gun,’ which sounds exactly like its name suggests.” I’ve been in a bit of a tribal-beat phase lately, and this song has been on my mind a lot. You gotta love a band that has, among others, a pianist and two drummers.

Check out the video for a full preview of the song. It’s pretty well done.

Phoenix – “Lisztomania”

Kwaping — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:53:56 +0000

One of my most recent purchases is Lisztomania by Phoenix. This song has quickly become my latest obsession. It’s extremely catchy and appeals to a broad audience – both my toddler son and wife love it. One of the things that’s particularly amazing to me is that Phoenix is from France. They write English lyrics better than most native speakers! I can’t wait to see these guys live someday. Their new album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is scheduled for release on May 26, 2009. I’m very much looking forward to it!

Here’s a link to the video so you can hear the full song. I don’t think the video is that great, but the song is good enough to overcome that.