The Parisian sisters’ CocoRosie are releasing their fourth LP with a new single “We Are On Fire”. TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek and Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons helped to produce the 7″ in L.A. and Brooklyn. In the single, CocoRosie blends waves of synths, electronica and trip-hop along with seductive vocals, quick finger snapping, and sounds of a flute echoing throughout all the tiny details. The album will be available on June 5 on Touch & Go Records.

i used to have eyes the color of sky
now i can see in the middle of the night

LISTEN:

CocoRosie – We Are On Fire

Canada’s Metric will soon be releasing their fifth studio album, Synthetica, June 12th, 2012 on Mom + Pop Records. The album’s first single, “Youth Without Youth,” is a reaction to how singer Emily Haines perceives the world of today as “the decay of the social state, through the eyes of a deprived youth.”

LISTEN

Metric :: Youth Without Youth 2012

Enjoy one of my favorite remixes of Metric’s song Help I’m Alive released by The Twelves on their own Kitsuné Tabloid compilation last summer.

Metric :: Help I’m Alive (The Twelves Tabloid mix) 2011

Watching Metric perform “Youth Without Youth” acoustically for Rolling Stone Magazine.

Day of the Dead Photography by Peter Holliday

I am nothing without pretend
I know my thoughts
Can’t live with them

One of the greatest songs of 2011 was Wye Oak‘s Civillain.

Together vocalist Jenn Wasner and multi-instrumentalist Andy Stack of Wye Oak create such sheer intensity and surprise in the craftsmanship of their lyrics to the actual music.

Engineer John Congleton known for his brilliance in producing works for Modest Mouse, Shearwater, and St. Vincent shared his magic on Wye Oak’s third album Civillian, allowing for the band to enjoy the collaboration process of making a beautiful and full sounding album.

Listen ♥♥♥ Wye Oak – Civillian

Art by Sylvia Ji

“What nobody tells people who are beginners and I really wish someone had told this to me is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” – Ira Glass

Listen: Bobby Womack – Please Forgive My Heart
(from the album The Bravest Man In The Universe)

I’m excited to announce that my jewelry line Couture by Lolita will have 15 of our styles featured on Fab.com! The sale starts today March 16th, 2012 and ends on March 19th. For a link to preview our sale, please go to the link here: http://fab.com/sale/4166/

Listen: Grimes – Oblivion (2011)

San Diego’s Youth Lagoon is the mastermind project of one musician named Trevor Powers. His debut album The Year of Hibernation was released on Fat Possum Records in 2011, and was named by Pitchfork as ‘Best New Album.’ Each song on Youth Lagoon’s debut plays out like a chapter to a book, and seamlessly segues into one another as if the sounds are traveling through water. Energized and yet still pleasantly peaceful, Youth Lagoon takes the listener on an escape from reality, and into a psychedelic journey through a dark wilderness scattered with brightly lit speckled notes all throughout the trees.

Listen ♥♥♥

Daydream
Daydream (Perfect Lines Remix)

You can’t keep hangin’ on

To all that’s dead and gone

♥♥♥

Listen: Beach House – Myth (Bloom, 2012)

Art: Ludovic Jacqz

So, bless my heart.

Bless my mind.

I got so much to do, I ain’t got much time

So, must be someone up above saying:

“Come on girl! You got to get back up!!”

“You got to hold on…”

~*~

Art: Tom Bagshaw

Listen: Alabama Shakes – Hold On
from the (Alabama Shakes EP 2011)

More: Enjoy I Am Fuel, You Are Friends Recording of Alabama Shakes live in San Francisco

Brooklyn’s Caveman design sounds that visually place a listener in their own private dreamscape, whether it be on a tropical island, or overlooking the world on a Williamsburg rooftop. Equal parts of four-part pop harmonies conjoining with spaced-out guitar rhythms, movie soundtrack score synths, and relaxed drumming ties a bow around what perfects their debut CoCo Beware, as an entirely enjoyable album.

Listen: Caveman – Old Friend