Braille "Everyone's Crazy" (Friends of Friends)

[$6 to Download // https://fofmusic.bandcamp.com/album/everyones-crazy]

When I looked up Friends of Friends I found out that they release music by Shlohmo who oddly enough was connected with Tropics and I've been listening to this EP with "Rapture" to the point where I want to put the two on a mixed tape together.    Can someone do that for me?  I really don't have the time right now.

In any case, this music is strange.   It's electronic manipulation with percussion that can make it feel like hip hop at times and other times it could be chillwave.     Synth progressions come out like jazz horns and by the fourth song I'm hearing C&C Music Factory which makes me want to get up and dance.

There are a number of ways to describe this but I just like to think of it as being weird.    Even if you only listen to the first song, which happens to be the titular track, then you should be able to enjoy this because even if I don't make that Tropics/Braille split cassette I might make a mixed tape and that would include the song "Everyone's Crazy" (or at least some sort of "Best of 2015" playlist by year's end)

Lunivers "Happy Route"

[http://lunivers.bandcamp.com/]

In March of 2013 these four songs were released as a record, compact disc and digitally outside of the United States but on February 16th (which happens to be my sister's birthday) these songs will be released worldwide on record as an edition of 500.    So if you are into collecting records, then be on the look out for this one to come a bit closer to you than the previous release of it.

It's kind of funny though because these four songs have been sitting on Bandcamp for almost two years now and they have a record to go with them so it's not just some sort of free download hidden in the sea of digital reviews I might encounter, so why has it taken me this long to find Lunivers?     If this wasn't going to be released worldwide I doubt I'd ever hear of Lunivers (Okay, one day I inevitably would) and so I am happy it is getting that because I got to hear it.

These four songs are electro techno synth powered bliss that channel Ladytron and Polly Scattergood.   Lyrics like "the sun is made out of kisses" recall Polly Scattergood and this is just overall pleasant and melodic.    There are beats and laser screeches in the songs, but it can also be a little bit of Kimbra.      With audio clips in French, spliced up and served fresh, there are also greater moments when the singing can remind me of Corrine Bailey Rae.

The best way to undoubtedly describe this is an electronic madness and I love it.    As I jot down notes about these songs all I can think when reading them back is that this seems like it might be too in your face, too obnoxious.    The fact of the matter is though that despite the fact that this can be described with a certain bit of madness there is also a calm reserve to it and I really enjoy that mix.    Don't get me wrong, this is high energy but it is the perfect amount of it.

QuiVive "Astral Gatecrashing"

[Name Your Price Download // http://quivive.bandcamp.com/album/astral-gatecrashing]

This is my first time hearing QuiVive not on cassette and it's the first release after the cassette I reviewed, so with all of the statistics out of the way let's get into the music.    It begins with these dark sort of rock n roll guitars and then drums come in as well.   The first song just has this overall tribal feel to it as there are ahh's and what also sounds like bongos and steel drum rhythms.     The second song changes it up into these bell tone patterns that skip and then the drum machine kicks in with them.

Within the second song that is this certain rhythm that although instrumental makes you want to sing still.   It goes do-do-do-doo-do-do-doot-doo and unless you hear it then it might not make sense to you.    This is key because the next song has female vocals of sorts over it as hip hop beats are spliced into it as well.    The hip hop beats do become a theme during some of the other songs as well, so it's hard for me to say that this is a specific genre but rather an exploration of several genres.

Really slick guitar notes come out on a song that is fittingly called "fast.cars" while some sort of frequency changes groove with the beats on the last track.    I have different perceptions of what vaporwave is but I can tell you that this is probably not that.   It could be chillwave, but that seems like such a broad term to me and I only want to use it because a) this music is chill and b) I feel like it should be in a genre that ends in "wave".

      As much as I always tend to think about how that is that and this is this, I want to sit around one day and really get a true understanding of not only what all of these different genre names mean (look at the tags on Bandcamp if you genre search) but just how if we take a certain number of them and cross them over into one another what that could be.   (What is chillwave + hip hop + the guitars + etc.)    The trouble is I simply don't have time because instead of attempting anything of that sort I would much rather listen to music such as this.