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Tag: Seer Group

Quick Hit: Seer Group

seergroup

It’s a dreary, sleet-filled day here in North Carolina. I’m holed up writing end-of-semester papers and listening to Seer Group‘s EP Love Me Back. Seer Group would not necessarily seem the best fit for an icy, unforgiving day, since their perky, quirky electro-pop verges more on the abstract MGMT side than the stark, minimalist trip-hop side.

But there are connections: the gorgeous, flowing, 7-minute “To My Surprise” features both rhythmically mesmerizing vocals from Elijah Wyman and a swirling, instrumental string coda. It’s still very much electro-pop, what with the clicking/clattering beats and the astronomy-influenced synth burbles, but there’s a trumpet in that mix. There’s some real warmth amidst the swirling tune. It’s keepin’ me warm over here. “Just Wait a Little Bit” also appeals to that cinematic, swoon-worthy, fleshed-out sort of electronic ideal.

Even though Seer Group remains firmly committed to artsy, abstract weirdness, there are some genuinely hypnotic, clubby tunes going on here. “Wind” might not have a four-on-the-floor beat, but the marimba-esque keys play off the pulsing, grinding beat to create that sort of slow-motion banger that you might find in a dimly-lit club. The title track is actually pretty close to a mid-tempo club jam without any verbal gymnastics on this part: hit it up. It sounds right. “Kicking In” includes some increasingly frantic rapping that gives the mid-tempo tune a wild, crazy feel. It’s a pretty wide range of sounds Jason Rozen and co. cover here.

If you’re into artsy electro, experimental hip-hop, or unclassifiable weirdness, Seer Group latest collection of jams will pique your interest for sure. Big ups.

Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of the Postal Service releases today!

NeverGiveUp

The Postal Service’s Give Up has been hugely influential in my music-reviewing life, so it is with great pleasure that I can announce today’s release of Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of The Postal Service! It is exclusively available at the Independent Clauses Bandcamp.

This project has been a microcosm of my whole 10 years running this blog: a little idea that got bigger and bigger with help from all sorts of people who pitched in. Massive thanks go out to The Carradini Family, Uncle David and Aunt Rose, the Lubbers Family, Neil Sabatino & Mint 400 Records, Albert & Katy, Drew Shahan, Odysseus, Joseph Carradini, Jeffrey M. Hinton, Esq., @codybrom a.k.a Xpress-O, Conner ‘Raconteur’ Ferguson, Janelle Ghana Whitehead, Tyler “sk” Robinson, Jake Grant, Anat Earon, Zack Lapinski, Mila, Tom & April Graney, Stephen Carradini, Theo Webb, Jesse C, D. G. Ross, Martin & Skadi, Jacob Presson, Michelle Bui, and Elle Knop.

The first 200 downloads of the album are free, so go get ’em while they’re available! (The price is $4 a side once the freebies are gone.) The streaming will always be free, so if nothing else you can go listen to some sweet tunes from some of Independent Clauses’ favorite bands. Once again, thanks to all who contributed in any way, both to the project and to Independent Clauses’ last 10 years. It’s been a thrilling, wild ride.

Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of the Postal Service

Folk side
1. The Collection – “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
2. Venna – “Such Great Heights
3. Seven Handle Circus – “Such Great Heights
4. Andrea Caccese (of I Used to Be a Sparrow and Songs for the Sleepwalkers) – “Sleeping In
5. The Duke of Norfolk – “Nothing Better
6. The Lion of Tallasi – “Recycled Air
7. The Parmesans – “Clark Gable
8. Jenny and Tyler – “We Will Become Silhouettes
9. Carl Hauck – “This Place is a Prison
10. The Noise Revival Orchestra – “Brand New Colony
11. The Midnight Sons – “Natural Anthem

Indie-pop side
1. Fairmont – “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
2. Kris Orlowski – “Such Great Heights
3. The Lovely Few – “Sleeping In
4. Oh Look Out – “Nothing Better
5. Josh Caress (of Come On Pilgrim!) – “Recycled Air
6. Dr. Pants – “Clark Gable
7. Young Readers – “We Will Become Silhouettes
8. Western Romantic – “This Place Is a Prison
9. Decent Lovers & Seer Group – “Brand New Colony
10. Gregory Pepper & His Problems – “Natural Anthem

All my favorite bands live in Boston

IC fave Chris North won Best Folk Act in Best of Boston, so IC faves The Decent Lovers and Seer Group made their recent albums Quit Trying and OWLPINE available for free! It’s like ICeption in here.

Come On Pilgrim! is finally finished with its debut record! All y’all in Boston need to be at The Rhumb Line (Upstairs) in Gloucester, MA, on August 11. I will sadly not be there, but I will be thinking of it from afar as it happens. Here’s the video for the album’s first cut.

Icona Pop’s new jam is called “I Love It,” and I love it. This is the late-night, scream-it-out summer jam.

The somber mood of Scarlett Parade’s “March of the Fallen” caught my ear recently; this organ-led tune is quite arresting. You know those empty, bleak moods that Songs:Ohia and Pedro the Lion used to make? This tune is heading that way.

Tiny Mtns / 2 = Seer Group and The Decent Lovers!

I’ve been following Elijah Wyman’s music since 2006, when Why We Never Go Swimming and Other Short Stories enlightened me to his slightly off-kilter acoustic folk. I’ve been a huge fan ever since, going so far as to dub him “one of my favorite acoustic songwriters ever.” For a blog that’s predominantly about folk, that’s about as high as praise gets.

So when Wyman unveiled the hip-hop/indie-pop project Tiny Mtns, I was pretty confused but willing to listen. The unusual tunes did not disappoint: Wyman’s songwriting, even when applied to a different genre, retained an unique spin. Instead of going full pop on it, Wyman played around with instrumentals, chorus-less tunes, arty meanderings, and electronic noodling. The under-used autoharp was a primary instrument in the tunes, after all. He planned to keep releasing tunes in a rotating mixtape, and I was prepared to keep checking on it.

Then I was notified that Tiny Mtns was dead, and that the songs had been parceled out between two bands: Wyman’s The Decent Lovers, and collaborator Jason Rozen’s Seer Group. Wyman still sings and performs on Seer Group songs and owns one of Rozen’s kidneys, so it’s safe to say this was merely a division of labor as opposed to a breakup. The Decent Lovers is a pop band, taking the more upbeat tunes from Tiny Mtns and fleshing them out; Seer Group is an arty electronic project. They share a couple songs: “Decent Lovers” is a murky electro jam on Seer Group’s Owlpine and a speedy acoustic-based pop song on Decent Lovers’ Quit Trying, while “Year of the Flame” has Wyman on all vocals for the DL version and a female vocalist for some vocals on the SG version. You’d be forgiven for getting a little confused.

While both albums are eccentric in their own ways, Seer Group’s Owlpine is the more difficult of the two to parse. The album is built on the back of keys and synths, but not the Killers’ buzzy synths or post-rock’s pad synths. These are gritty, yet fluctuating; lithe, but not saccharine. Opener “Cold Hands” is a meandering, slow-paced tune with laconic vocals and cascading instrumental lines from those synths. It creates a pensive, uneasy mood, as if one has stepped off a spaceship onto an unknown planet of immense beauty. There’s an undercurrent of danger and fear, but on the surface it’s beautiful.

That space situation is a solid metaphor for all of Owlpine. (The name of another of his tunes, “Murky Glow,” could also describe the album well.) “Year of the Flame” has a beautiful melody, but it uses a metaphorical (or maybe literal?) hurricane as its main lyrical device. The ominous, pulsing bass of “Wounded Animal” contrasts with the dreamy keys and vocals swirling above it. Even “Local Honey,” another Tiny Mtns holdover, is far more claustrophobic and paranoiac than I remember; the dreamy, coked-out weirdness seems to be moving in slow-motion. On the whole, Owlpine is an uncommon experience; I found myself returning to its distinct and carefully crafted mood.

The Decent Lovers’ Quit Trying was much easier for me to understand and enjoy, because most of it falls into one form of indie-pop or another. Whether the strummy “Barricade the Doors,” the dance-oriented “Beautiful Houses,” the fractured keys of “Brooklyn Rules Football” or somewhere in-between (“I Don’t Wanna Be a Decent Lover,” “I’m Happy All the Time (Sad Hawaii Version)”), Wyman is singing pop songs here. To rip a Death Cab title, you can play these songs with chords. It’s just that sometimes they would be really, really weird chords.

Since several of these songs came from the autoharp-heavy Tiny Mtns project, the instrument still plays a huge role here. That gives the songs a very unusual sound and feel, which is to their advantage. “Bold as Lions” could have been a straight-forward pop-rock song, but it’s a chiming wonder instead. “Small Towns” is profoundly beachy, with ukulele-esque sound and strum augmented by a bell kit and chill group vocals. “Barricade the Doors” takes that similar strum but turns it pastoral, invoking folksters like Fleet Foxes.

Wyman’s vocals are on full display in these tunes, which is great for a EW fan like myself. I’m partial to the strummier tunes, but I’m not so biased as to note that the still-highly-electronic “Year of the Flame” (which is credited to The Decent Lovers + Seer Group) is downright powerful in his hands. It’s a fun, unusual album that rewards multiple listens. I can’t chart it on a normal ebb and flow of a pop album’s ordering, and I like that. Fans of atypical pop music should definitely apply within.

Because Seer Group’s Rozen is super-thoughtful, he’s given IC two unreleased tracks to share with you all. Their titles speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Owlpine Instrumental Outtake 1
New Instrumental Song in Progress