That World Inverted

I found recently this pretty useful blog called Puddlegum, “an indie music journal.” While perusing through its archives of music news and reviews, I came across two musicians that were intriguing. Both are one-man bands with odd “professional names” and both are pretty young. Which always makes me feel like I’ve been jacking off for ten years instead of being amazingly productive. Which is of couse patently untrue. But still…

Here they are:

Beirut, Gulag Orkestar

I heard this referred to as Balkan indie-pop. Except he’s from Arizona. Or something. One of those labels that is only slightly more vague than saying it’s alternative. But it’s good. Zach Condon, who is Beirut, has one of those beautiful clear tenors that seems to effortlessly drive on top of the music, with a slight quiver so you think he might not make it, but with such controlled power that you never really doubt it. Much of this album is backed with some sort of gypsy orchestra and it is a refreshing sound. I found I had listened to the entire album twice without realizing it and it seemed to find a way to click into the productive part of my brain, because in that hour and a half I had managed to clean my desk and write something. Very nice, Beirut. Very nice indeed. Here’s a video (off the EP Lon Gisland):

YACHT, I Believe in You. Your Magic is Real.

This is just fun. A Portland local, Jona Bechtolt makes fun music. I like the song above especially. It’s poppy, dancy-ish laptop electronic disco-ish, experimenting with sounds but with a tongue-in-cheek view of the world. I don’t have any kind of in-depth analysis other than as soon as I put this track on, Ladybug said “I LIKE THIS” and we started dancing in the basement. In the words of Wolverine, “’nuff said!”