As you could guess by the title these are groups that utilize dance elements along with some mathy leanings. I make no such claims that this is a comprehensive list and these are just a couple groups that I haven't mentioned before that are worth noting. Be aware that the term "math" in this instance is very loose and as such typically only feature portions of the genre....enjoy fellows and fellettes.
Moscow based post punk mathy dancers "Please Dance Hell Bear" drop some dance floor knowledge. Is this revolutionary? eh this kinda thing usually isn't but it grooves pleasedancehellbear
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Paris electro math popsters with a penchant for danceable rhythms. meetmeatthelighthouse
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Pennsylvania indie pop post punk with a titch of shimmy shaking. edelweiss
Yes I understand I am late to the party on this newest release by these guys. Im very pleased to report that they have amped up the math and tightened up their sound in the process. Vocals seem to be less cutey cute than last time and more memorable. All in all a stronger release which I had chalked these guys up to fading into the nethersphere after their first too. Really digging on this.
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A Spritz of Math and a heavy dose of Pop-Rock. These gentz seem to be garnering a nice little name for themselves. Pretty catchy stuff if your ask me. The curious screaming during some of the songs doesn't really seem to make much sense as the music is pretty indie pop-rock. The vocals are center stage in this affair and do a nice job of fleshing out the music.
A Canadian group that has managed to keep me coming back time and time again to their 2009 release "migration". If your thinking this is because these guys play some kind of future bending face melting psych drone alien pop well your wrong. Arietta do almost nothing that you haven't heard before. Sounds like a bad start but consider this.
These guys travel in a highly refined pop / post-hardcore climate that is a seeming distillation of both of these genre's best aspects. Fairly complex without being heavy handed as well as some interesting jagged riffs that have been sanded to perfection. Its this balance that keeps Arietta from sounding like a boring copy of other such bands. Vocals are well sung and lyrics dont become too embarrassingly ridiculous. If your not sold by this description well you should be. This is incredibly well constructed song craft and 85% of these songs are catchy as sin. I'm a super sucker for catchy hooks and memorable chorus's just as much as I fiend for stabs of dark dissonant mayhem, again balance. Always surprised that I don't see these them getting talked up more because they are easily more deserving than half of the groups I hear twirling their guitars around.
Ninetails hails from England and play an interesting blend of rock music's. Love the name by the way. We get a small idea of what these guys are bringing to the table with this three song EP. Post rock, indie rock, indie pop, math rock yet pretty vocal driven as well. Structurally these songs are interestingly arranged and its nice to be kept on your toes a bit where each song is going to turn to. HOWEVER some kind of synthesizing would be appreciated as I can see a full length of this sort of strategy getting a bit flim flammy. For a short player it's nice to see a group spreading its feathers and I certainly look forward to more.
This should not be a name unfamiliar to anyone. Yo La Tengo is certainly one of the most consistent Indie Rock groups of our time and has been together practically since indie rocks inception. They are however their own group but with a sound that is nothing short of instantly accessible. With so many releases its hard to find a place to start. I can safely say that any interested parties should pay attention to their 1997 album " I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One". The slow burners here are crushing and the more distorted songs (featuring even a couple covers) mange to display some sort of impressive melancholic nature that are just as good. I have listened to many of their releases and I always come back to this one in particular.
A band without proper peers. I like where this is going already. Now in actuality Rapider than Horsepower spend their day jobs in the sludgy spazz core punk group Racebannon ( Worth a very long listen as well) Somehow it turns out that they are also masquerading as a spazz indie pop group. Pretty inventive guitar licks if you ask me that split their time between trying to sound cute (and failing in an awesome way) or some sort of junior hardcore that also lacks proper bite. Vocally its very nasally but so all over the place its incredible. Lyrical content finds time to jump from dating caterpillars, having ice cream or ode's to boom boxes. Somehow though it proves to be emotional as well which is impressive. This is just one of those things that you really cant pin down till you've spent some time with it, but i promise its not something that anyone should miss. These two EP's are some of the best the group has released.
Heres some friendly promotion i would like to share with you folks, and this concerns you Boston area people especially. Today i got an invite from mr. Danny, drummer of the Organ Beats and brother of their singer, Noelle, saying that on June 3rd they will be playing a sick ass show on a goddamned boat with Mellow Bravo and Viva Viva. Aw shit yes! Nighttime music cruise with a band im friends with? Damn right.
I met Danny through a mutual friend, Shaun C, and we grabbed some dinner before heading to Noelles apartment to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special. That shit was outrageous; it seriously began with a 15 minute scene at the household of Chewbaccas family, and the entire thing was Wookie-talk with no subtitles. It was buggin'. Shaun and our group of friends are close with the Beats, and a while back together they filmed a sick video for Happy Birthday, off Sleep When We Are Dead. Shaun is featured as the boy baking a cake waiting for someone to come home for their birthday party. Its awesome:
They play such great catchy rock, with Noelles awesome voice kicking out great melodies. That girl can hold a tune. Ive only seen them live once; a few years ago, Shaun hosted a Halloween/ Music party at his house where he got a bunch of his and his friends bands to put together a bill. It was a great night, and the Beats headlined. At that point in the night i had had a few beers, but i distinctly remember when they busted out Never Gonna Make it Outta Here Alive. I LOVE those Oohs that start the track. Everyone at the party knew these songs well, so the entire crowd was Oohing along with Noelle; it was a fucking great show. The Organ Beats - Never Gonna Make It Outta Here Alive by ninko
So heres the info for that show, and below that a link to their free-or-pay-what-you-feel download for Sleep When We Are Dead. Support these guys fools!
Max Tundra, is an interesting case. You can tell that there is a lot of love for a lot of different genres going here. Much hubbub has been made about him using a bunch of vintage recording equipment to make these dense electro pop pieces. Speaking of pop, he is a man very much in love with pop culture as well, it can get a bit corny. As this might start to sound a bit odd at times...yea it can be but you can tell its honest work. The drum programming is what impresses me most about all of Max's albums, it is dense and schizophrenic. He has an incredible ear for rhythm which is what 9 times out of 10 is lacking from similar artists. Flirtations with 8 bit music in the past are now brought more to the front showcased in their own songs. Vintage synths rule his songs along with heartfelt vocals.
Before i discovered Ra Ra Riot, i had been searching around desperately for another band to satisfy me as much as Bloc Partys first two albums did. I listened to a lot of shit in this time period, testing the waters of the genre with more mainstream, crappy stuff- The Editors and The Cribs come to mind; i still havent checked out The Killers beyond their singles, but they never really did it for me anyway.
Bloc Party was another purchase i made on a whim. A roommate of mine was heading out shopping and i wanted to tag along and grab some new music, so i quickly checked the Onion AV clubs record reviews, and the best reviewed album of that week happened to be A Weekend in the City. Unknown to me, Bloc Party was delivering a second album after being very well received after their debut. Where Silent Alarm was a minor-keyed pop rock album, it was still very easy to dance to and full of great hooks. Like Eating Glass opens the album and is one of their strongest tracks. It builds so well, and those drums are just bombastic.
But A Weekend in the City just got darker and more creative, adding in deeper studio work while using the 4 piece band to its fullest potential. The lyrical content got much more defeated and scared, second guessing the places they were in their lives and clinging to hope, yet the melodies of the verses and hooks that the singer uses are all very unique and dynamic. It was the strength of the band around these unique vocals that instantly drew me to them.
I Still Remember is probably the most friendly from A Weekend at the City, but it is also just a powerhouse example of how well these guys could write a pop song. The album adds a lot more electronics that were nonexistent on their debut, but I Still Remember is just the band alone, writing a nice love song with a great beat.
These gents are in the band Ponytail, which I'm sure many are familiar with. Could never get into em myself (that vocalist needs to scream talk elsewhere) Ecstatic Sunshine finds these two guitar slingers doing what they do best.....strumming together. Its kinda poppy, certainly indie tinged, sprightly and slightly distorted. Maybe a more all encompassing statement would be youthful happy surf folk music for slightly miffed pre-teens. I know that prolly doesn't sound so tempting but I promise there is much to enjoy.
As I posted Other Men a couple days ago I really didn't think it was fair to not have Rob Crow's most well known project Pinback. Along with Crow we also have Zach Smith of Three Mile Pilot fame. There is some amazingly catchy indie pop rock going on here. But this isn't your Belle and Sebastion hug a sad unicorn type indie pop. There's drum machines and awesome guitars which share there own unique quality that I just cant put my finger on. Not to mention that the vocals between Smith and Crow have that perfect trade off value that compliments the other oh so well.
Acerola posted some Facing New York a while back, an awesome band that metaghost showed me as well. They write really cool rock/pop stuff with catchy choruses you only hear once after they grow out of the evolving melodies of their songs.
In 2009, the evil twin/ arch nemesis/ parallel universe persona of the singer of Facing New York, the hard drinking clubber Ricky Reed, released his first solo album. With drummer Arjun Singh, they called themselves Wallpaper and made DooDoo Face, the autotuned narration to a night of partying from a sentimental dance freak. The lyrics are silly as hell; too many to chose from, but "I gotta say I'm looking good/ I'd hit on myself if I could" from I Got Soul (I'm so wasted) came to mind first.
I was having a very hard time trying to decide which video of his to share on here; it was a toss up between T-Rex, or Getting Drip. One about going buckwild on the weekend after working 9-5 all week, and the other about prepartying in your kitchen. Metaghost put a vote in for T-Rex, and i cant disagree. Anyone getting down in an Ed-Sinclair-from-Dinosaurs mask deserves the screentime.
doo doo face
I also wanted to post this newer track, hopefully from an upcoming album. He has done away with the autotune and decided to just write one of the most fucking catchy-as-shit choruses of all time. Dude knows his fucking synths.
This 2004 release has been in constant rotation for me since the day it came out. Sadly this would mark the Canada based Sea Snakes only release. While on the outside everything seems pretty par for the course, it is anything but that. Instrumentally there is a lot going on keyboard, guitar, violin, drums all being used to fill the space. Structure wise its almost unbeatable for the genre with extended instrumental passages and interesting left turns in the music. Even at their most "rocking" Sea Snakes do it their own way by using dynamics instead of pedals to get the point across. Vocals are wispy with cryptic albeit poignant and memorable lyrics. Clear as day has always been an album mans album, you simply can not just pick one song. Easily in my top 10 of all time.
