MP3s: Heavenly Beat's Balearic Pop Jams

You may recall me blogging the Beach Fossils side-project, Dive. Despite the midnight tones, the group keeps Beach Fossils' chill vibes alive and the same can be said for Heavenly Beat.

This second side-project is led by Beach Fossils' bassist John Peña, but opts to combine his home-team sounds with Balearic accents, recalling early Kings of Convenience (in a good way). The group's got two singles to their name with a full-length due sometime next year.

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Heavenly Beat - Faithless
Heavenly Beat - Suday

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MP3: Regal Safai - "Only"

In which Bristol continues to pump out excellent post-dubstep/electronic music...

Regal Safari hail from the UK where myriad artist are now taking to their Bandcamp pages to put up electronic rapture for your listening pleasure. And while some of it's quality production--seriously, what is in the water (read: laptops) over there?--my ears are starting to feel the glut of homemade, Ableton-driven music, reminding me of the lo-fi boom of '09.

Whatever the case, Regal Safari seem to be one of the good guys and I've had "Only" on heavy rotation for a few days now. With succinct sampling and a slack aura, the cut manages to stand out among such redundant peers.

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Regal Safari - Only

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Balam Acab and What Makes Perfect Hangover Music

There are those mornings where you wake up before your alarm goes off, eat granola for breakfast, and run three miles before work. Then there's those morning where the only things that sound good to you are aspirin and a meal from the greasy spoon known as Main Street Cafe--that is, two eggs sunny-side-up, crispy bacon, rye toast and hash browns. And water. Lots of water.

While a hangover isn't required to enjoy Balam Acab, the soft, droning nature of his production is a potent antidote for the dozen times you heard "Party Rock Anthem" the night before.

Balam Acab is the nom de guerre of Alec Koone, a 20-year-old Pennsylvanian whose music carefully samples voices, compositional fragments and instrument snippets to combine them with semi-distorted beats, creating dreamlike, languid arrangements. The results are sobering, even when you haven't been drinking the night before.

"Oh, Why" is the first glimpse from his forthcoming record, Wander / Wonder, and it's just as strong as anything off last year's See Birds EP.

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Balam Acab - Oh, Why
Balam Acab - See Birds (Sun)
Balam Acab - Regret Making Mistakes

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Artist Spotlight: TJ Says Relax, Listen to Some More jj

The general response to my recent jj entry was pretty much, "More please," and since I'm a man of the people, I thought, "Yes," and decided to host five of the Swedish duo's strongest, chillest tracks.

EDIT:// Download jj's excellent mixtape, Kills, by clicking here...

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Ecstasy - jj
My Life - jj
Things Will Never Be the Same Again - jj
Let Go - jj
CEO Birthday - jj

Previous MP3s...

Let Them - jj
I'm the One / Money on My Mind - jj

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Cults Play Daytrotter Session, Still Sound Pretty Cool

For those with fingers far removed from the pulse, Cults are a hip Brooklyn duo who released a 7" a couple months back and have since set the blogosphere on fire with their vintage-pop gems.

Just like Tennis, the couple recently traveled to Daytrotter to record live takes of their tiny catalogue -- they played three of their four songs. And yes, the "new" tracks are worth a download; The tunes sound more fleshed out and full than their recorded counterparts.

You can grab the three tracks off their debut single (and "Oh My God" from the Adult Swim Single Project) down below.

Wanna hear the tunes played live? Grab the Daytrotter session by clicking here.

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Oh My God - Cults

Go Outside - Cults

Most Wanted - Cults

The Curse - Cults

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Beach House Release (Really Good) iTunes EP

Dudes, those famous Beach House coos sound pretty chill on your record player and everything, but their slinking sound takes on more flesh-out vibes when they play live. Take my word for it.

Thanks to a new iTunes Session EP, you too can hear six sober jams played live, including one brand new song, "White Moon." The EP also includes the Devotion classic,"Gila," which has the distinguished honor of being burned into my brain forever after it soundtrack'd an airplane landing in stormy summer weather.

- Grab the Beach House iTunes Session EP by clicking here -
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White Moon [Live] - Beach House

Gila [Live] - Beach House

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Shocker: "All Summer" Is a Summertime Jam

Selling out sounds pretty good, eh? Citizen Insane favourite, Bethany Cosentino (aka Best Coast) recently teamed up with Kid Cudi and Rostam Batmanglij (of Vampire Weekend & Discovery) in the name of Converse.

The track finds Cudi and Bethany trading vocal duties, while Batmanglij goes all Jack White on us and handles drumming duties.

Cudi smells like pot and still sounds like he doesn't have a care in the world and Bethany's guitar/vox are beachy and reverbed, so nothing's really new here, but the song's a jam if not only because its sonics stay true to its title.

Download the song below and, if you're so inclined, check out a behind-the-scenes clip of the collaboration over at SPIN.

EDIT:// Check out the new music video up above.

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All Summer - Kid Cudi, Best Coast & Rostam Batmanglij

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