Thursday, November 19, 2009

It’s a Bear!

It’s a real bear finding any information on the group(?) Pandatone. After searching the net, about all I could find is that Pandatone is a project of Trevor Sias and that he lives in New York. His music mixes found sounds, electronica, acoustic guitar and occasionally, voice. The singer Julianna Barwick has a soft, understated voice and adds to the relaxing, quiet atmosphere of the CD “Happy Together, Pandatone’s latest release. The music is perfect for a late-night conversation over a glass of wine. Everything I’ve heard from Pandatone is gentle, smart, and lush. If you could describe it in one word, I guess I’d call it folktronica. While it's slow triphop, it’s also very organic.

P.S. If anyone has more information on Pandatone, please let me know.



Friday, November 6, 2009

A Magical Experience

The group Here We Go Magic is the concept of Luke Temple and is definitely hard to describe. Musically, the New York based quartet is all over the map—from Afro-Pop to Trance to Psychedelia to Indie-Rock. Despite the wide-ranging influences, all the songs on their self-titled debut album have one thing in common—they all have a hypnotic edge to them. The vocals are superb and uniformly beautiful. The guitars are repetitive which adds to the hypnotic effect. I must say, these songs are very addictive. On first hearing, you might find them boring. But give them a couple listens and I think they’ll make their way into your current play list.