It’s Friday, which means that everyone at Flavorwire central is a) melting and b) rounding up the best songs we’ve heard this week. Today such list of songs includes the suitably strange and wonderful new single from Kirin J. Callinan, triumphant returns from Fuck Buttons and Julia Holter, excellent new songs from Heliotropes and Gold Panda, a bunch of pleasantly laid-back new electronic tracks… and a weird old Hawaiian psych number that sounds very familiar indeed. All this goodness is streaming now, and it all awaits you after the jump. Click through to listen!
Kirin J. Callinan — “Love Delay” Genuine originals are increasingly rare in today’s homogenized music world, so resounding cheers for the gloriously idiosyncratic Kirin J. Callinan, who’s made one of the most strange and compelling records of the year with his debut solo album Embracism, a sort of cross between Rowland S. Howard and Scott Walker. This is the final track from the record, and while it’s not as manic as the album’s first single — the gloriously deranged title track, which I wrote about last month — it’s just as strange. The album is really great, too, and well worth getting hold of when it’s released in early July.
Fuck Buttons — “The Red Wing” (edit) It’s been four years since the cosmically awesome Surf Solar, and if this edit of the first taste of the new Fuck Buttons album Slow Focus is anything to go by, they’ve continued in the relatively melodic, space-y direction they took on that record, rather than the ear-grinding noise of their debut Street Horrrsing. This is entirely OK with me.
Julia Holter — “World” Well, this is beautiful. This first single from Julia Holter’s new album largely eschews the loops and tics of Ekstasis for arrangements that are both minimal and somehow orchestral, big washes of sound to accentuate the vocals. The result is like Holter sign
Heliotropes — “Quatto” I discussed this earlier today in the context of the albums you need to hear in June, so there’s not much more to say beyond the fact that Heliotropes are ace and so is this track.
Gold Panda — “We Work Nights” While the new Gold Panda record is largely inspired by travel, this track apparently has rather more prosaic origins — it’s inspired by “working shitty jobs,” and it certainly sounds like having been awake far too long, in a strangely spacey and tweaked kind of way.
Laura Veirs — “Sun Song” “We got the sun to thank,” sings Veirs on this quietly pastoral new song. If, like some Flavorwire employees, you were awake all last night because your room was so fucking hot, you may take a rather less romantic view of the giant blazing ball of gas in our sky — but such complaints aside, this is really rather lovely.
Shampoo Boy — “Gift” Despite the name, this is actually a band — a trio, to be precise, one of whom is Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg. Despite their link to that label, this record is being released on Blackest Ever Black, which should give a good indication of its sound — dark, atonal, and decidedly sinister.
Trentemøller — “Never Stop Running” In which Trentemøller employs The Drums’ Jonny Pierce to sing on a breezy Phoenix-esque pop track (Pierce even seems to have acquired a faux Euro accent for the occasion. Hmmm.) Also, apparently the above video was directed by Derek Jacobi.
John Tejada — “Somewhere” Some bracing techno for a Friday afternoon. The weekend beckons.
Howard Nishioka — “Carnivourous Dogaramus” And finally: wow. I discovered this at the excellent Aquarium Drunkard — it apparently dates from 1979 and was featured on Nishioka’s album Street Songs. You may also have never heard of Nishioka — but perhaps one Graham Coxon was a fan?