ARTIST: The Very Best

HAILS FROM: Malawi, France and Sweden

Musical Style: Alternative, Indie/Pop, Electronica

FOR FANS OF: M.I.A, Brazilian Girls, Vampire Weekend

WHY YOU SHOULD CHECK THEM OUT:

Malawi born singer Esau Mwamwaya paired up with the dancehall and grime step production team of Radioclit to create an uplifting, sunny and melodic record that borrows sounds from all over the globe.

BACKGROUND CHECK:

The Very Best first gained attention last December when they released a free mixtape on their Myspace page. It was part afro-pop, part sample-based electronica and it took critics by storm. The collection of songs managed to make it onto countless year-end lists, all while earning no money. Their reimaginings of Vampire Weekend’s Cape Cod Kwasa Kwasa and M.I.A’s Boyz offered glimpses of what this singer and production team could accomplish with a fully realized original album. Well now they’ve returned, almost a year later, with an album that has a more developed and mature sound, yet still retains all the contagious fun that their mixtape offered.

Their most recent record, Warm Heart of Africa, sonically follows the same formula as their mixtape: A vibrant and summery sound, with Esau’s vocals out front and Radioclits playful and thumping rhythms offering support. On their first recording they relied on samples of artists like Vampire Weekend and M.I.A, however on this record Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and Maya Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) come to sing alongside Esau in two new and original songs.

Most of the album is sung in Chichewa, the native language of Malawi, however the joy in Esau’s voice and the range of the musical compositions from Radioclit allows for an understanding that goes beyond words. If you feel like summer may have come and gone too soon, you should definitely spend some time with The Very Best, it’ll bring back the sun right before we head into winter months.

Where you can find them in Cyberspace:

MySpace

On Tour:

JamBase

Artist: Taken By Trees

Hails from: Sweden

Musical Style: Alternative, Pop, Indie

For Fans of: Cat Power, Animal Collective, Peter Bjorn & John

Why you should check her out:

If the name doesn’t sound familiar, the voice certainly will. Taken by Trees vocalist Victoria Bergsman is most well known for her performance on the ubiquitous whistle-happy tune “Young Folks” by Peter, Bjorn and John. However Taken by Trees is Bergman’s show; on this sophomore album she creates a lush and textured sound that blends her melodic Swedish pop with Near East instrumentation.

Background Check:

Victoria Bergsman’s first musical success was with the indie rock group The Concretes, a band that draws as much from the art of The Velvet Underground as it does from the summery pop of Belle & Sebastian. Bergsman left the Concretes in 2006, right on the heels of her appearance in the Peter, Bjorn & John song “Young Folks”. She created her solo moniker, Taken by Trees, and took her distinctive deadpan vocal styling to the studio for her 2007 release Open Field.

Her most recent album, East of Eden, is a slight departure from her usual sound. She traveled to Pakistan to record the album and enlisted local musicians to offer their Eastern influences to the record’s aesthetic. She also called on some of her fellow indie rock friends to help fill out the sound. Animal Collective’s, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), supplies background vocals for the song “Anna”. And at one point in the album she pays tribute to all of the gentlemen in Animal Collective with a cover of their song “My Girls”, aptly titled for her as “My Boys”.

This is a record that is truly entertaining from start to finish.  Because of its density it will reward the patient listener, however it is also immediately accessible. It is chalk full of infectious melodies, compliments of Sweden; and exotic head nodding rhythms, compliments of Pakistan – the best of both worlds.

Where you can find her in Cyberspace:

Takenbytrees.com

MySpace

Wikipedia

On Tour: 

JamBase

Artist: Nurses

Hails from: Portland, OR

Musical Style: Indie, Pop, Experimental

For Fans of: Built to Spill, Clinic, MGMT

Why you should check them out:

An amalgam of indie rock and psychedelic experimentation, the Portland, Oregon trio’s songs are saturated with repeating rhythms and delicate layering, obtaining the feeling of both sparsity and hidden abundance with great resonating effect.

Background Check:

Listening to Nurses is like overhearing conversation between three close friends – no one instrument dominates each line, and all respond with a familiarity and closeness only obtainable by those who spend a considerable amount of time together.

At it’s center, Nurses has always been the project of John Bowers and Aaron Chapman, tracing back to a friendship forged in middle school in their hometown of Idaho Falls. And while the duo both called Idaho, California, and Illinois home for some time, it wasn’t until an impulsive move to Portland, Oregon that Nurses was made complete with the addition of James Mitchell as percussionist and roommate.

Self recorded in an old attic within their shared living space, the trio’s new full length, Apple’s Acre, boasts a fiercely creative and yet accessible sound made complete with Chapman’s soaring vocals and the constantly unraveling layers of instrumentation. While their music is difficult to clearly pinpoint, their songs contain a decisively ethereal and haunting presence, balanced by reoccurring vocal lines and rhythms that remain audible in your mind far after the song has concluded. As they stand now, Nurses are already an anomaly among the masses of newly emerging artists, and will no doubt continue to grow in stature as their record reaches more and more listeners on their current National tour.

Where you can find them in cyberspace:

MySpace

Rocky Mountain Steam

On Tour:

JamBase