_Marina & The Diamonds – Mowgli’s Road (Mille Remix)

Mille is a new and upcoming producer, who has now officially remixed Marina & The Diamonds‘ “Mowgli’s Road”. The ecstatic electronic beats in this are killer, and Marina herself even said that this is her favorite remix of the track.

Earlier, we showed you the video to “Mowgli’s Road”.

Watch it here.

Marina & The Diamonds – “Mowgli’s Road” (Mille Remix)Stream

_Ellie Goulding – Under The Sheets

Ellie Goulding is the result of Little Boots, Florence + The Machine and Marina and The Diamonds if they had a group orgy. Seriously, this British girl has got some talent, and a beautiful voice. (plus she’s pretty like all the musicians I compared her to!)

Her first single, “Under The Sheets” is a pure, heavenly explosion of indie pop. You can even say that you can hate it because it might sound too mainstream for your liking, but we would all know that is a lie.

She’s currently touring with Little  Boots and Florence, coincidentally.

Ellie Goulding – “Under The Sheets”Stream

_Summer Camp – I Only Have Eyes For You

A group of 7 friends who have met in their childhood years in Sweden have united and started a band, titling themselves as Summer Camp to relive the memories. One thing that these gals have in common is their amazing taste in lo-fi pop music.

They covered Flamingo’s “I Only Have Eyes For You” while sampling a clip from the trailer for the 80′s movie sensation Heathers. The result of this interesting mix is a misty, cozy song that you can imagine being played in front of the fireplace while warming up from the cold winter with hot chocolate and marshmallows.

The song opens up with a girl insulting another with lines like ‘You were nothing before you met me. You were playing barbies with Betty Fin’. Sounds to me like Blair Waldorf when she was 8 years old.

They like to remain anonymous, as I don’t even know if that’s them in the picture.

http://www.myspace.com/morganwaves

Summer Camp – “I Only Have Eyes For You”

_Album Review: Freelance Whales – Weathervanes

Freelance

Whales -

Weathervanes

[Released 9/1, 2009]
Record Label: None/ Indepedent

Formed in late 2008, Freelance Whales, a band from Queens, is leaping onto the music scene with an undeniable presence. A few months ago they released their debut album, Weathervanes, and since then its been gaining rapid popularity because they are a group that just can’t be ignored.

Freelance Whales brings us back to “old school” indy, if there is such a thing. They definitely don’t fit into the 2009 breakout band trend of electronic pop, which we see so often. The group has a theme that could be categorized as similar to Postal Service or Sufjan Stevens. Its what emo-electronic would sound like on a nice day in an open prairie field.

Standout tracks include “Generator ^ First Floor,” “Starring,” and “The Great Estates”. “Generator ^ First Floor,” is the influential start to the album. A long instrumental introduction, filled with the guitar, banjo, harmonium, glockenspiel, and synthesizers, sets the tone for the orchestrated heavy album. There is something very powerful and moving about the first song that lures you into the rest of the album.

Continuing the buildup as you progress deeper into the album is “Starring.” This track has a sentimental melody with a poppy chorus that sets you free. The best part of this song and an aspect that makes the album stand out as great is the use of the banjo. Rounding out the epic album is the song “The Great Estates.” It carries a memorable melody that touches your emotions after a few listens, much like the entire album. (more…)

_La Roux Plays El Rey Theater in LA

It was a sold out show at LA’s intimate El Rey Theater Monday night for the rapidly rising UK electronic pop group, La Roux. We here at Vinyl and Vodka got a chance to catch them live before Elly was incubated and shows were starting to get cancelled.

The set was only about 3 short songs and an extended version of “Bulletproof.”  The group’s stage presence was exactly what you’d expect it to be… great crowd, simple stage set up, efficient transitions and a danceable playlist. The only thing that wasn’t spot on was the lead singer being sick. Poor Elly could barely speak to the sold out venue, but her voice still flawless. Don’t know where she got the energy but Elly livened up for “I’m Not Your Toy.” Dancing around stage with a pristine Mohawk and skinny legs, she definitely rocked it to the point you forgot she was actually sick.

Fans showed their true support for the group with continuous roars of encouragement for Elly as she tried to catch her breath during song breaks. For the first time ever, the group experienced fans jumping onto stage to show off some moves for the sold out venue. Elly also brought up a little girl who sang and danced along side her for the final song which we got to catch up with after the show, as well as a VERY fashionably dressed fan that I couldn’t resist taking a photo of:

It would have been great to see a full set, but the taste we got Monday night makes us sure to be standing front row the next time the group rolls through LA. Elly’s efforts sick only make me long to see/hear what she can do in immaculate health. Definitely a live show you wouldn’t want to pass up.

La Roux – “I’m Not Your Toy” (Data Remix)Stream

_Vampire Weekend – Cousins (Live)

Vampire Weekend are gearing up for their sophomore album coming out early next month, but to the die hard Vampire Weekend fans January seems like quite a stretch.

They are pretty good at teasing us though, last week we heard “Horchata”, which would be their first single off of the LP. Just recently it was announced that “Cousins” will be the next single and the A-side to “Horchata”, while it will also include a b-side titled “California English Pt. 2″.

If you really are a die hard VW fan though, then this song is nothing new to you. Back in March videos of them performing “Cousins” live surfaced all over the internet.

However, if you haven’t heard this song yet, you can listen to the performance they did for MTV Canada below. The single is out digitally on 11/17 and on 7″ on 12/15 via XL Records.

_Timid Tiger – My Girl’s A Rascal

Timid Tiger is going places! They’re getting ready to release their ‘Electric Island’ EP exclusively on iTunes, and they’re giving away one of the tracks from the EP, “My Girl’s A Rascal”.

The song starts off with an Indian zest, then continues on to the typical Timid Tiger cartoon pop sound that we all love.

If you don’t know who they are or forgot about them, PMA pretty much exeposed them to the music world when their cover of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” got featured on the blog. Since then, they have released “THE PMA EP” and listeners are growing rapidly.

Timid Tiger – “My Girl’s A Rascal”Stream

_Total Babe Plays 7th Street Entry (Interview) – Part 2

V&V: I don’t know if you had a chance to check out the blog within the last couple of weeks. But I wrote a little preview about you guys and mentioned your style/genre. I referred to it as Dream pop with a stylized folk structure. Would you say this is accurate?

TB: I think we are all pretty bad at describing ourselves. But yeah that’s accurate.

V&V: what lead you all to start collaborating as a band?

TB: What lead us….Well…… We’d all been working on different projects that kind of fell apart. Then we all got together and tried again and it worked. And we knew Jordan who is really great at guitar. We started off by trying classical, acoustic Classical, and then finally settled on our current sound and got lucky. Our current drummer has been with us for about 5 months now the other one left the band. He is actually the longest we’ve had a drummer.

V&V: That’s surprising. Who would not be in a band that books shows regularly??

TB: I think he left our band to be in a Sublime cover band.

V&V: I bet he’s regretting that decision now.

TB: Well we felt bad, we talked to him last night and he asked if we were playing any shows. And we told him we just played in the First Avenue main room w/ Drinking with Ian. And he was just kind of like “oohh”. But he’s cool and congratulated us. (more…)