Unknown Mortal Orchestra are one of those mysterious bands from last year that I’ve been listening to a fair amount as of lately. They are also one of those groups that are able to combine a large plethora of influences and genres into their music. It’s a style that I enjoy, and reminds me of Georgia’s Soft Powers. Unknown Mortal Orchestra are touring with the Smith Westerns now, be sure to catch them on tour.

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Thought Ballune

Providence, RI has always been known for its noise scene, and I spent much of my teenage years attending shows in the sketched-out warehouses of Olneyville sitting on indoor half-ramps and watching such bands play. A lot of good times were spent spending late summer nights listening to random artists preform their ambient noise and drone while the whole city of Providence comes out, it’s not unlikely to see members of Deer Tick or Brian Chippendale standing next to you. Now, anytime I listen to noise or drone, a very comfortable feeling of nostalgia rushes over me.

You all may know Shaun Durkan is the frontman from Weekend, but he also has a shoegaze-inspired ambient noise project titled Grem. This project walks the line between deep, dark sounds and refreshing, washed-out drone, resurrecting ones soul straight out of the grave.

With their slightly muffled vocals laying behind catchy guitar riffs and melodies, OLR‘s fuzzed-out AM radio pop is the best pop I’ve heard this year. It’s no doubt that Sam Mehran, the man behind OLR, is a pop-writing genius. Their track $20 bill has been floating around the net since August, and now it’s available on wax from True Panther, limited to 500 copies with numbered inserts.

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Outer Limits Recordings: $20 Bill

MOTHS is a young seventeen year-old named Jack Colleran from Ireland who constructs nicely composed electronic music, I’m pretty sure when I was seventeen I spent a lot of time eating pizza and playing video games when I wasn’t doing homework. Below are a couple tracks from his project, and Jack being so young I’m excited to see how he grows.

Derek Piotr – Focus (Moths Remix) by MOTHS

blisters by MOTHS

Quite honestly, I haven’t stopped listening to Bigcolour since I watched the creatively-directed video for Bigcolour’s hauntingly beautiful track Red Silk Bow by Kayla Kane. I even played a track from Bigcolour’s “Centuries of Summer” album for a guest DJ set I had on WNYU‘s New Afternoon show with Jenn Pelly. Now, Bigcolour needs your help, and are starting with a cool way to help them raise money for their LP release. Purchase their new track for $5 and every 10th person will get a free copy of their record. Details from their Facebook page below:

“Sooooo starting tomorrow afternoon’ish, we’re going to initiate a kind of ‘kickstarter’/'fundraiser’ type of deal to help towards funding our first release on vinyl. Tomorrow we’ll be putting up a single mp3 from the next joint at www.bigcolour.bandcamp.com for $5, and to every 10th person that makes a purchase will receive a FREE copy of our next LP, due in late March/early April (all shipping expenses will be covered, international orders included). We would really really appreciate anyone so gracious & beautiful enough to help us achieving this jumpstart for our next release, and to whom the ? ‘s will flow like essays on eastern Indonesia. We’ll post again when the mp3 and everything is ready to download tomorrow, ThAnKzzz!! ???? (single cover art by Jordan Vouga)”

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