Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. To celebrate, I have composed this large post of different videos I’ve been really into and why. First, of course, we will begin with this short video of the summer solstice put together by Irish Weather Online. These folks deserve applause simply for the music they chose for this video:

Global Satellite Animation – June 21st 2011 from iweatheronline on Vimeo.

And now, we digress:

Mount Pleasant – Slipped Era from Hamish Parkinson on Vimeo.

I’ve been pretty obsessed with Mount Pleasant since I heard the track Florida over at Rose Quartz. I highly recommend heading over to Mount Pleasant’s Bandcamp and dl’ing all five albums available. The track featured in the above video can be found on the LP “Aztecs”.

Related:
Mount Pleasant: Florida

I made a post about UMO a little while back and they’ve more recently started playing shows and seriously blowing up. These dudes deserve it, their AM radio funk pop is some of the catchiest material I’ve been listening to as of lately. Their full LP just released on Fat Possum, this post is also a reminder for me to order it.

Related:
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Thought Ballune

Yourstru.ly Presents: How To Dress Well “Suicide Dream 3″ from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

This video is gracing our visual pleasure thanks to Yourstru.ly, and it’s extra special because this video is documenting part of the making of How To Dress Well‘s “Just Once” EP, a special orchestral tribute to a friend of his who passed away. It’s dropping on Yourstru.ly’s label imprint with $1 of each 10″ sold donated to mindfreedom.org. Watching this video, you can totally see how and why Tom Krell’s music sounds how it is. So much raw emotion, some really beautiful stuff.

Valotihkuu – Bedroom Pop from valotihkuu on Vimeo.

I couldn’t find anything about Valotihkuu other than the fact that he’s Russian. This video looks like it was put together with some found footage, kinda wish I knew what film it was from because the skate sequences look pretty rad. I have to be honest, I’ve had dreams about dropping roofs on my skateboard as a kid.

Bedroom Pop by Valotihkuu

Silent Portraits ‘Mama’ from Silent Portraits on Vimeo.

I really liked this video, because it has a real subtle, well-delivered message. This video shows the construction of a house made of matches, and then you watch its destruction as it burns down, lit on fire by the same object it was composed of. Silent Portraits has a tumblr that you can check out here, I couldn’t find much in the realm of .mp3′s though.

Milky TV from MILKY SWAY on Vimeo.

Milky Sway is a side-project by Jorge of Port City, and as you can tell from this video it presents super celestial, chill vibes. Keep an eye out for a new track of his premiereing on a charity compilation that me and Liz Pelly are putting together, which should be dropping soon.

Real Estate is seen preforming a new song from their show at the Bell House in the video below, recorded by Jonah Maurer and another recorded by Maia Stern. If you didn’t know yet, Real Estate recently signed to Domino, and they are going to be releasing their new LP through them (Twin Sister is releasing their next record with Domino also). Thanks to NYCTaper for the audio, you can download the whole set there.

Real Estate – Soup or New Song (Live) from Free Spirit on Vimeo.

Real Estate – “Careless” live from moogie on Vimeo.

Real Estate: Unknown (new)
Real Estate: Untitled (new)
Real Estate: Untitled (new)

Just heard about this project by Tommy from the Beach Fossils. Each track is a pretty catchy melodic pop song, the type of songs summer memories will be linked to. In other Beach Fossils news, Ian finished up the video for their track Adversity, check his tumblr for sneak peaks up until its premiere on the Urban Outfitters Blog.

Beach Fossils “Adversity” Teaser 1 from B.F. Adversity on Vimeo.

Beach Fossils “Adversity” Teaser 2 from B.F. Adversity on Vimeo.

Last night me and a couple of my favorite PC grads headed out on the city of Providence for some beers (but of course, not before Derek put on some nina simone), and eventually we found ourselves at a Triangle Forest show in the basement of one of our favorite bars. These New-wavers put on a really great live set, photos and animations after the jump.

Aias is an all-girl indie pop band from Barcelona, Spain, and their track Tu Manes graced Pitchfork’s Forkcast around this time last year. Tu Manes is a track that starts with a layer of noise in the background and is then accented by all three of the girls’ vocals, which encompasses the listener in a sea of melody and harmony. Below is the video premiere (directed by Fric Lopez) for this track, and you can still grip their LP that dropped in September titled A la Piscina on Captured Tracks at Insound here.

Aias – Tu Manes from Nick Dierl on Vimeo.

In addition to this video, the ladies of Aias curated a guest mix for Salad Fork. I’m really stoked about this mix because I’m always curious about the music scene in other countries, and this mix is really quite eye-opening for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble upon a few musicians from the Southwestern region of Europe, most notably a collective of lo-fi artists from Portugal on the MPD digital release label. Of course, I always have a yearning for more and this mix helps to fill that void.

Mixtape: Aias [Download]

Related:
Aias: Tu Manes

This music video starts out with the beautiful Rihanna emerging from the darkness and putting a bullet through the back of a man’s head in a crowded area. The decision to put this scene first is very provocative, and I believe shows that Rihanna is currently filled with emotions she cannot explain, mostly because of that asshole/idiot Chris Brown. This is a man that she is attracted to but he hit her once so they have an on-again off-again relationship. They most likely are “It’s Complicated” on the popular social networking site Facebook.

Next, there is a flashback to ‘yesterday morning’. Rihanna is walking through her local hood, showing off her bangin’ body. Young children run up to hug her. Everyone seems happy. Rihanna begins to sip coconut milk while she makes jokes with the local thugs. I believe she is shown here with the thugs to symbolize how she feels vulnerable with what Chris Brown had did to her, so she feels as though she needs to hide behind a mask of security even though she feels very vulnerable and hurt inside.

The next scene show Rihanna waving to a man on his bicycle while she sips her coconut milk trying to seduce him with her eyes. I’m sure she is thinking that the coconut milk adds to her overall swag value, because it is so good for your skin. The next scene zooms into her ankle tattoo. I believe this is to show the viewer that she is a very ‘wild woman’ and Chris Brown is missing out on some wild and crazy sex, so he should not hit her if he wants to be intimate to her.

Next, Rihanna is at a party. At first, she is dancing with some chubby unattractive-looking guy. When she was tired dancing with the chubby unattractive-looking guy, she chills out against the wall. I’m surprised no one got her a drink, it seems very hot in there at that house party. Then, the man she shot at the train station approaches her and begins to hump her. After doing some research, I have found that this is considered dancing to people that originate from the hood. I believe it is some sort of pre-sex ritual, and makes me wonder if I have been partying with the wrong people for the last ~3 years, if there are women that let you hump them sexually on the dance floor. Rihanna basically says ‘no stop dance humping me!’ and pushes him away. She then walks outside to cool off.

Soon, the man that was dance humping her comes outside and forces himself on her. It is very apparent that this is most likely acting out how Chris Brown would abuse her. This assault scene bounces back and forth with a scene of Rihanna floating on a raft in water. As an ocean engineer, I can tell you that this raft does not seem to be a very sound structure. It looks like it is slightly negatively buoyant, the only reason it is staying afloat is probably because Rihanna is so skinny. Perhaps this is due to her coconut-only diet.

The video ends with Rihanna running to her draw and grabbing her small pistol, which was used to shoot the man assaulting her. This video received a lot of criticism in the mainstream media, which I think is bullshit because people die on TV all the time. Rihanna should be able to express herself however she wants.

Ultimately, this video was most likely made as a lesson to Chris Brown, saying “Listen baby. I want you. But if you want me, please do not assault me or I will literally fucking kill you.”

Really enjoying the visuals put together for one of Balmorhea‘s newest (but slightly dated) tracks Candor, off of one of my favorite seven inches as of lately. I even heard one of their tracks recently in an INTEL commercial, that’s how you know you’ve made it big, for real. I will always love Balmorhea, from their first record to their last.

Related:
Balmorhea: Clamor

Kickstarter is seriously the best thing. I used it to successfully grip some cash to make my first charity project happen, and it seems like all of my favorite musicians are using it to fund some of their projects.

First up, Vacation Dad/MJ MJ needs your help, Andy and Charlie moved out to California and ended up getting all their stuff stolen (total bummer, seriously). Anyway, their Kickstarter project features a lot of different goodies, t-shirts, vinyl, tapes, hand made books, and a 31-track compilation.

Next, Speculator and Boy Friend could use some tour cash so they can play your city. Their Kickstarter includes vinyl, unreleased tapes, shirts, all the way up to a personalized song or a private party.

Below is some of their current material, basically stuff you’d expect to hear while they are on tour:

BOY FRIEND – Lovedropper (Official Video) from HELL, YES! on Vimeo.

Just the other day Johanne was telling me about how the part of Wisconsin where she is from folk music is fairly prevalent, and she sent me a bandcamp link to a super talented folk musician by the name of Adelyn Rose. The below video is an example of folk music at it’s best, and this song is pretty irresistable when you combine the talent Yohuna and Adelyn Rose have. Also included below is a reworking Adelyn did of Sarah Vaughan’s Broken Hearted Melody.

Yohuna & Adelyn Rose – All The Slow Songs (Waiting) [Official Video] from Heather Daniels on Vimeo.

Just the other day I made an Underwater Peoples update, which encompassed my favorite psych-folk musician Julian Lynch. Since then he dropped one of his always amazing Space Mountain mixes on his tumblr (we’re on #10 now) and this video dropped recently on Altered Zones/Visitation Rites of his track “Ground” (Off of his new LP TERRA). Enjoy the VHS-esque intro to ‘space mountain images’ spectacle below.