Usher: Climax

From the classic car imagery to the vocal desperation to the simple, warm beat, it's hard not to read this as heavily influenced by Frank Ocean's "Swim Good."  Usher's song is solid, but I can't say I prefer it.

 

New Holy Other: "Touch"

Easily the most exciting act that I know of without an album yet, Holy Other are in a great spot between dubstep and "witch house" (or whatever).  I'm not sure this is quite as amazing as "YR LOVE", a track that still completely blows my mind - but more Holy Other is, like a gift horses mouth, not to be looked into.

Touch by HOLY OTHER

Holy Other: Unbowed by the Sublime

They're just about to release their first single on England's Transparent Records, but I'm already more excited about the producer Holy Other than anything in a long while.  The single's contents can (as is now the style) be heard entirely online at their myspace page, where I also recommend you check out the forty-minute "Sunshrine Mix" - I can't tell if this is some sort of screwtape/remix thing, or an actual 40 minutes of unreleased material.  Regardless, the songs YR LOVE and We Over are individually two of the most weirdly beautiful tracks I've ever heard, mining the same dusty/ghostly/bassy/darkgroove territory as producers like Forest Swords (album also coming out soon, sadly apparently only on CD).  Holy Other are getting compared a bit to Burial, which seems to me right in spirit but wrong on technical aspects - this doesn't feel like dance music, not even deconstructed and "experimentalized" dance music - in terms of rhythm and structure, if not sound, it's mining a decidedly rockier vein.  Specifically, there's a lot in common with shoegaze bands like Ride, Slowdive, and (not quite in that group, I guess) My Bloody Valentine.  The fact that it's all done by one guy, probably on a laptop, is still interesting, but by now I imagine that's pretty secondary. 


Holy Other 'Yr Love' from FAMILY on Vimeo.