ListenUp
Heart-full Miike Snow, blood-drenched Grimes, weird Weezer and more this week of new music
Grimes: Flesh Without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream
In perfect Halloween timing, Grimes channels multiple characters—from Marie Antoinette behind sunglasses to a radiant cowboy angel to a dancing high roller—for her two-part music video, “Flesh Without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream” (written, directed, edited, colored and art-directed by Grimes herself). This rock-pop jam is the first sampling of her long-awaited album Art Angels, and the taste is oh-so-good.
Weezer: Thank God For Girls
Bizarre, refreshing and entirely catchy are the three best ways to describe Weezer’s latest single, “Thank God For Girls.” More than 20 years after they stormed the world with accessible eccentricity (before capturing mainstream consciousness shortly thereafter), the band offers up a track and video that hark back to the early days of off-beat lyricism and sing-a-long choruses. And with cannoli as a theme, the video makes for a fairly gluttonous (albeit hilarious) affair.
Miike Snow: Heart is Full
Pop experimenters Andrew Wyatt, Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (the latter two produce a ton of music as Bloodshy & Avant, from Britney Spears’ “Toxic” to Hilary Duff’s “Sparks”) return for their third album as Miike Snow—the indie band that won the internet when they debuted from, what seemed like, out of the blue. “Heart is Full” is their first song together in three years, and with an extremely singalong-able chorus, plus a garnish of Auto-Tune and sampling of powerful female soul vocals, it’s a snapshot of the pop world we’re living in now.
Jack Cutter feat. David Harks: Serpent Strut
Two different generations, two countries and now, a new song. San Francisco-based psych-folk guitarist (and regular BART train station busker) Jack Cutter collaborated with emerging Brighton-based singer and producer David Harks to add some vocals to the local legend’s typically solo instrumental music. The co-written result, Serpent Strut, melds the old with new for a meditative listen; especially mesmerizing is Cutter’s ethereal, high-pitched harmonics.
ListenUp is a Cool Hunting series published every Sunday that rounds up the music we tweeted throughout the week, also found in Listen. Hear the year so far via Cool Hunting Spotify.
