Grimes: Advanced Vision

So in my last post I mentioned that I had somehow gotten in the middle of the ultimate electronic dream-pop flirt-fest between Balam Acab and Grimes on Twitter. Both of them discussed their #twittercrushes on one another and luckily @Advanceddd was on the scene to help things along. With any luck he'll be able to dedicate his remix of "My Boo" to her soon. 

I couldn't agree more with Balam Acab's crush on Grimes. I know that I'm more than obsessed with her music right now  I first really listened to her when she released Darkbloom with d'Eeon and made a video for her song "Vanessa". It had a really interesting combination of R&B, pop, and goth. But she's blown her past work out of the water with the material from her new album Visions which comes out Feb. 21. She combines elements of dance music, 60's girl-groups, and the shimmering pop of early Madonna and transmutes them with great songwriting into something new and exciting. Check out two of the tracks from Visions and buy it. It is some of the best music I've heard a while. Every track is gorgeous and it is truly an album in the classic sense. No filler and it all flows together perfectly. Great song after great song.

If you aren't convinced you can hear most of the album right now through Spotify here.

And watch her rock and an album highlight, "Nightmusic", live:

Balam Acab: Advanced Wedding Bells?

Balam Acab, who has released some of my favorite music of the past few years has been recently going H.A.M. on his twitter account and ADVANCED has been the beneficiary...somehow getting involved in an awesome flirt-fest between Balam Acab and Grimes! And now the man himself has put me up on game about an unreleased track from his days recording as Etherea! That whole project was insanely good and sounds like Balam Acab's gorgeous spaciness filtered through J. Dilla-style hip-hop. You can grab Free Etherea here and it features sweet remixes of Animal Collective, St. Vincent, Josephine Foster and a Wavves/DOOM mashup remix. If that doesn't make you excited you are crazy.

Anyhow, the unreleased track is called "In Church" and is a heavenly choir of organ drones and church bells surrounded by the aqueous noises that have become his signature sound and a beat that reminds me of rocking gently in a boat. One can only hope these church bells are foreshadowing wedding bells ringing for he and Grimes in what would be perhaps the greatest musical partnership since Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth or Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo. Gossipy, hopeful, half-jokes aside, thanks so much to Balam Acab for being so cool and down-to-earth as well as making such beautiful music.

Etherea - "In Church"