It's an embarrassment of music today.

So many good new tracks to try out today.

I just finished streaming the new Portugal.  The Man record here.  This is a fantastic offering from a band that has captured my attention for the past few years.  Evil Friends is a more complete album, filling out their sound and definitely honing the sinister edge we've come to expect from them.  "Creep in a T-Shirt" (a song that accurately described my weekend in Detroit for Movement) will be rattling around my playlists all summer.

On to the new Disclosure record.

Hangout Redeemed

After a 2012 festival that left our group a bit cold we were apprehensive about the future of Gulf Shores' Hangout Fest. This year was a different matter entirely, it also included a Friday schedule which was just about perfect to my tastes. Highlights in chronological order:

• Ra Ra Riot: This was a perfect first set for our group. Somehow I have never managed to see this group before, they were even more high energy in person. 
• Luella and the Sun: An excellent stop at the BMI stage which is nestled in the Hangout bar itself. We grabbed a bit of shade and a couple of mixed drinks while the heat of the day washed past. 
• Dirty Projectors: Another band I was seeing for the first time. The fact that an album as complex as Swing Lo Magellan can translate so effortlessly to the stage was a beautiful thing. 
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: One of my all time favorite bands, Tom always seems to bring it for the festival shows. This show was considerably better than the Jazzfest set last year, I think the afternoon heat got to Tom a bit as compared to the evening set he played at Hangout. 
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: This was the standard high energy YYY show, my real joy in this set was experiencing them through friends who were coming to the band for the first time. 

I may go into a bit more detail later, especially on the Ra Ra Riot set, but for now that is the initial scouting report on Hangout.

DJ Frane is back!

This is just a note that DJ Frane has a new album out this week.  Frane has been on the bleeding edge of sample orchestration since he released Fantastic Boatride in 1999.  Each album is worth the multi-year wait and Hi Dusty Stranger is no exception.  His albums are thematic journies constructed through rich tapestries of perfectly tweaked samples--remixes of the highest caliber.  Welcome back Frane.