Driving through Hollywood early this morning, I heard this NPR piece on Earth Wind + Fire‘s 1978 hit, “September”, and it reminded me of how flawlessly amazing that song remains to this day, 36 years later.

It’s also one of the happiest, danceable songs ever. So I employe you, as we step into the second half of “September”‘s namesake, easing out of the work week and into week’s end, get dancing, my friend. You’ll feel all the better for it.

And be sure to make the 21st night of September one to remember.

You know one music scene that I rarely hear much about? Switzerland. Maybe I missed the boat on the 70s hard rock scene and black metal’s never quite been my thing, so, I’m sure some would disagree, but I personally don’t see a ton happening there musically.

Which is why I took notice when I hard Silver Firs, based in the capital city of Bern in the Swiss Prealps. The band creates layered, wispy music that combines tones of pop, folk, and musica tropical with choral vocals and African rhythms to result in pleasantly airy meeting of musical cultures, all courtesy of song-writer + frontman, Raphael Elmiger (above, second from left).

We got a chance to talk with Raphael about his band, his thoughts on the Swiss music scene, and to get some recommendations for little-heard indie pop in Switzerland. Listen to the band’s new EP and read on.

raven + crow: So, Bern, Switzerland—what’s it like there?

Raphael Elmiger: Bern is a friendly and fairly small city for being Switzerland’s capital. Culturally, it stands somewhat in the shadow of Zurich or Geneva. It has an impressive historic old town, surrounded by the river Aare. In the summer the river is probably Bern’s main attraction—the water is clean and you can swim literally through the city. It’s a good place to live if you can handle the slightly provincial groove. I like it here.

Sounds nice. And, to be fair, a lot of people have the same gripes about DC. Is there much of a local music scene in Bern? I feel like we’re relatively insulated from most popular Swiss music in the States.

There isn’t much of a local music scene in Bern for what we do. Sometimes I also get the impression that the city is a bit slow embracing new music. We actually played at one of the countries biggest festivals and in most of the bigger Swiss cities before we were properly booked for a show in Bern. But our country is small, so you’re not focused on a certain city when you’re a musician. There’s a Swiss music scene of like-minded people where you know each other.

I think there’s some really good music around but for some reason Swiss bands have a hard time getting attention abroad. It doesn’t help that the commercially successful local music is mostly from the Swiss German pop or cheesy (soft) rock camp.

Yeah, I feel like what little I’ve heard tends to fall pretty soundly into the categories of crazy metal or pretty tame folk. Definitely don’t hear the former, but there’s obviously some folk, singer-songwriter influence in Silver Firs’ sound. Then I get some of the tropical rhythms and instrumentation, reminding me of Tanlines or St. Lucia a little bit, which is surprising. Is that style something that you’re just a fan of?

I don’t know exactly how we came to sound like we do. We don’t feel the need to relate to the musical heritage of our country, so we were quite open with our influences from the beginning. I like folk, psychedelic and (no) wave stuff but I also enjoy listening to West African music. For example the stuff Soundway Records reissues is great. While we are inspired by these rhythms and instrumentation, we are not fully capable of playing them the same way. But we like loosing ourselves in rhythmic patterns with instruments we don’t fully master. Despite the global influences, this approach probably contributes to our own musical identity along with the fact that most of us grew up somewhere in the hinterland and that we produce everything ourselves.

Makes sense. Speaking of the band members, can you break down who’s in the band for us?

In the studio, I perform and produce most things myself, with the occasional help of the others in the band. They have all their own projects going as well.

Live Belia sings and plays synths, Olivier is on bass guitar, Christoph plays guitar, Dave hits stuff with a stick and plays guitar, Moritz is on drums and I sing and play guitar. We all play various percussion instruments.

How and when did you all start out?

I started Silver Firs three years ago when my former band split up. I began writing and recording the first album without a clear masterplan. At the same time I gathered musicians I am friends with from other bands around. I think I got a pretty sporty team together.

Totally sporty. Your music’s pretty layered though—do you use any pre-recorded material for shows or is everyone doing their thing live?

We play it all live, there’s just one song where we use a backing track. Sometimes it’s not so easy to recreate all the rhythmic patterns of our recordings but we prefer to keep the live shows a bit unpredictable.

Well-done—it kinda bums me out when bands play live with a bunch of pre-recorded material. It’s like, dude, I can go home and listen to that and just look at a picture of you all.

So, your full-length, self-titled debut, came out in 2012 stateside, then you followed up last year with EP#1 last year and now we’ve got EP#2. Do you all have any immediate plans for another full-length or are you concentrating on playing out right now?

We are already working on EP#3 and hope to be much faster with that one. Our plan is then to release all 3 EPs together on vinyl. Other than that, we’re trying to figure out what the next steps should be. We are not very organized in terms of booking shows and all these things, it was pretty much all DIY so far.

I say keep the music DIY; hire someone to handle all the annoying booking stuff. No, but I wanted to say, I love that shot on the EP#2 cover. Your trailer parks are much more scenic than ours.

Yes, we love it too. The picture was taken by our friend Christian Neuenschwander. The whole series he did about that trailer park is great. It combines typical alpine scenery with something that doesn’t seem to fit it. There’s this bleak aesthetic in his pictures.

Yeah, it kinda reminded me of that show, Top of the Lake. So where does the band name come from?

As a trained biologist, I have a soft spot for unappreciated critters and plants. The silver fir is a very common tree in the Swiss Prealps, where most of us grew up. It’s not a mystical or very popular tree like an oak—it just stands its ground out there. On the other side the English name sounds quite euphonic (at least to us). I liked this combination.

I just like the fact that you all do have mystical trees in Switzerland. I usually ask this of a lot of the overseas bands we like, but what’s the reason for singing largely in English rather than your native tongue?

That’s a legitimate question. I would actually like to try out singing in German but you reach more people when you sing in English. We grew up listening to a lot of music with English lyrics, so that’s as natural to us as German or French lyrics. Of course there’s a language barrier when we write in English, but in my songs the lyrics should rather support the imagery the instruments create, so I tend to keep things cryptic and short.

No, your English is better than mine, I think, but, yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected. Sonja from German band BOY had essentially the same response. So, tell me, as someone who’s never been myself—what do you love about Switzerland?

I think we have really good bread and I like that you can reach even the smallest village with public transportation. Also: our multilingualism, the mountain valleys of the Ticino (Italian speaking part) and the Graubünden, Gruyère cheese and our farmers’ fruit spirits. There are also quite a few things not to like, especially some of the recent political tendencies but that’s another story.

Yeah, I’ll take great bread over scary politics any day. Are there any other little-known Swiss bands or bands you’ve played out with that you’d recommend?

I would check out Dans la Tente, Labrador City, Disco Doom or Evje. For something with Swiss German lyrics I recommend the band Doomenfels.

Awesome—I’ve never heard of any of them. Thanks for taking the time to talk and definitely let us know if end up stateside any time soon.

You can listen to + download all of Silver Firs’ material via their bandcamp page or through iTunes if you’ve got a gift certificate burning a hole in your pocket.

In anticipation of the release of her fourth full-length album—Phantom—later this month, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Madi Diaz put out a free/name your price sampler over the weekend. The collection, not-so-meekly titled Stripped Chopped + Screwed, was released via NoiseTrade and features four stripped-down acoustic version of tracks from the coming album and a remix.

We’re long-time Diaz fans—she’s got a sharp ear, quick wit, and knows how to craft a catchy, substantive pop song. We can only assume the new album will build off that skill set and continue to wow us. You can pre-order Phantom via the usual suspects (Madi’s got them all listed on her site); the sampler’s available for download at noisetrade.com.

Hear more from Madi Diaz and get her thoughts on the changing music industry, how this album differs from past work, and how break-ups suck…but are good fodder for song-writing in our April interview with Madi.

Below, a dance-y, hook-filled single from the coming album, “Tomorrow”.

The answer, sadly, seems to be no.

Related note—this is going to be awesome. See you there!

Denver-based duo Tennis seem to have a chronic inability to release music that’s not lovely, hook-filled, and toe-tappingly addictive. I know—terribly confusing sentence, but it’s a compliment. The husband-and-wife band can do no wrong in my mind in terms of crafting beautiful indie pop gems.

Case in point, the recently released second single from their forthcoming third full-length, Ritual in Repeat (out next week), entitled “I’m Callin'”. Seems a great song to play us out the summer…in a city where summer never ends. Give it a listen and keep your eye out for the band as they tour to support the album.

Fellow nerds—check out the band’s site (after the initial splash page). Ah, old-school computer tech. It’s like a comforting, dorky hug for some of us.

Band photo by Luca Venter.

Two days ago, British pop singer-songwriter Charlie XCX debuted her video for “Break the Rules”, the lead single for her forthcoming full-length, SUCKER, and what I can only assume will become this generation’s “School’s Out”.

Today, longtime studio favorite, Brooklyn-based string pop outfit, Miracles of Modern Science announced an attempt to “try to set the world record for fastest cover video!”

Whether they set any world records or not, as usual, they’ve hit the mark with an awesomely catchy cover song.

Check out their video below and then the original from Charlie XCX under that.

You can download a free MP3 of MoMS’ version via their bandcamp page.

Also, is that a Shining reference at the end of their video?

I first heard Danish electronic band, Future 3, as they opened the 2002 Morr Music compilation, Blue Skied An’ Clear, a tribute to seminal shoegazers, Slowdive. That record featured an impressive patchwork of glitchy, ethereal electronic takes on the music of Slowdive and served to accelerate my personal exploration and love of indie electronic music and—specifically—Plinkerpop.

As it turns out, their contributions to Blue Skiedwere their last official releases as a band.

Now, twelve years later, Future 3 is back with a characteristically sparsely beautiful record, With and Without. The album presents a consistently icy, musically frigid world. At the risk of coming off as overly pretentious, With and Without gives us the aural equivalent of a field of snow that’s so simple and clean, it’s perfectly beautiful. Quickly trilling harmonies are sketched out in chiming, churning electronics and rounded out with gently whirring keyboard chords and vocals that often meld together in tone and range.

With and Without is Future 3’s first proper album in 13 years as members Anders Remmer (aka Dub Tractor), Thomas Knak (aka Opiate), and Jesper Skaaning (aka Acustic) return from working on other long-term musical projects. The album title refers to the the two halves of the record: the first, With, featuring the band’s more vocal-forward collaborations with album guests Thomas Meluch (better known as Benoît Pioulard) + Anja T. Lahrmann (Ice Cream Cathedral); the second, Without, shows the band looking inward with more ambient, airy work written and recorded without guest contributions.

We’re a sucker for vocal-driven work, but, at the same time, it seems a shame not to feature a song from the album titled “August” in the waning days of that month.

So, courtesy of Future 3 and the band’s label, Morr Music, we’re happy to be premiering “August” by Future 3, a heady, glitchy, fun instrumental that provides a quick glimpse into the band’s musical aesthetic.

The album itself will be available stateside October 14 via Morr Music + iTunes and you can currently purchase “August” on iTunes. Head to Morr to listen to 90 second snippets of other songs on the album.

Like much of the world right now, we are obsessed with british artist FKA Twigs.

She just played the El Ray last week, but will return this fall to play the Regent. Her just-released debut full-length, LP1, features the excellent track below, “Two Weeks”.

I’d warn you about racy lyrics, but we’re all adults here, right?

We’ve been friends with both Anne Cunningham + Dave Lerner, who comprise the band Trummors, for what feels like ages. We wrote up their song “Over and Around the Clove”, from the album of the same name back in 2012 and actually helped out with a little bit of the album art for that first record.

Now the duo’s released a truly exciting follow-up—Moorish Highway—that I honestly have trouble describing without sounding like I’m selling stock options in the band. We took some time to catch up with Anne + Dave mid-way across the country as they picked up and moved from upstate New York to Taos, New Mexico. Give one of our favorite tracks from the new album—”Bogus Bruce”—a listen and read on to learn more about the awesome music these two awesome people are making together. LA—you can catch Trummors at the Bootleg Hifi October 7 with the also excellent Bishop Allen.

raven + crow studio: So, first off, awesome to talk with you guys. We really, really, really love the new album. It’s so exciting when your friends are part of something genuinely good like this. Don’t get me wrong—Over And Around The Clove was really superb too, but this new LP just seems to be exploring so much new territory for you all. Did you all go into the writing process for this with a drastically different approach or is this just a product of natural evolution for the band’s sound?

Anne Cunningham: It was a natural evolution. We’d been playing the sparser songs like “Autumn Gold” and our cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” live for a long time before we started thinking about recording a second record, so those songs were our starting point. In the past, we only had pedal steel or dobro for additional accompaniment, but this time around many of the songs called for a full band arrangement—neither one of us wanted to do countless overdubs to mimic the effect of a live band, so we called in some of our favorite musicians and friends: Kevin Barker, Otto Hauser, Marc Orleans, and James Preston for a full day of live tracking—we ended up getting songs down for half the record that day.<

Man, that’s awesome. I especially love the second + third tracks on the new album, “Bogus Bruce” + “Strangers From Now On”, the latter of which, I think, is one of the biggest departures for you all sonically. How much of that change in sound would you say is inherent or deliberate in the song itself and how much is more about production?

Anne: Thanks dude! Well, the answer is connected to your previous question—those songs you mentioned were written by us in solitude during a long Woodstock winter. As much as we love minimalism, we wanted a full band arrangement since it soon became apparent the songs called for that.  So yeah, it was deliberate in that we wanted to expand our sound with this record, but also inherent because many of the songs just turned out needing that.

Dave Lerner: We meant “Bogus Bruce” to be something of a departure from its inception. Unlike any other song we’ve done, it’s based on a repetitive groove. But I think “Strangers From Now On” could have worked any number of ways, and we’ll probably play it live as a duo. By our standards, that song’s production is quite “kitchen sink”, with the glockenspiel, organ and electric 12-string guitar. It was fun to layer those different instruments in the studio, but I don’t think it was obvious or inherent to go in that direction given the song’s qualities. It was just a decision we made that felt right. 

Right, you all have been up in the Saugerties/Woodstock area for…how many years now?

Dave: We moved to West Saugerties or, as some people call it North Woodstock, in May of 2010, so it’s been a little over four years. Technically our house is in West Saugerties, but we’re equidistant to the village of Woodstock. It kind of blends together out in the woods where we are, but the towns have very different personalities, for sure.

And you feel like that seclusion, relative to living in Brooklyn, affected how you all write + play music?

Anne: Yeah, the seclusion caused us to spend more concentrated time writing, and also led us to many a night spent by the wood stove or piano, with drink in hand, playing songs just to entertain one another. it was also cool to get to know so many musicians and play venues specific to the Hudson Valley & the Catskills. Our last show before temporarily leaving Woodstock was at the Levon Helm Barn and Studio, and that was a really memorable experience and an honor to get to do.

What do you like about upstate New York?

Anne: We love (and miss!) the Hudson Valley + Catskills—our place was within walking distance to great swimming holes, mountains, and forest critters abound. We also like the low population density. it’s a beautiful area. There’s a fair amount of like minded musicians around, so it was a productive & creative time for us to be there—everyone we know who is there feels a connection to the place and their friends, so we all have an investment in doing our best to add to the area while preserving what’s long since been great about it.

I feel like so many of our friends from NYC are part of this seemingly sudden mass exodus. Do you have any thoughts on how New York and, more specifically, Brooklyn has changed in recent time?

Anne: Yes! This Mr. Show clip sums it up. 

Dave: I grew up in suburban New Jersey, and moved to Williamsburg in 1998, so yes, I have seen a fair amount of change in New York City, particularly North Brooklyn over the past decade and a half. New York City has always been in constant flux, that’s part of its draw. I can’t speak for everyone our age, but during our last few years in Greenpoint it felt like a lot of the change that was happening was alienating, and we didn’t dig it. We were lucky to not be tied to jobs, rent controlled apartments, or a Woody Allen-esque attitude that New York City is the center of the civilized universe, so we naturally started wondering if our qualify of life might improve if we tried something different, so we moved, and it did! 

Here here! And now you + Anne have left New York State for Toas—are you planning on making your move westward permanent or do you see yourself heading back east soon?

Dave: There’s a chance we’ll stay out west sure, but we’re thinking we’ll spend about a year where we are now in New Mexico and then head back east. Of course, our location also depends on Anne’s academic work, which could theoretically take us anywhere. It’d be nice to get out of America for a while. We really liked Brighton, UK…

Are you all planning any shows in the west to support the new album? I feel like you guys would a perfect fucking match for Pappy + Harriet’s and we’d obviously love to see you in LA.

Anne: Yes! We are touring the west coast with our good friends Bishop Allen in early October. Excited to see our LA friends there! We’re playing 10/7 at Bootleg Hifi. No Pappy + Harriet’s this time around, but we love that place and would be psyched to play there.

Aw, right—we saw you guys in that new Bishop Allen video. Totally loved that. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked this, but where does the band name come from? Is that a real word, ‘trummors’?

Dave: It is indeed a real word. it means “drummers” in Swedish. I went through a brief phase of being enamored with 60s Swedish bands like Blond and The Tages. I saw the word in their album credits, and it seemed a fitting name for our band. It confuses most people. My dad thought it was an invented word meaning “true rumors.” 

Oh, man. You’re dad’s so dead-on. He should write for GIRLS. Another question I’ve been meaning to ask—where did you all get that old squeezebox/accordion that Anne plays? That thing is super-cool.

Dave: It’s a travel harmonium—Anne got it at a shop called Keshav in the East Village that specializes in Indian instruments. Pro-tip for the harmonium-seeking reader: If you go in there, don’t wear any perfume or cologne because the guy who runs the place is extremely sensitive to smells and will kick you out immediately— a drag if you want to sample the indian electronic instruments there, such as the tanpura raagini.

Hah. Nice segue to our next question—we really like the album art for Moorish Highway—what’s the origin of that? And what’s the story behind that title track in terms of meaning?

Anne: Our good friend Ryan Trammel came up with cover art and layout—he painted it using Guache. We were going for a clean, iconic design that didn’t reference a specific past decade, or have obvious signifiers as to what we sound like. He did an amazing job achieving that. 

Dave: The title “Moorish Highway” is a nod to writer Peter Lamborn Wilson, who I got to know through working on his archive, that was my job during the past two years in Woodstock. In the late 1980s he did a radio show called “Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade”, which were fascinating ramblings on comparative religion, chaos theory, book and theater reviews, and the zine culture of the day, among other subjects. The title is a reference to that, but the song is not directly about him or his work.  Without commenting too directly on the lyrics, the chorus “Just beholden to the beauty of the eye / Serving none between the ground and open sky” was meant to be an Emersonian kind of appeal to freedom and positive human development through aesthetics, and while that’s an idea that can be dismissed as rehashed romanticism, it’s also sincere.

Are there any new bands out there that you + Anne are liking lately?

Dave: Sure, there are a few contemporary bands—not exactly “new”—that come to mind off the top of our heads…we’re both big fans of Cass McCombs‘ songwriting and musical approach, and I really enjoyed his former collaborator Chris Cohen’s LP from 2012 called “Overgrown Path.” Woods are great, both live and on record. William Tyler is a favorite musician our ours. Doug Paisley is a wonderful songwriter & guitar player. He’s an underrated dude in the US, maybe cause he’s from Canada? Our friend Steve Gunn is phenomenal—we are totally excited about his forthcoming record.

Nice. Yeah, Woods’ label just did what looked like a great lineup out in Pioneertown. How about older bands from back in the day? I feel like you two are a wealth of knowledge in terms of lesser know country + folk acts from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Anne: Yes, the majority of what we listen to cuts off around 1979. We could give an exhaustive list, but we’ll keep it brief. Come over and listen to some records with us! As far as lesser known country, we LOVE Johnny Darrell’s records, especially California Stop-Over.

Fitting.

Anne: Then we’ve been digging this private press record by an obscure Colorado songwriter named Kenny Knight, but we don’t have a copy of it since there are only like 2 in existence—we hope it gets a proper reissue! Also into Yoko Ono’s record Feeling the Space, which will soon be reissued, we hear. Bobby Charles’ Woodstock record,  John Phillips’ The Wolfking of LA and all of Gene Clark’s solo records are mainstays. Speaking of LA records, Terry Melcher’s two records are great, and a bit unhinged. Dave lately has been way into Tony Rice—we both are really into one Michelle Phillips’ track “The Aching Kind” off her 1977 solo record, which we might soon cover.

Awesome. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us and see you out west soon!

Dave: Thanks Troy! great to talk to you, and see you out west soon for sure—you guys gotta visit us in Taos New Mexico, “the land of enchantment”

As of writing, the New York Times continues to offer a full stream of Trummors excellent new album, Moorish Hisghway, which should be up for the next week or two at least. You can download the album via iTunes and you can order the physical CD or vinyl (with download code) through the band’s label, Ernest Jenning, or through Insound. You can keep track of Trummors happenings on the band’s Facebook page and their Tumblr.

Back in the day, when social media was in its infancy and far less skilled at integrating itself into our online interests, under interests, I always listed, simply, “When the drums come in.”

Which sounds like a total douche bag hipster thing to say—and, probably, it is—but it was always written with the utmost sincerity.

What I’m talking about is that moment when you’re listening to a song and the drums come in unexpectedly or the melody suddenly changes pace or the music just becomes more dense and impossible to ignore and—out of nowhere—it grabs you and takes you from this tiny, quiet floor of the song and shoots you up into the height of excitement, leaving you emotionally floored and happily breathless.

I always imagined that the hey-look-how-cool-I-am social media snippet version of that was when it happened to you in life. When the reality around you suddenly shifted from the usual every day to something more momentous, something more seminal, something more…more. That was my ‘interest’—that feeling and doing everything to preserve it in my life.

But back to the literal meaning, I still to this day love it when a song does that—when it surprises me with how engaging it can suddenly become. And even well after that initial, unexpected excitement, I come to crave it in a Christmas morning kind of way on repeat listens.

So I wanted to share some of my favorite songs with those sonically endearing moments. They’re not all these massive shock-and-awe rock kicks—some of the best ones are subtly beautifully, making them all the more surprising and the more genius. So, in no particular order:

1. “When Your Mind’s Made Up” by Glen Hansard + Markéta Irglová (AKA The Swell Season)
Okay, in some particular order with this first one—we just saw Glen Hansard play the Hollywood Bowl this past weekend and it reminded me, when he played this song, that I wanted to write this article. But this is the perfect example of the drums sneaking into the song in this elegantly unexpected moment and entirely shifting that song’s trajectory. I hope I don’t come across as overly dramatic here, but, now, hundreds of listens later, that moment still gives me goosebumps every single time. I mean, even the dude who plays the jaded sound engineer in the movie this is taken from—Once—gets it. Take a look and a listen below to see what I mean. The end’s pretty awesome if you don’t remember this from the film.

2. “Stars” by Hum
Okay, this one is a massive, second-wave-emo shock-and-awe rock moment, both in that initial ‘orchestral hit’ and in the subsequent, massive kick at 1:11. I’ve written before about a moment in college when my friend Meredith, on seeing me in the university dining hall, handed me his Walkman and told me to immediately go into the corner and listen to this song. It’s some finger-point, backpack-cluthing emotive rock and, whether or not it’s formulaic today, it floored us then and I still love the song to this day.

3. “West Coast” by Coconut Records
This is another example of an early kick, and it’s one of my favorite mid-stanza drum entrances. I assume this is pretty much common knowledge at this point, but actor Jason Schwartzman is an insanely gifted musician + song-writer, first playing drums + writing for Phantom Planet (you remember them—they did the theme to the OC) before moving on to a solo career under the moniker Coconut Records. Along with “Microphone”, “West Coast” is one of Schwartzman’s finest pop gems, which now holds a special place for us official Angelenos.

4. “Trapped Under Ice-Flows” by +/-
New York’s +/- is a great, great band—from the melodic post-indie golden age sound to their intricate guitar work, they’ve always impressed me with their densely intricate yet hook-filled pop. But the inevitable take away for me after seeing a live set of theirs or listening to any of their albums has always been that Chris Deaner is one of the most talented drummers I’ve ever heard in my life. Yes, it’s about technical skill, but it’s also and maybe more importantly about the musical choices he makes in songs. This is my favorite example, “Trapped Under Ice Floes”, from 2003’s Holding Patterns EP. Yes, the intro and dropping out and returning with unpredictable yet totally rhythmic drum fills is cool, but the real moment for me comes at 3:20 when, after a guitar-filled drop in the pace of the song, Deaner pops back in with a driving snare and totally pulls the song back in for the home stretch. It’s absolutely genius. Side note: I’d somehow never actually seen the video +/- did for this track and, now that I have, realize that Katie + I are totally, inadvertently ripping the band off with a photography project we’re working on. …more on that later though.

5. “Never Meant” by American Football
Alright, to be fair, there isn’t one particular moment that ‘kicks’, per se, with this song or most mid- to late-ninties emo; it’s more that the start-stop, quiet-to-loud, half-to-double-time dramatics are the lifeblood of this kind of music. This article could be full songs very much like this from bands like Promise Ring and Braid and Christie Front Drive, but “Never Meant”, from American Football’s one and only full-length record, is one of the most delicately graceful examples of second wave emo and one of my favorite songs ever. If you don’t already own this song, I highly recommend you download it for free via Polyvinyl’s SoundCloud page. I try not to live too much in the past, but I seriously can’t wait to see these guys play their reunion shows at The Fonda this December.

6. “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It” by Stars
Much like culling from the genre of emo, I could also go on all day citing examples of dramatic musical moments in the songs of Canadian indie pop band, Stars. They love the stuff, from 2007’s “The Night Starts Here” to their work on 2003’s excellent Heart. But this more recent track from their 2012 record, The North, is one my favorite examples. After a gentle, vocal-forward intro, it tumbles in with a falling down high bass line and crisp drum line that just gets your feet moving. Stars is due out with their eighth full-length this fall, titled No One is Lost.

7. “Love at First Sight” by Kylie Minogue
Make fun if you like, but I love this song. No tongue-in-cheek, no tragic hipster irony. It’s fucking good. And it’s got not only a great, danceable ‘boom’ moment, it’s also got a really cool, ‘MY TAPE DECK’S BREAKING’ fade-out when Kylie’s vocals come in after the first chorus.

That’s it for me. Got more? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook. In the meantime, LET’S DANCE, BITCHES!