Just Rolled In: Abram Shook - "Understood" [indie pop / psychedelic / experimental pop / funk]

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First featured on holaOLA about a year ago for his genre-melting debut album Sun Marquee (#22 on holaOLA's Favorite Albums of 2014 list), Austin, Texas multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter and Shearwater touring member Abram Shook is back with a new single in support of his upcoming sophomore release, Landscape Dream. The single is entitled "Understood" and picks up where Sun Marquee left off in terms of rich melody, psychedelic touches, and good vibes, but Shook lays some pretty off-kilter percussion behind his usual funky guitars and sun-soaked vocals, which makes for a glitchy, yet dreamy indie pop song that evokes the warmth of the summer sun.

Abram Shook is performing live with a full band tonight (Feb. 26) at The Mohawk in Austin and will be playing two dates of the upcoming SXSW music festival in mid-March.

Stream the new single "Understood" below and look out for the Western Vinyl release of Landscape Dream on May 12. Until then, you can follow Abram Shook on Facebook and pre-order the album via iTunes. Enjoy!

Swell Album: Gibberish - 'Winter Coat' [psych pop / indie rock / experimental]

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Released just after the turn of the year, Winter Coat is the beaming debut album by Fayetteville, Arkansas psychedelic duo Gibberish, a.k.a. married couple Derek and Lorie Bromley. They started writing music together under the moniker 'monsterheart' last year but were recently forced to change their name, deciding on 'Gibberish' a couple months ago, just before the release of the self-produced and self-released Winter Coat. Considering that the Bromleys had only been performing live for audiences for just over two months at the time their debut effort hit the proverbial shelves, it shows that they are wasting no time in establishing Gibberish as a force to reckon with in this ever-expanding world of independent music.

With only one song coming in under the five-minute mark, this gem of a record pushes along for a solid 45 minutes, relentlessly charming the listener with its penchant for lustrous melody, abstract soundscapes, and spacey ambience. Winter Coat is a psychedelic concoction of organic instruments, electronic embellishments, and reverb-heavy vocals carefully thrown together with plenty of loops and effects via lo-fi-leaning production techniques. By listening to its eight individually diverse tracks, I was able to draw some comparisons to Animal Collective, Atlas Sound, Gauntlet Hair, and Youth Lagoon, but when asked about Gibberish's influences, this is what Derek had to say:

Our influences vary, but lately we've really been getting into Morgan Delt, Viet Cong, and Cant. We've also been listening to a lot of ambient, space-hop type stuff (or whatever you call it) like, Shlohmo, Balam Acab, Gold Panda and Teebs. When I first started really getting into music as a teenager, Radiohead was the gate-way drug that led to what's probably our "main" musical influences like – Animal Collective, Pavement, Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Beck, The Flaming Lips, Sigur Ros, Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, Menomena, Chad VanGaalen, Modest Mouse, Portishead, Broadcast, etc... 

Stream Winter Coat in its entirety below and hit up Gibberish's BandCamp page to download it on a pay-what-you-want basis.

Just Rolled In: Froyo Ma - "I Live All Alone (Abby Diamond's Figure Remix)" [electronic / r&b / beats]

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New Orleans beatmaker Zack Villere, a.k.a. Froyo Ma, has made a name for himself for his complex electronic soundscapes littered with glitchy harmonies, obscure and retooled vocal sampling, and complementary guitar embellishments. This signature style of his is evident on last November's offering "I Live All Alone (feat. Bill Murray)" , which recently underwent the remix treatment by another New Orleans musician, singer-songwriter Abby Diamond.

Unlike most remixes, the music for the track itself remains the same and Abby's sensual vocals are simply layered over top, which, as you can imagine, yields an even better song. Having heard the remix first, the original track (featuring dialogue between Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray from Lost in Translation) just sounds like an instrumental version to me. This all goes to say that Abby Diamond fits flawlessly into Froyo Ma's already beloved track.

Aside from Abby Diamond's alluring R&B presence, what really impresses me on this track is how Villere manages to take an easygoing (and super pretty) contemplation-inducing loop and then turn it into a trip hop banger halfway through with the flip of a switch. It's gotta be the best "drop" in a non-dubstep song ever.

Enjoy the remix below and check out more music from Froyo Ma and Abby Diamond on their SoundCloud pages.