Special Friend Share Clipping Video
It shouldn’t take you longer than the first two seconds of this new tune from Special Friend to realize you’re in love with the band and their sound. That crisp jangling guitar has just enough fuzz along the edges to walk the lines between indiepop and more modern indie rock, and that’s just if you’re focusing on the guitar vibes; they even get some crunchier distortion to open up into an acoustic strum, displaying their ability to build sonic structures you won’t forget Personally, their vocal interplay adds an additional layer of perfection that I don’t think you’ll hear anywhere else today; they seem to compete against one another at times, pulling back at just the right time to let the guitars do the singing as they up more of an earnest snap to the song. Looking forward to hearing all of Clipping, which is out March 20th via Skep Wax/Howlin Banana/Hidden Bay.
Honestly, I thought about foregoing a year-end list this year. I mean, if you read our site, you know what we love. But, list making can be fun, especially if you really really love music. My criteria was simple, and not based on what I think is “best,” but rather looking at the stuff I listened to the most, and eventually bought (or was gifted). Popular locals for my Nathan Wrapped have me living on an island in between San Francisco and Australia; label of the year would be Trouble in Mind (congrats to Bill and family!); genre would be: most awesome. Again, this is one man’s personal tastes, take it for what its worth.
There was a ton of great music dropping last week, which seems to be the norm for this Spring…not that we mind one bit. I tried to give some love to our Austin friends like Jana Horn and Letting Up Despite Great Faults, who both dropped new releases…and new tunes from Batty Jr. and Born Twins too, so keeping the ATX alive. It was good to hear new stuff from Estonia’s Pia Fraus, who’ve always crafted great landscape shoegaze. New stuff from Cindy and Beach Fossils wasn’t a bad way to slide into the week either, but we closed it out with a fun feature between My Favorite and Holy Wire. Check it all out.
Not too long ago I raved about “Pastel,” the first single from