SOKO

SOKO is a French folk musician and she has a beautiful new song with an equally beautiful video to go with it. It's a very cute and cosy piece with careful, catchy little guitar licks that change tempo through the different phases of the song. I love how the dark haired guy in the video is so gender-ambiguous. The grainy images in the video feel like a distant memory of early, but not forgotten love. All this, combined with some heart-wrenching lyrics, make for a really moving experience.

Factory Floor

So, London's Factory Floor has been gaining a good amount of steam recently. These guys worked with Throbbing Gristle and New Order and now have an industrial/electronic sound all their own. You have to stick with it for a while, but, I promise you, after the first 3 to 4 minutes, this music becomes completely intoxicating. They do a really nice job bashing you around with their machine-like rhythms and textures and there is just enough of a beat to give you this peculiar sort of Dyonistic dance vibe. Savage and beautiful at the same time. Minimalist, yet full of character. 

Nils Økland

Okay, this stuff is a little old, but I've been walking around Norwary's experimental music scene recently and I just found out about Nils Økland. This is really amazing stuff. Very stark, graceful and contemplative post-modern (yet traditional) compositions. It's good to get a little sophisticated sometimes.

Seapunk

So, have you every wished you were an underwater person? An underwater person who listened to house music all the time and had huge crazy underwater themed rave parties? I think about that kind of thing all the time. And now it's a reality. Apparently, there is a growing trend of musicians making underwater inspired dance music. They've been taking over hip dance clubs in Chicago and LA, in particular Chicago's Berlin Club. People are saying that the trend has grown out of chillwave and witch-house, which makes sense. What happens when you mix the jukey, ravey tendencies of witch-house with the beachy tendencies of chillwave? Seapunk, I guess... Anyway, it's pretty cool. Fire For Effect and Zombelle are the two main musicians in the genre at the moment. Both are currently based in Chicago. Of course, with new microgenres come new wardrobes, so dye your hair turquoise and take all that black, pagan-emblembed, witch-house shit you've been wearing and dye that shit turquoise too.

Jakob Olausson

Swedish musician Jakob Olausson has just released a new album called "Morning and Sunrise". His first album as very folky (perhaps freak-folky) and this new one takes more of a classic rock spin on his spacey folk. It's got a very late 60's psychedelic vibe to it - full of reverb-drenched acoustic guitars in the background with twangy lead guitars occasionally dancing on top. There's a laziness to the album (in the best possible way) as well. Olausson's vocals are very reverby and lingering and some of his guitar playing is very off-the-cuff. It's a really nice album. Apparently, when he isn't making music, he is a beet farmer in rural Sweden.

Salem

Chicago witch-house band Salem have covered Britney Spears. As weird as that sounds, what they've actually done is pretty cool. Especially with the video which moves from shots of strippers to the US army bombing in the Middle-East. That combined with Salem's creepy, slowed down juke take on "'Til the World Ends" turns Britney Spears' club song on its head.

Also, for another taboo music video to Salem covering an artist you wouldn't expect, check out this slightly explicit video of about the lives of gay thugs to Salem's cover of Alice Deejay's "Better Off Alone".

   

Julia Holter

Julia Holter has a video for her song "Marienbad". The video is alright. The song is brilliant. Such an incredible rang of emotions and ideas. Some of the best experimental music around today I think.