Heartbreaking Bravery

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Tag: Reticence

June 23, 2015

2015: Halfway Home (Mixtape)

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Only a little past its halfway point, 2015’s already been an absurdly strong year for music. Numerically staggering, it’s yielded a handful of classics across a variety of genres and a plethora of outstanding small releases. While this mix skews more towards the latter than, say, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, it’s still worth noting how kind this year’s release schedule has been across the board. To reflect on some of this year’s best offerings so far- and to celebrate this site’s 550th post- a mixtape’s been curated for your enjoyment. Nearly all of these songs and artists have been featured on the site previously, lending this particular mix a more retrospective feel than a few of the past entries in the mixtape series, but they’re all worth celebrating as much as possible. Ranging from folk and ambient flourishes to heavy 90’s influences to thoroughly modern post-punk to spritely basement pop, there’s an entry for just about every genre marker that receives regular coverage on the site.

So, without further ado, here’s a mixtape of some of 2015’s strongest highlights (at least so far, there are still quite a few promising items for the year’s latter half). The tracklist for 2015: Halfway Home can be found beneath the embed. Enjoy.

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1. Girlpool – Before The World Was Big
2. Waxahatchee – Under A Rock
3. Mean Creek – Forgotten Streets
4. Royal Headache – Hgih
5. Radioactivity – Pretty Girl
6. Diet Cig – Breathless
7. Washer – Joe
8. Courtney Barnett – Pedestrian At Best
9. Mikal Cronin – Made My Mind Up
10. Torres – Sprinter
11. Jason Isbell – 24 Frames (Live)
12. theweaselmartenfisher – Empty Bucket List
13. Pupppy – Puking (Merry Christmas!)
14. Christopher Paul Stelling – Dear Beast
15. Fraser A. Gorman – Shiny Gun
16. Young Jesus – Milo
17. Girls Names – Reticence
18. Institute – Cheerlessness
19. Happy Diving – So Bunted
20. Downies – Widow
21. Meat Wave – Erased
22. Connor La Mue – Stargazer
23. Bruising – Think About Death
24. Meredith Graves – Took The Ghost to the Movies
25. Yowler – The Offer

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June 9, 2015

Girls Names – Reticence (Stream)


Girls Names
A Brief recap at the top: over the past week and a half I’ve been preparing for a move from Wisconsin to New York, collecting songs as they appeared. Fifteen of the finest from that stretch will appear beneath the embed of the featured song; Girls Names’ “Reticence”. A wiry post-punk number that takes a hairpin turn into something a lot more full-bodied than the opening guitar figure would suggest.

What follows is a brutally unforgiving run through a desolate atmosphere before veering into a sharp left and tapping into outsider pop that leans heavily towards a new wave tendencies. As that section blooms into something otherworldly it refuses to stop unfurling, laying itself out in a tantalizing sprawl before getting cut off at the head. With next to no warning, the track reverts back to the bleak, foreboding section that dominated its first half. As an exercise in dynamics, it’s stunning. As a teaser for the band’s upcoming Arms Around A Vision, it’s enough to elevate the anticipation into the stratosphere. As a standalone song? It’s damn near miraculous.

Listen to “Reticence” below and pre-order Arms Around A Vision from Tough Love ahead of its October 2 release here. Beneath the embed, explore a list of 15 other highlights from the past week and a half.

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Dan Svizeny – Dreams Came True
Lee Bannon – Disneµ Girls
Django Django – Slow West
Failure – Mulholland Drive
The Fall – Auto Chip 2014-2016
Jaill – Getaway
Glint – While You Sleep
Beirut – No No No
Ludvig Moon – Swim Dream
Camera Shy – Colors Radiate
White Reaper – Sheila
Albert Hammond Jr – Losing Touch
Grass House – Learning to Less Feel
Bad Bad Habits – Psychic Reader
Jordan Lane Price – Sponge

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