[MONTHLY] Mercurial Minds Motif: The Sights and Sounds Best Of May 2013

When people shut down their hearts, others always talk about opening them up as the end all be all. It’s like: “Hooray! Your heart is open again! Now deal with it, asshole!” Mash this process together with an intense, mercurial mind and attempt to mesh emotions and intellect as if they’ve always been the best of friends, and you might just open a Pandora’s Box over tinder. It can take a long time to get the truth of what lies underneath it all, if it doesn’t blow up right in your face.

This month’s list continues our exploration from last month, and uses the best singles from May 2013 to explore the mawkish madness of a robot who suddenly remembers that he’s not made of steel after all, bur rather flesh.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Dear, edited from his video “Her Fantasy”. One of my favorite music vids of all time.

BECOME AN INDIE MUSIC TRIVIA NERD

• No one quite knows who Kids of the Apocalypse are, though this is their second time on the scene (after lead single, “Masters of the Sun” back in January). What we do know is that they are a production group, have a fascinating website, and our in studio producing an album we can’t fucking wait for.
• “She’s Just Not That Way” by Matthew Dear is a previously unreleased track from his absolutely stellar LP, Beams. Impress your friends by knowing about it.
• Maria Minerva is from the tiny town of Tallinn, Estonia. Her single is a demo she created quickly in an NYC hotel room.
• Named after a state capital in Nigeria, Benin City, actually met at a squat party (free party in an abandoned building) in London. Josuha Idehen, the band’s singer/lyricist, came into his own on the London Spoken Word Circuit. Kudos to a fellow poetry nerd.
• Sonny Kifoyle’s (who goes under the moniker MINKS) new record, Tides End, is named such because it was inspired by the escaping the claustrophobic feeling of New York City in favor of the East End of Long Island. Previous artists who have taken refuge there? Steinbeck, Warhol, and de Kooning—you know, small names.
• Cloud Boat released their latest single, “Youthern,” with wonderfully cryptic tweet: “They burned them and screamed, “Come down with us, come down with us…”
• When Saints Go Machine have a truly bizarre video for their new single, check it out here .
• This is the second single that hugnotdrugs has remixed for Crystal Castles, the first being “Sad Eyes“
• Ben Aqua is a fellow #GAYLIEN, like myself. Always nice to have others who are “out” in the indie music blog community, this being the over-dominant land of white, heterosexual males and all.