Lav's Music Corner

  Icons  EP - Two Shell Two Shell is an electronic music project that has been turning heads this year with their new EP and also their anonymity with controversial live performances and evocative interviews. I've seen many, including myself, compare their early buzz to that of Sophie, A.G. Cook and the early P.C. Music scene, though projecting them to have that level of quality or impact is more than presumptuous. But all of that was mainly just to draw attention to the music and once you actually crack down into the songs on this new EP of theirs, they're pretty good. While I wouldn't call their loud and brash take on house music and electronica all that groundbreaking there is a distinct industrial and garage messiness to their style that stood out to me immediately the first time I heard a song like Pods . I will say that once I got to listen to this EP in full I was surprised by how much more polished the rest of the songs were as they take a much more wonky and humoro...

Toro Y Moi is the stage name of Chaz Bundick, one of the pioneering voices in the rise of Chill Wave during the first half of the 2000's. After releasing six records under the name and a collection of side projects Toro y Moi teamed up with some acclaimed indie artists to dip his toes into the world of ambient music on  smartbeats . Review By Lavender: While I haven't always agreed with Chaz on the sounds of Chill Wave he is clearly an incredibly talented musician and has a number of albums in his catalog that I really enjoy. Earlier this year he released a record that I thought was a bit too inconsistent but highlights like Ordinary Pleasure  and Monte Carlo  have been in my rotation all year. On smartbeats Chaz switches up his approach and drops a mostly ambient album that recruits vocals from a number of indie darling vocalists to assemble some longer form tracks with minimal instrumentation and chopped up original vocal samples. The first and third tracks of ...