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Posts Tagged ‘future islands’

The last day of the weekend, as is tradition, came in searing hot with temperatures hovering around mid-90s. Fairly balmy as far as the desert goes (I seriously do not know how Weekend 2 does it), in fact, but for a Coachella with some of the best weather I’ve ever experienced – no wind storms! – this must have been penance. Those who shook off the accumulated dust, depleted serotonin and residual hangovers of 2+ days were rewarded with the finest lineup of the weekend, all surging to King Kendrick’s closing set that you could feel as a palpable anticipation over the grounds. The rapper’s coming out party had some serious competition beforehand, though, thank to two shockingly lovely sets on the Outdoor Stage from an old favorite from Ed Banger and a fish-out-of-water composer better known from the red carpet.

First, though, I made it a point to play through the pain and get to the festival earlier rather than later to catch the indoor set from under-appreciated Brooklyn indie band Caveman. The Fat Possum rockers remain firmly under the radar after last year’s War on Drugs-aping Otero War, but their live show showed a band ready to take the next step. The same goes for singer-songwriter Ezra Furman, whose rough-and-tumble set on the Outdoor Stage not only made dancing under the sun somewhat tolerable for a few minutes, but was also the only artist I saw all weekend who had the balls to call…

The worst part about Coachella 2013 was easily the dust storm that turned Sunday into a set piece from the Depression and choked the life and easy visibility out of a struggling Red Hot Chili Peppers closing set. 2014’s storm wasn’t nearly as bad; for the most part, walking around during the day Saturday felt like you were travelling on a strange, ominous alien planet, the sun reduced to a weird, haunting half-light and the wind picking up curlicues of dust seemingly at random while bits of sound escaped intermittently over the fields. That creepy feeling was magnified by the fact that everyone seemed to be running from one destination to another, as if constantly striving to avoid the almighty wrath of the weather gods/the narc chasing them. It was how I imagined walking on Mars might be, if everyone on Mars was really, really fucked up all the time.

Of course, God being the sick bastard that he is, Saturday turned out to be my favorite day of the festival. When you kick things off with a blogger’s wet dream of Foxygen, Ty Segall, and CHVRCHES on the Outdoor Stage, it’s easy to ignore the fact that your choice of t-shirt and board shorts for the day will prove quite uncomfortable against pelting sand and an insidious wind chill. Like Friday’s HAIM set, Coachella is made for a band like CHVRCHES, not quite on the verge of widespread popularity but certainly on…

In Evening Air Album ArtYesterday Future Islands released their second LP, In Evening Air on Thrill Jockey Records. Our track of the day is the first single from that album, “Tin Man,” a track that has an upbeat but moribund energy. Future Islands combines sparse guitar lines with a steel drum and gruff but sensitive vocals that sound somewhere between Hot Water Music‘s Chuck Ragan and PixiesFrank Blank. “Little Dreamer” is the final track of their first LP Wave Like Home which was released on vinyl earlier this year. “Little Dreamer” is a sweet ballad cast in the same lo-fi, bristly electronics of “Tin Man.” Future Islands are strange in that on paper they seems like a combination of common sounds – new wave, punk, indie, folk – but somehow they are leagues above all the other bands dabbling in similar genres.

Future Islands – “Tin Man”

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Future Islands – “Little Dreamer”

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