Grizzly Bear's take on Montreal and Hot Chip

mp3: of Montreal - I Was A Landscape In Your Dream (Grizzly Bear remix)

mp3: Grizzly Bear - Boy From School (Hot Chip cover)

It's winter again, it's starting to get ridiculously cold again, and once again I'm turning to Grizzly Bear. Where I live, it's been creeping down to 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit / minus 16 degrees Celcius recently, and most of all I just feel like crawling down into some warm place and hibernate until spring, bear style. Since I'm not able to do that, however, turning to the slow and warming sounds of the four Brooklyn bears once more is a good second option.

You've probably all heard the band's three studio albums that are playing on repeat on my speakers these days, but I thought I'd share two rarer tracks with you today. Both are Grizzly Bear doing beautiful interpretations of songs by two of my other favorite bands. In the first, they turn one of the most easily overlooked tracks from of Montreal's most overlooked album into an amazingly atmospheric and layered little beauty, perfectly juxtaposing the soft Barnes vocals of the minimalist original with lush Grizzly Bear-esque soundscapes. In the second, they turn one of Hot Chip's very best, the electronic and synth-driven - and strangely uplifting - Boy From School, into a melancholic and mostly acoustic piece that relies almost exclusively on the beautiful and strong vocals, rather than electronic beat.

Hope you'll enjoy them! And continue to enjoy (or perhaps even discover or rediscover?) Grizzly Bear.

Video: Animal Collective - Bluish

Animal Collective just released a (belated) official video for 'Bluish', one of my all-time favorite songs by the band. 'Bluish' is from their highly acclaimed 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavillion, and this very trippy video in my opinion matches the psychedelic sound of the album perfectly.

mp3: Animal Collective - Bluish

The lyrics are simply beautiful. Try giving this stripped-down acoustic cover a listen, and this fact will probably become even more apparent to you:

mp3: Sondre Lerche - Bluish (cover)

New Kings of Convenience material

Song recommendations:
Kings of Convenience - Boat Behind
Kings of Convenience - Mrs. Cold
(listen on Myspace)

Mellow and quiet Norwegian acoustic guitar duo Kings of Convenience became a surprise hit wide beyond Norway's borders with the beautiful debut album Quiet Is The New Loud in 2001. They are often compared to Simon & Garfunkel, but I personally believe their guitar technique exceeds the 60s duo by far, and their frank, melancholic and smart lyrics move me more than S&G's poetry manages to on its very best. The two Norwegians followed up their debut LP with another twelve amazing tracks in the outstanding Riot On An Empty Street in 2004, but since then there has been little news from the duo.

The perfectionists Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambæk Bøe didn't want to release anything together that they weren't a hundred per cent satisfied with, and have over the past five years several times mentioned that they have a bunch of new songs in the making, but not enough truly good material for a third album. While keeping us waiting for new KoC material, Erlend Øye has been working on his other band, Whitest Boy Alive, while Eirik has been been featured as a guest vocalist on albums such as Feist's The Reminder and Cornelius' Sensuous.

The Kings have now apparently finally recorded something they think is good enough for the world, and are set to release their third LP in their 8-year career, titled Declaration Of Dependence, in September this year. The first two singles have already been released, with "Boat Behind" as the Norwegian-market single and "Mrs. Cold" planned as the single for the rest of the world. Both songs are extremely promising, and my expectations for the album are currently sky-high. It's good to have you back, KoC!