Frank Ocean smoothes out Odd Future, Fever Ray trusts wolves, and other new musics

By Andrew Flanagan Tue., Mar. 8 2011 at 4:09 PM

Categories: Music

You can peep the interwebs regularly, check those flight controls with neurotic consistency (you know who you are), and still have days (days!) that yield nothing worth looking at. Good content doesn't grow on polygonal trees, you brats. Luckily, today wasn't one of those boring ones.

Fever Ray gives a probably-bad movie a pretty great song

First and foremost we have Fever Ray, who released her contribution to the soundtrack of Red Riding Hood, an upcoming film that looks to be a Shyamalan-level pile of dangling plot lines and economic failure. But no matter; heartening news. The song is called "The Wolf," and you can hear it below.

Man Man get similar

Next is Philly's best-known percussively-anchored blip-wop collective Man Man, who announced details today of their follow-up to the much-adored Rabbit Habits, titled Life Fantastic. The single, "Knuckle Down," doesn't get us into any sharp newness, but at least delivers on the idea of Man Man releasing a new single.

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold and his indiepop coup

Helplessness Blues. Don't bother committing that title to memory. Fleet Foxes' upcoming record won't fly under anyone's "how do I know that song" radar, as evidenced today by singer Robin Pecknold's release of three solo acoustic songs, one recorded with Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear (if this paragraph could fit on Twitter a million robots' brainlights would begin to fire). He put it this way, which is a nice way to put it:

These aren't Fleet Foxes songs, but I didn't know where else to disseminate it. Pretty mellow jams.less than a minute ago via webFleet Foxes
fleetfoxes

You can download them here.

Frank Ocean rounds Odd Future's sharp corners

Odd Future Odd Future Odd Future OFWGKTA. You've likely read or seen something referring to these young lads in the last six months -- if not, can we do a Trading Places for a week? -- probably in the context of their liberal application of everyone's least-favorite R-word (rape) to the ears of Youth America. Whither Frank Ocean, then, in the midst of OFWGKTA's blazingly mid-pubescent straight-rap ascendance? Ocean makes R&B, the kind where chorus lines go "Novocane [sic] for the pain for the pain for the pain" and R. Kelly is like, right over your shoulder. Ocean's working with something here, even if the music that spines his debut (totally free, it's worth noting) mixture is rote chill jams. At the very least, a psych-out Radiohead sample is never a lose. You can download Nostalgia/Ultra here.

Mr. Dream debuts

Mr. Dream is a New York-based rock and roll group that has almost uniformly been compared to Nirvana, The Pixies, and any post-punk band that a reviewer can consciousness-stream onto the page. Discounting how hard it is to make rock and roll sound interesting with words these days, Mr. Dream's debut Trash Hit, released a week ago today, is a serious thing, even if they aren't. Their record release was held this past Friday at New York's Glasslands, and the ridiculously prolific and infamously legendary NYC Taper was there. You can download that bootleg here, and hear why everyone goes to Nirvana in comparisons, with the below video. Bonus tip (maybe): if you toss them a follow on Twitter, you get a download link for Trash Hit.