We’re on tour :)

Posted on: May 7th, 2012 by Matt Gilles


So we’re on tour (aka the Zen Tapes Travelling Sleepover Tour) up the east coast of the US for the next 2 weeks, let’s hang out!

We’ve been having too much fun with our friends at Total Bummer 3D in Orlando— a special thank you for the Tiny Waves crew for putting us up at their beautiful home. They’re incredible people and equally impressive videographers, so check out their coverage of Total Bummer on their beautiful site.

Here’s the FB event for our tour, which we’re actually almost finished booking—
ZEN TAPES TRAVELLING SLEEPOVER TOUR

Let’s be friends and have the raddest sleepover ever!

fthrsn: “On Our Way”

Posted on: April 30th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

Just because.

Video by Jeremy Daly (Lou Breed).

S. Maharba: “Something In The Way She Moves”

Posted on: April 26th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

“Something in the way she moves” takes a voyeuristic focus on the beauty of another, be it swaying hips or a warm hiss.

S. Maharba is an anonymous producer who sews together the past with the present using vinyl sample gold. Filmmakers, DMO PROD., play an old classic from a VHS tape in the back of our cultural unconscious. Simple perfection.

 

Art Week 2012: An Unlimited Free Milkshakes Comp

Posted on: April 25th, 2012 by Matt Gilles


Unlimited Free Milkshakes has unveiled their first compilation, art week 2012, and giving us the sweet taste of things to come.

Zen Tapes love interests, Sam Ray and  Jasmine Zoo, have collected the perfect collection of cute pop songs and pleasant ambiance, all over the lush comfort of tape hiss. The best thing about UFM is how their material consistently evokes a warm fuzziness that resonates throughout my body whenever I listen.

Download (or stream, I GUESS) art day 2012 on the Unlimited Free Milkshakes Bandcamp.

Here are some of my personal favorites:

mp3: little boy peep: “i wish i was an astronaut”

mp3: Blithe Field: “Mistakes”

mp3: Wrassle Mania: “Hate Fuckers”

Pegase: “Bad Side of Love”

Posted on: April 24th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

Filmmaker Nicolas Davenel brings us bright faces and bright tattoos of gangs wildly speeding across America…on mopeds.

Set to Pegase‘s “Bad Side of Love,” a emotionally-wrought contemplator, I can’t help but wish I was out of my element and on a 2 wheeled rocket. Take a minute to enjoy the drifting smiles of Black Black moped riders and glimmering synths of Pegase, I guarantee it will warm your heart.

Sleep Inn: “Midnight (Full Moon)” / “They’re Fine”

Posted on: April 19th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

Like a pleasant breeze, Sleep Inn‘s casually-attired beats are enjoyably familiar.

However, there’s something a bit awry from this weather-channel inspired brand of chillwave (yeah, I said it—chillwave); it’s not real. Well, ostensibly Sleep Inn‘s tracks are too vivid to be pure imagination, but what I mean is that Sleep Inn is a fake band.

In fact, Sleep Inn comes from a peculiar home for anonymous monickers: Fake Flamingo Records. With a roster of entirely fictitious artists, often spanning the realms of ambient and R&B, Fake Flamingo releases a new 2-sided single from a new project every week. And they’re actually good!

mp3: Sleep Inn:”Midnight (Full Moon)”
mp3: Sleep Inn:”They’re Fine”

Kitty Pryde: “Okay Cupid”

Posted on: April 17th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

God, I’m so obsessed with this song.

Kitty Pryde is only in high school, but her sassy raps over Beautiful Lou‘s ambient-inspired trap beat  are something that Uffie would kill to be: recklessly young. I swear, I was obsessed with “this girl” when I was 16. While I could rant forever about how her bubbly chuckle makes my heart skip or how her candid “Get out of my rooooooom!” at the track’s onset is a nostalgic addiction (that drives me to sometimes restart the song before it’s even over), I’ll just let Kitty Pryde do the talking.

Do some casual stalking on her Tumblr or check out some other tracks that could not possibly be as perfect as this one on her Bandcamp.

mp3: Kitty Pryde: “Okay Cupid”

David Plell: “Keep Secrets”

Posted on: April 8th, 2012 by Matt Gilles

David Plell specializes in dizzy, upbeat indie pop. His recordings vibrantly resonate a positive energy that is as endearing as it is addictive.  I can’t help but feel that I know David a bit better with every listen, his personality shining through every blissful note.

“Keep Secrets” is a quirky recollection of fleeting thoughts akin to the twilight between awareness and slumber.

Ask for Dust is Plell’s latest record, free for your enjoyment at his bandcamp.

mp3: David Plell: “Keep Secrets”

Persona La Ave: “Trust Us”

Posted on: April 2nd, 2012 by Matt Gilles

Remember when things were more phat than they were dope?

Not unlike the feeling of watching VHS recordings of music videos from the early 90′s in rewind, “Trust Us” is a jerky funk groove that grows more addictive with every succulent loop. Somewhere between playful and aggressive, Persona La Ave‘s latest beckons me to shake my poor excuse for an ass, making it impossible to sit still.

“Trust Us” was unassumingly unsheathed late last night via the Persona La Ave SoundCloud and it furthers my trust in Persona La Ave to continually churn out killer synth jams.

mp3: Persona La Ave: “Trust Us”