Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round & Round

Please find below the Wayne Coyne-directed/filmed and George Salisbury-edited psychedelic video for Ariel Pink's latest hit track Round & Round. This was all captured on Coyne's iPhone during The Flaming Lips/Ariel Pink tour. The entire album, Before Today, is a refreshing reminder of certain ingenious songwriters from times before today. Artists like Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and other enigmatic, schizophrenic-at-times, and androgynous-when-necessary funky frontmen.

OK Go - Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky (2010)

OK Go's third album, Of the Blue Colour Of The Sky, was produced by Dave Friddman. Friddman has contributed elements of his "massive, expansive, 3-dimensional surreal beautiful world" (Spin interview) to the music of Mercury Rev, Mogwai, Elf Power, Phantom Planet, Low, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Tapes 'N Tapes, MGMT, Black Moth Super Rainbow, The Flaming Lips (since 1990), and now...OK Go. The sonic difference between this latest album and previous Oh No are heard right off the bat with "WTF?" (video for this track below). This is very dance-y Prince-influenced stuff replete with huge drums, heavy synths and reverb, captivating raspy vocals, and seriously catchy choruses. The album's name, lyrics, concept, and above cover art are based on The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky, a pseudoscientific book published in 1876 that seems to study the relationship between color and theme (one of our goals as well). Read more about it here.

OK Go have put out some of the most creative and most watched music videos of modern times, with the treadmill-based "Here It Goes Again" racking up about 50 million views on YouTube. In the above-linked Spin interview, frontman Damian Kulash answers a question I feel many people ask-- Q:"In what way can a music video make a song better or worse?" A: "Oh boy. That's a really good question. I think a video works best when it gives the song an extra dimension as opposed to just illustrating the lyrics. When a video can hurt is when it seems like an advertisement for coolness, or the band, or ideas that are explicit in the song anyway. I'm shocked when people take a sad love song and then do a video that's a narrative treatment of a break-up. Those kinds of videos are almost implying that the song was a failure because it didn't communicate what the song was about. What we want to do with our videos is have a short burst of feeling; to give you a cool little world to live in for three minutes. That's what we're going for."

So again, here is the video for "WTF?" You can watch the pretty hilarious "the making of WTF?" here. A couple of more tracks can be streamed below.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass
OK Go - White Knuckles

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MGMT - Congratulations

Today, MGMT released the album cover for their sophomore album entitled Congratulations. Instead of predict what the album will sound like (knowing that "It's definitely going to shock people" according to Andrew Vanwyngarden), let's just say it is probably going to be in line with the theme of this website/blog...the celebration of all things psychedelic. There is no question as to their devotion to the genre. Their major label debut, Oracular Spectacular, was recorded with The Flaming Lips' producer Dave Friddman. MGMT contributed to "Worm Mountain" on The Flaming Lips' 2009 album Embryonic. They have opened for/toured with Of Montreal, Asobi Seksu, Radiohead, Chairlift, Paul McCartney, and the list goes on...The upcoming album is co-produced by Pete Kember also known as Sonic Boom, his musical alias associated with bands Spacemen 3 and Spectrum and also a reference to the sound his guitar makes upon liftoff.

Pre-order the album here. Make sure to get the limited edition CD or vinyl LP with scratch-off front cover and custom metal coin. I hope it blows my mind. I have every reason to expect it to. Here are some cool tracks to keep you subdued until further sound exploration on April 13, 2010.

Kid Cudi - Pursuit Of Happiness feat. MGMT and Ratatat (Sandy Vee Remix)
MGMT - Time To Pretend (High Contrast)
The Flaming Lips - Worm Mountain (Feat MGMT)

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The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (2009)

The Flaming Lips' have released their new album 'Embryonic.' You're on your own on this one. Use the player at the bottom of the page to listen to one of their new songs entitled 'Silver Trembling Hands.'

Song(s) added to player:

Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands

E Mix One

A little bit of Electric Fusion




If you didn't already know, you can download Pretty Lights music for free on their website: http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/