Jam of the Day | Cock and Swan - Sneak Close

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Photo by Angel Ceballos

A lot of pretty adjectives come to mind while listening to Cock and Swan's criminally unnoticed 2012 release, Stash. The first words I thought of were "earthy" and "haunting," but "melancholic," "wispy" and "goddamn those drums are amazing" weren't far behind.

The Bothell, WA duo of Johnny Goss and Ola Hungerford has been making ambient folktronica in the vein of Boards of Canada and Múm since 2003. However, Stash marks a significant departure for the band, incorporating more acoustic instrumentation and eschewing the heavy synths tones of their early work. The result is an addictive amalgam of razor-sharp drumming, ethereal vocals and prominent bass lines, which draws you in and won't let you out again.

The first track from Stash is the stirring "Sneak Close," which aside from being f-ing beautiful, is free to download via Soundcloud.

Do yourself a favor and just download the whole album, though. You can thank me later.

Jam of the Day | Boards of Canada - Reach for the Dead

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Scottish brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin have been recording music under the moniker Boards of Canada for over twenty years. In that time they've released three landmark albums on Warp Records, numerous EP's and a few hard-to-find private releases, which all together comprise one of the strongest back catalogs in electronic music.

The hype for the band's upcoming album, Tomorrow's Harvest, began on Record Store Day 2013, when a fan purchased a mysterious 12-inch at a New York record store. The plain brown packaging bore no identifying artwork aside from "Boards of Canada ------ / ------ / ------/ XXXXXX / ------ / ------" in small black letters, and the audio on the vinyl only consisted of static, a little music, and a voice reciting a few numbers.

The numbers turned out to be part of an elaborate set of codes, which had been hidden amongst various radio broadcasts, television ads, music videos, website source codes, etc.,  and when entered together into the new Boards of Canada website, allowed access to a video that confirms the album's release.

"Reach for the Dead" is the first track to be released from Tomorrow's Harvest, and it is unmistakably BoC; a haunting IDM drone track that culminates in a slow-building, cinematic crescendo.

Let it take you somewhere far away, to a place where things don't seem so important.