Tracking001

So I think we're about ready to start this site back up again, with some rearranging. Please bare with us as we try to lift this from a poorly taped together blog into a legitimate website for music aficionados. We founded Styrofoam Boots three years ago to try to find a view on music criticism that was lacking on the internet. Most online publications either veered towards a professional style, feigning objectivity and impersonal descriptions, something that does not exist when talking honestly about music. Or worse, some of them began to focus almost entirely on the social commentary they believed the music to be pushing, loosing all sight of emotion or personal philosophy. On the other side are most blogs and other online outlets, where people tend to disregard their responsibility to their audience, and instead get self-absorbed, spewing half formed and thrown away opinions. So we hope to land in between, people who feel the music very very much on an extremely personal level, but still hope to get across exactly why that's so, always taking risks with our taste without ignoring the simple things that just get to you. We hope to be like the friend that comes up to you and shouts "you have to hear this", and plays you something brilliant.

My name is Stuart, I am on the verge of being twenty one years old, I live in New York City, and my live has been defined by music. If you have any questions or anything you want to say to us, please leave a comment bellow, we'd love to hear from you.


So without more delay, let me introduce our singles column, Tracking, bringing your attention to any random solitary tracks that have been pulling on our ears and heartstring recently.

Trim - Confidence Boost (Harmonimix Remix)

It's odd that this song is quite as powerful as it is, dealing a swagger that's unlike anything you've heard before. It's not really the forward-pushing dynamic brute force of metal, not the aggression and confidence found in most hip hop, the kind of shouted violence of punk music, nor the wild push of most club music. What it has is something far more static, self-confidant force to it, singular and calm, but no less swagger than you could find anywhere else. I've started to use it as distinct evidence that experimental techniques can create a drop more destructive than the normal and that experimental hip-hop is not just a deconstructionists dream, but a suddenly-exploding field with nearly infinite possibilities.

Dirty Projectors - Gun Has No Trigger

I suppose it's mostly surprising for the Dirty Projectors to be doing something you want them to do. The band has built their legacy by willfully denying convention, taking the melody at a sudden turn just when you want it to break, holding things just painfully too long. And while that pattern busting ability is incredible, here they prove their worth when they stick to building a song. There's something here I've never found anywhere else, like an old noir tune cut out from time, with rising voices providing an affecting alternative to synths or guitar. I love almost everything this band has done, both for pure aesthetic reasons and also for the slight academic joys they send down my music nerd spine, but I'm never actually connected with one emotionally, and here I'm putting the song on repeat, all in.

Radiohead - Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene Remix)

Like the Dirty Projectors' standard work, here Jacques Greene plays a little bit with your mind as well as the undefined part of your brain that connects with music. Which is to say, you fall into a state of anticipation listening to this, the synths holding you in a kind of stasis, looking forward, waiting. And yet, unlike most ambient leaning dance music, somehow this anticipation is wholly pleasurable, I can even taste faint euphoria seeping in the back of my mind. I could wait forever.

Jacques Greene - Another Girl

Another Girl, however, is something else entirely. When you take a hard look at the independent-leaning dance scenes in London and LA right now something terrible becomes apparent. Though the music is brilliant and beautiful and forward thinking, you probably can't dance to it. Or at least your girlfriend's buddies won't want to, and it's not gonna start any parties. Another Girl might, though, finding itself at the only true post-dubstep banger aside from Hyph Mngo. Somehow it's able to fulfill almost everything dance music is intended for in an ideal universe. It can get you hyped for going out and it can also serve as the lovely comedown at the end of the night. It can start people shouting on the dance floor and waving their arms in the air, but it also feels delicate and kind on headphones.

DJ Elmore - Whea Yo Ghost At, Whea Yo Dead

Footwork hits like more fun noise music to me, churning away of the aggressive knots that build up in my misanthropic head. It's generally acknowledged to be the coolest and most boundary pushing thing going on today, yet even the critics seems to have trouble listening to it and people tell me to turn it off pretty damn quickly when it starts. I don't care. The most aggressive battle raps never got to the temples of my head like this, and even the ambient tracks (this one is the first cut off of Planet Mu's amazing compilation Bangs & Works Vol. 1) sound like nothing you've ever heard before. Just good luck learning the dance.

Drake featuring Lil Wayne - HYFR

Shlohmo dropped this during a dj set last week and I can't even tell you how much my brian swirled when the flow went to double time. Drake may be doing something incredible here, virtuosic, crafting lyrics about dissatisfactions with ex's and accidentally slipping I love you into drunken phone conversations with an absolutely weatherproof style. Mainstream hip-hop never gave signs of being able to produce something this awesome and heartfelt, and I am continuously aghast as the all of the lyrics slowly embed themselves into my memory. Hell Yeah Fucking Right.