STATE OF SOUND is a feature on The Sights and Sounds where we select new electronically focused bands/artists (either Soundcloud/Facebook followers < 3000) and bring their best songs to light. Getting traction on blogs can be a pain in the ass if you don’t already have a connection in, but we happen to think there’s a whole sea of bands waiting to be discovered. Selection for these ‘Soundcasts’ is highly selective on quality only, as we want to help select the next set of blogosphere buzz bands.  Order featured has nothing to do with song excellence.  So we hope you’ll share this list with your friends to give these artists the exposure they deserve and return once new sets pop up.
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And they say this is the hard part

TINY DEATHS//”JANUARY”- A sudden immediacy. A rush of feeling. Blood, goddamn pumping for the first time in ages. Tracks like this are the catalyst. The French call them little deaths (le petit morts), so it’s only fitting that the orgasmic rushes you get from listening to this song comes from a band called Tiny Deaths. But when I say orgasmic I don’t mean in that banal ‘eargasm’ language you see floating around the music blogosphere, which I think is rapey–robbing the listener of an agency of what they’re allowed to experience. But ‘January’ is consensual release, it’s M83esque mountains of emotion hurtling from your body that you’re ready to let go. It’s a track that understands how to use the cracks in your exterior to give you an electrifying CPR, replete with a dashing melody that never lets up. If you message with me privately, I’ve been hawking this song to everyone I know lately, and that’s because I’m rarely so impressed by what I hear from a new artist.

FOLLOW TINY DEATHS ON SOUNDCLOUD.

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When I high-five the sky
Touch it, and you are electrified

GRMM//”ELECTRIFY (FEKI REMIX)” I can high five the sky, and it won’t bitchslap me in the face. I’m going to tell myself this. Because the sun looks scrumptious here on this diet of nothing burgers, punches to the brow, and shakes to my confidence. I’ve been sitting here, ceding my life to situations that left me cowering in the corner, looking to others for a way out. But, fuck it, that’s not me. I’m like a goddamn fire bender, if lightning strikes me, I don’t let it burn me. I’m the person that stands in front of you all and channels that maelstrom straight out one hand to the other, avoiding frying or restarting my heart in the process.

In a life like mine, I can’t let every little bit of tragedy turn me soft, intimate. What awes others, what keeps them at bay from eating alive are the moments I walk tattered into a thunderstorm and highjump into the clouds, arms outstretched. And when I land, electrified, my eyes aglow with a ferocious light, and they think ‘Damn, I don’t think I couldn’t have done that.’ So reach for the sky. It’s gonna hurt. So.fucking.what.

FOLLOW FEKI ON SOUNDCLOUD.

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I wait for no one at all
I’m in my feeling, right now

SHY GIRLS// “UNDER ATTACK (TELESCOPE THIEVES REMIX)” This track, in previous incarnations, is a whole different beast.  It was for someone like me–who dances with their dark passenger–alienating.  The title and some lyrics fought the good dark pop fight, but fell victim to a set of mawkish moments that reminisced about the value of some kind of lasting love (‘Cause love at first sight/Is better than love from last night).  Yeah, I realize how that makes me sound; but when you hear this Telescope Thieves remix you’ll understand why I felt so betrayed.  Telescope Thieves bring those lyrics into play here, but the way they fade out signals a total lack of belief in them. Their version is haunting as fuck in that way that romances midnight mode moments of the mind under streetlights–the “lonely lights at night” referenced by Shy Girls.  It’s a total revamp that understands the abscence of others isn’t a lack of feeling, that the temporary apparition of other lovers doesn’t belie what you’re really feeling inside. You have to wait for no one at all to jumpstart your heart. You’re your own goddamn saviour.

FOLLOW TELESCOPE THIEVES ON SOUNDCLOUD.

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Set us free…

CAPTURE//”ENDLESS (GOODZIE REMIX)” Carry me on wavelengths out of here. Release needs to be mine around the corner. I’ve done all I can to electrify my heart, so much so that amps upon amps shine out my fucking eyes. Take off my aviators and I’ll be the new dawn. I’ve been saving up all this energy because I knew once the darkness abated I couldn’t handle sitting still. I don’t need anyone to make my path endless, it’s that way just by the merit of me being able to face down the maelstrom of moments that crushed me and meeting them–finally–with fisticuffs raised. This Goodzie remix is for the seconds of earned exhilaration after the battle, for the times that I remember I can lose myself in body and just.let.the.fuck.go. I found myself in so many moments this month jolted out of my mind prison by this track, dancing off the shackles.

FOLLOW GOODZIE ON SOUNDCLOUD.

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