London-based Eno/Coldplay/King Creosote-collaborator Jon Hopkins has been turning ears and heads across the Pond with his entrancing electronic sounds. To get a feel, check out his official video below for the mesmerizing track Open Eye Signal from his new album Immunity released last week.  The video’s skating visuals start in Coachella Valley and from there skateboards all around the California environs.  Reminds me of some kids I once knew.

Jon Hopkins ‘Open Eye Signal’ from Aoife McArdle on Vimeo.

We continue to petition that Wilco’s Woody-lyriced song California Stars should be the Official State Song, and required to be sung in all California grade schools. While we continue to gather petition signatures, check out below (via A.V. Club) a great collaboration by Wilco and Calexico members on the song earlier this month below at the Nelsonville Music Festival. Beauty.

Here on the southern Central Coast of Cali in June, we are under the standard seasonal attack of Fogzilla (yes, many blame Japan).  But today we awoke to blue skies and radiance, and the people gave thanks and danced merrily in the streets.  We knew not whom or what to thank for the weather-fix until we watched Coke Weed’s official video for new song Sunseekers, off of their impending third album Back to Soft.  Bar Harbor, Maine’s Coke Weed (hey, it’s better than the inexplicably burgeoning F#@k band-entitling) has been garnering attention following their selection by The Walkmen as tour openers.  The surf-nostalgic Sunseekers video features vintage surf footage harkening back to simpler, less-crowded longboard days somewhere (anyone?). Check out the Walkmen-endorsed song/video below.  Thanks Coke Weed!

Following the video you can download the song from the band’s Soundcloud.

National treasures The National are mid-tour in support of their superb new album Trouble Will Find Me.  Amongst the manifold dates, Lefort-at-Large will cover their hat-trick of shows in August at Outside Lands, the Greek Theater and Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  The band showed up (appropriately in D.C.) for an unplugged Tiny Desk Concert that’s just been released by NPR.  Check it out and download the audio below.

Setlist:

• “This Is The Last Time”
• “I Need My Girl”
• “Pink Rabbits”
• “Sea Of Love”

In honor of the tenth-anniversary of his label Arts & Letters, Broken Social Scene’s leader Kevin Drew and his folks put together the Field Trip Festival which was held yesterday in Toronto. Following up on their performance on Fallon on Thursday, Broken Social Scene and Feist both appeared at Field Trip.  From Field Trip, watch Broken Social Scene perfectly perform their spectacular Lover’s Spit.  It’s a love-fest with horns and Kevin Drew killin’ on vocals. After, check out the ever-checkable Feist performing her song Anti-Pioneer. Oh how the girl can sing… and play guitar! Oh to have been there. Chapeaux!

Summery LA-band Cayucas is playing Muddy Waters tonight courtesy of Club Mercy.  Check out some vignettes of the band and get down to Muddy Waters tonight to kick off summer properly and with the right band.  Watch them on NPR at Palm Springs performing High School Lover unplugged and then their recent session for KCRW. And cme on down to the little Muddy.

Atoms for Peace have been stamping out snippets of scenes of the band setting the stages for their impending tour, and today they released a vignette in which they’re rehearsing their namesake track (Atoms For Peace) from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser.  Check out Yorke’s sinuous vocals and Flea’s percolating bass in particular.  Coming to the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 17th.  We can’t wait.

One of the highlights of the Arts & Letters X (that label’s 10-year anniversary commemorative album mentioned yesterday) is Chilly Gonzalez & Stars’ Nothing Good Comes to Those Who Wait.  Gonzalez is the fantastically-gifted arranger/composer/pianist/now-rapper and Stars are, well, Stars (including the always-compelling vocals of Amy Milan).  It’s a counter-Proverbial beauty. Check it out below.

As alluded to in my post earlier this week, this is the inaugural post of what will hopefully become a weekly guest spot by yours truly, Jeune Lefort, featuring the most interesting electronic music out there (well, at least what I think the Lefort audience would like or at least stomach).  A perfect segue then is to use remixes of recognizables, and especially Lefort favorites.  In honor of Atoms For Peace’s (Thom Yorke’s and Nigel Godrich’s anyway) DJ-set on KCRW this morning (which you will eventually be able to hear/watch HERE), we begin with a band whose songs are ever-evolving into electronic music: Radiohead.

Radiohead has released a number of albums containing only remixes of their tracks, and both of the songs I’ve chosen are from a remix album for The King of Limbs and are, therefore, Yorke-approved.

The first track comes from Canadian artist Jacques Greene. “Do what you want” Yorke whispers, and Jacques Greene apparently wanted to make a very dancefloor-friendly percussion arrangement of the track and layer it with reverb-heavy samples of Yorke’s voice.  And it works.  Check it out below.

The second song, also comes from a Radiohead-sanctioned remix album and is by another Canad-“eh”-n, the Montreal-based Caribou.  On this re-mix of Little By Little, Caribou keeps much of the vocals from the original, but distorts and chops them into new and bizarre bits and then adds a haunting harp lead over all of it.

And finally, just for fun check out a hip-hop re-purposing of Thom Yorke’s Eraser by the promised super-group, but current one hit wonder, CRS which is made up of Pharrell, Lupe Fiasco, and Kanye West.

Hope you’ve enjoyed Electronic-ish Friday.

Jeune Lefort