Jónsi covers MGMT, dreamily

I missed this cover when Jónsi performed it on the BBC’s Live Lounge three months ago, and just found it today when I was doing my semi-annual trolling of their archives to see what cool stuff I’ve missed, over on this side of the pond.

The MGMT original is one of my favorites of their songs (and lends itself to one of my favorite pictures from Outside Lands in SF last year, above). For as stoically sweeping and epic-sounding as the source song is, Jónsi takes it and creates something wistful, ethereal, and completely gorgeous on the piano. You know, I never noticed the verse about all the things he’ll miss in the same way as I do now.

Time To Pretend (MGMT cover) – Jónsi

Time To Pretend – MGMT

Jónsi is on the international summer festival circuit this summer, and man alive do I wish I could see him. I missed him when he came through Denver, but his brilliant latest is one of my favorite albums so far this year, and he can soundtrack my imagination any day.

MGMT makes Violens even more fresh and enjoyable

Today’s aural fixation is the skittering, diving new MGMT remix of the Violens song “Doomed,” which is anything but foreboding in this incarnation.

Undulating and  iridescent, like looking up from the bottom of the clear blue ocean with the sunlight filtering through, this remix ends too quickly for me, after only two and a half dulcet minutes. It’s totally and completely irresistible.

Doomed (MGMT remix) – Violens

The original version appears on their EP (out now through Cantora Records), and you can count me as a fan of what Violens is doing. The first time I heard them I wrote, “Zombies! The Zombies stumble into a very fashionable ’80s club where everyone has long angular bangs cut diagonal in a swoop. The music of Violens strikes me as a little new wave, a little smoky, but with good structural bones and catchy melodies under all the haze.”

SPIN raved (of their single, “Violent Sensation Descends“) : “In 1966, this alternately ominous and sparkly nugget would’ve been the No. 50 British single of the year, after the Creation’s ‘Making Time.’ It’s that good.”

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IN UNRELATED NEWS (MUTUAL APPRECIATION SOCIETY):
I got an extremely kind mention today in Magnet Magazine from author Nick Hornby, under the guest editor eye of Old 97s’ Rhett Miller. Like whoa! It’s a richly wonderful feeling to be able to give back to someone whose work resonates with you so intensely.