Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Nils Frahm: "Says"

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1. Nils Frahm: "Says"
2. Kevin Drew: "Good Sex"
3. Real Estate: "Talking Backwards"
4. Sun Kil Moon: "Ben's My Friend"

Nils Frahm: "Says" Posted: 15 Jan 2014 07:25 AM PST Berlin-based composer Nils Frahm's Spaces drifted out at the end of last year, tying together a series of live recordings he'd made over the past two years. The title is appropriate—there are acres of room in the gradual build of "Says", which stacks up beautifully arpeggiated synth lines that incrementally gain in intensity over its eight-minute runtime. The track's elegance is coupled with substantial anticipatory gestures, largely caused by an effective use of silence that triggers tantalizing thoughts about where Frahm might be heading. "Says" bridges both simple and complex urges, beginning in spare stabs of piano and ending with beautifully labyrinthian loops. It's so easy to get lost in its glassy structures that the audience applause at the end feels like a rude interruption—a bump back down to reality after being so thoroughly transported.

Kevin Drew: "Good Sex" Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:07 PM PST As the de facto leader of Broken Social Scene and as a solo artist, Kevin Drew's lyrics tend to be more frank and sexually graphic than those of your typical big-ticket indie act. With "Good Sex", the first single from his upcoming LP Darlings, it appears Drew's finally going to drop the high socio-psycho-sexual concepts—Or maybe not, since maybe he's settled down on us: "Good sex should never make you feel hollow." It's a sentiment with which anyone can agree, but lest we forget who we're dealing with, the very next line is as follows: "Good sex should never make you feel clean." So there's mixed messages, especially within a bouncy, piano-laced Northern Soul arrangement as steady and uplifting as the homebody commitment expressed in the chorus, "But I'm still breathin' with you, baby." In the end, though it's just another fine example of what Drew's been doing for the past decade: trying to imbue some kinkiness in the grand schematics we expect to be kinda boring, whether it's monogamy or big-ticket indie rock. Kevin Drew: "Good Sex" on SoundCloud.

Real Estate: "Talking Backwards" Posted: 14 Jan 2014 07:52 AM PST Photo by Erez Avissar At their best, Real Estate sound effortless, possessing an unnatural ability to weave together plainspoken melodies and intricate guitar arrangements without sounding as if they've broken a sweat—and that's exactly where the band is on "Talking Backwards", the first single from the forthcoming Atlas (out March 4 in the U.S. and a day before in the UK via Domino). From the chiming six-string interplay that opens the song to Martin Courtney's benevolent, honeyed vocals, all the elements are in place to cement "Talking Backwards" as another indelible Real Estate song, a testament to the band owning their lane as a truly exceptional guitar-focused group at a time when truly exceptional guitar-focused groups are in short supply. The real star of "Talking Backwards", though, is the pristine production applied to the song, a dose of applied clarity that eradicates the fuzzy edges of the band's previous work for the better. Cast in this new light, Real Estate take on a radiant glow, spinning their mid-afternoon daydreams with the confidence of a good band using the tools at their disposal to become something greater.

Sun Kil Moon: "Ben's My Friend" Posted: 10 Jan 2014 07:34 AM PST Photo by Bill Ellison During "Ben's My Friend", Mark Kozelek suffers a litany of indignities that are particularly unflattering for an aging, male musician: after an uneventful day in the studio trying to finish up his new record Benji, he meets up with his girlfriend, buys a $350 pair of lampshades, and eats lunch at an Embarcadero eatery "cluttered with sports bar shit," where his lady points out that he "seems distracted." Not exactly emasculated, but aware all the same, he tells her: "It's a middle-aged thing." We find out later this "thing" was triggered by his attendance at a Postal Service concert, certainly a situation where he can feel his 46 years of age: not just because the walk up the hill of the Greek Theatre is a tremendous pain in the ass or because he's surrounding by dancing, drunk kids staring at their cell phones, but due to the relationship hinted at in the title. Kozelek first meets Ben Gibbard at a Spanish festival in 2000 where "he was on the small stage then, and I didn't know his name"—the implication being that Red House Painters were a bigger draw than Death Cab For Cutie at the time. Back to the present, where Gibbard's about to play for a crowd of 8,000, whereas Kozelek infamously noted on Among The Leaves' "Sunshine In Chicago" that his personal fanbase is mostly "guys in tennis shoes." Worse yet, people think Gibbard is "20 years younger" than Kozelek (he's actually 37). It gets so bad that Kozelek blows off a planned backstage high-five with his pal and he gives his passes to "a couple of cute Asian girls." All of which makes "Ben's My Friend" one of the funniest, warmest, and most revealing songs ever written about male friendship, especially the complications that arise in relationships where one guy's more successful. Kozelek admits his "meltdown" was mostly due to his competitiveness getting the better of him, and that "Ben's my friend, and I know he gets it." Gibbard likely won't take offense at how the most danceable, radio-friendly song Kozelek's made under the Sun Kil Moon moniker is punctuated with "The Sound of Settling"-style "ba ba ba"s, either. It might not do much to bridge the popularity gap between the two but, as we find out in the heartwarming ending, a newly inspired Kozelek gets back to the studio ready to put in 12-hour shifts and finally ends up completing his best record to date, and "Ben's My Friend" is the last song on it.