Welcome to Make-Out Music, a music blog written by Ryan Sheridan, for those in search of the perfect pop song. Forget you actually gave freak-folk a chance and take comfort in discovering pop music that can still be sophisticated. Find the perfect remix, forgotten guilty pleasure, original sample or secluded Scandinavian sound with MP3s, interviews, features and original video mash-ups. Befitting a spot on your next mixtape, it's Make-Out Music: because getting to second base needs a soundtrack.
If you have comments, questions or music of your own you'd like me to hear, please e-mail ryan [dot] makeoutmusic [at] gmail.com. New music is always welcome. MP3s taken down upon request.
nbeknownst to me until a couple minutes ago, this blog’s been a straight-up sausage party. So, in the name of Equal Opportunity, today the ladies get their due with a trio from Brighton known as Chungking.
Chungking came onto my radar in 2005 when their second LP, The Hungry Years, was released. At the time I was still flirting with Feist’s Let It Die and I viewed The Hungry Years as its unofficial sequel. Both LPs bore smokey white girls who knew their Jazz. As it turned out, The Hungry Years was better than Feist’s official follow-up, The Reminder, which was a boring, predictable romp through Apple-friendly monotony.
“Making Music,” Hungry Years’ first single, is a classy ode to a dreaming debutante’s favorite comfort zone. The piano-clad song creeps along with a frightful violin and sparse horns until it dips into a huge soulful chorus, following singer Jessie Banks’ blissful exclamation: “I just want to cry / so help me along to where I belong / here I’m safe and sound…making music.”
t’s got to be a challenge for a three-piece band. As a small troupe, they’re always overcompensating for a shortage of sounds. I suppose it’s like when small-dicked dudes buy Hummers. Well, one band who shant worry (about a shortage of sounds, not sure about the dick thing) is Virginia’s True Love Always.
The trio, signed to iconic D.C. indie pop label Teenbeat, is like Belle & Sebastian only with better hooks. On “The Losing Part” vocalist John Lindaman’s shiny bossa nova guitar licks recall “This Charming Man” and, though it’s just Lindaman alone on the vocals, a popping bass line and subtle disco shuffle ensure there’s hardly a ‘losing part’ here. Like The Smiths, True Love Always is a classic, bare bones indie pop outfit. With just one singer/guitarist, a bassist and drummer, each instrument pulls its own weight — and they all do so in simple synchronicity to produce a bright, vivid and clean sound. Found on all of their records, this sound can be chalked up to Teenbeat/Unrest founder Mark Robinson, who helmed this album’s production.
The lack of any vocal effect, distorted guitar or auto-tuned verse (Come on, Discovery. Really?) is refreshing and thank fuck for that. Though I fear exposing my age here, this song and its album, Torch, leaves me feeling nostalgic for the more innocent, less gimicky brand of indie rock we knew at the turn of the century. Released in 2000, Torch was just the band’s third LP, but its bossa-nova inflected sophistication has only to be rivaled today by The Changes, a like-minded band from Chicago who put out an album in 2006 (and will also be interviewed here in this space very soon). It’s a shame, too, since True Love Always went on an indefinite hiatus after its last LP in 2002. Apparently moving to New York, completing a Master’s degree and…coaching kids’ soccer was more important.
ecord labels are the ones to cull a writer’s words in sticker form and slap it on a sulafane-wrapped CD. But, if I may, cherry-pick allmusic’s Tim Sendra describing Pacific’s musical aesthetic and slap it in this paragraph: “There are a few other bands working this angle of ’70s craft meets ’80s bubble with a 2000s sheen (Phoenix and Tough Alliance come to mind), but Pacific! might just be the ones who perfected the formula.”
Indeed, it’s “Runway to Elsewhere,” the instrumental opener from Pacific’s debut LP, Reveries, that has stuck and glued itself into my auditory cortex. Starting off with a spacey synth hook we haven’t heard since Air took us on a Moon Safari, this track melds into a cowbell-tinged disco revival at the drop of a handclap. Without letting you get too comfortable, Pacific punts the beat and crawls into a 70s prog-rock guitar solo that builds into the outro. Many bands have tried, come up short and flat out sounded cheap attempting the sound of this Swedish duo, who has magically found the party-worthy medium between three decades of rock (ELO), pop (Beach Boys) and dance (Daft Punk). Simply stated, “We make straight pop with a twist of club in it,” as explained by Pacific! themselves in an interview with Anthem last year.
And yes, I know I’m over a year late to this. I have Pacific’s Moshi Moshi labelmate, Breakbot, to thank for introducing me after hearing his remix of “Runway to Elsewhere,” which follows the aforementioned handclaps with a slinky synth bass line straight to the club.
Monday, November 22, 2010 
nbeknownst to me until a couple minutes ago, this blog’s been a straight-up sausage party. So, in the name of Equal Opportunity, today the ladies get their due with a trio from Brighton known as Chungking.
t’s got to be a challenge for a three-piece band. As a small troupe, they’re always overcompensating for a shortage of sounds. I suppose it’s like when small-dicked dudes buy Hummers. Well, one band who shant worry (about a shortage of sounds, not sure about the dick thing) is Virginia’s True Love Always.
ecord labels are the ones to cull a writer’s words in sticker form and slap it on a sulafane-wrapped CD. But, if I may, cherry-pick 
