Gardens & Villa - Black Hills
Gardens & Villa are a new-to-me group out of San Diego looking to have a big year in 2011. They recently signed to Secretly Canadian, who will be releasing their debut LP in July, and have been touring up an down the west coast this Spring. I caught the tail end of one of their packed shows at Amnesia a few weeks ago and was impressed with the two songs I managed to hear. Although, I was disappointed to have missed “Black Hills”, one of the two tracks featured on their Cool Summer Records 7” and one of my favorite songs of the Spring. The song pulses and flutters with a cool energy that makes for a prefect soundtrack to a now sunny San Francisco. While many of their Californian-brethren choose to bash through 2 minute riots these days, G&V are distinct for their pace, letting their songs breathe and sweat, like the perspiration of a cold beer on a hot day. Which is just about the highest praise you can give anything, right?
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A bit of housekeeping here as well. Clearly the current format of COTP is not inspiring much production, so I am going to focus my efforts in the coming weeks. From now on I am going to feature 3 songs, new or old, a week. No more, no less. If I can get in the habit of writing on this schedule I might pull in some show reviews, but for now it is back to basics. Today was our 700th post, a nice round number, and I’d like to keep this going for 700 more.
