Why the hell have I never heard of these guys?

Turquoise is a trio from Montreal, Canada who is two years young and totally rips, but is alarmingly lacking in the press department (they don’t even have a Wikipedia page yet). Despite their relative inexperience, this album is remarkably solid. (I’m kicking myself for letting this sit in my inbox for so long.) Pop Winds creates their “busy” art-rock sound by utilizing epic amounts of layering, string and horn sections, scintillating electronica and echoed vocals that all manages to retain a distinctly “pop” feel. One can’t help but compare them to Water Curses/Meriwether-era Animal Collective, Yeasayer, the Ruby Suns, or Panda Bear’s solo projects. In fact, if Animal Collective released this album, it would probably be topping the iTunes charts by the end of the day. It’s that good. The best album I’ve heard in a while.

FCC CLEAN



1. A growing crescendo of weird twinkly samples, slamming percussion and horns. Spiraling and out of control. Amazing. 2. Upbeat with shimmering electronica and great vocals that sound like Band of Horses except with a lot more pep. 3. An intro of bubbling water. A slow choral intro with strummy guitars leads into a midtempo horn-driven ballad with emotional vox. 4. Slow skittering percussion (think backwards drum samples) and a looped Speed Levitch sample “you can look at the flower and become the flower.” At its halfway point the song melts down and becomes a beautifully subtractive mess of strange slowed-down samples, piercing sax and string elements. 5. A six-minute saga of swirling samples, Phillip Glass keyboard loops and overdrive-smeared vocals. 6. Movie samples, gentle keyboard lines and capering percussion. Super upbeat and triumphant with great layered vox. Could Animal Collective do any better? 7. Midtempo and introspective with darker elements. A very mature, emotional sound. Excellent.
8. A slow moody intro leads into a deep electro beat. Lyrics about an identity crisis. 9. A great outro track. Slower and grand with a heavy atmosphere, million-dollar casio riffs almost as epic as the one in TI’s “What You Know” (sorry for the random allusion, but it’s totally true…) and pounding drums.