Little Dragon is back with a new album in Ritual Union and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve followed Yukimi Nagano and her crew of Swedish masterminds for a few years now. After my first exposure I noted that it is only a matter of time before LD “blows-the-fuck-up” to quote myself exactly. They possess the elusive mixture of great musical composition, pop sensibility, underground hipness, mass appeal, and explosive live performances. Topping it off: a gorgeous front-woman with an elegant, understated charisma.
A brief review: In 2009, a friend in San Francisco starts telling me about this great little band. Little Dragon visits Orlando in 2010 and plays an astounding show for about 40 people. Although the crowd is small, they are wildly engaged. Later, Yukimi makes an appearance on Gorillaz 2010 album, Plastic Beach. LD returns to Orlando in early 2011 to play another mind-blowing show, this time, for a packed house. Since then, they worked with Big Boi (after he was tipped off by Andre 3000), performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (at the request of Questlove), and contributed to albums by David Sitek and Rafael Saadiq. This leads us to Ritual Union.
Ritual opens with the title track and it sounds like Diamond Life going down on Amnesiac marrying layered, dreamy pop with soulful vocals. “Brush the Heat” is reminiscent of later Dee-Lite with Yukimi’s playful sultry voice sliding gracefully through the skating rink disco beat and piles of synth. “Shuffle the Dream” swaggers through 80’s pop territory with its steady, walking electronic bass line and “Nightlight” reveals a more mature and progressive sound while maintaining all that is great about Little Dragon. “Summertearz,” a song debuted on their last tour, is one of my favorites. Riding a slinky beat and loops of percussive instrumentation, harmonized vocals charge directly out of my speakers and down through my man parts. This band is just getting bigger and bigger and Ritual Union is the oversized party bus to drive their fat sounds farther.
Ritual Union by Peacefrog Records
Written for Tampa’s Suburban Apologist
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah blew me away with their debut album. They were able to create fun, heartfelt rock with the rhythm of Talking Heads and jangly melancholy of 
The first time I shared this song with someone they said they dug it. Then asked whether this band would perform live in a dark chamber or long hallway. I answered, “dark chamber.” Apparently this was a rhetorical question. Yes “Montana” by Youth Lagoon – aka Trevor Powers – sounds very dark, but it is also epic and sweeping in a very subtle way. The same way “You and Whose Army” by Radiohead is: quiet, but creeping, growing and deceivingly powerful.
Now that the fervor over the chill wave has receded maybe we can sit back and evaluate the music for what it is (or isn’t). Whatever chill wave was – or is – it really only turned out 3 “bands” that I can recall: Toro Y Moi, 
At first listen, this sounds like a Zeppelin / Sabbath inspired southern rock band: power riffs, whiskey-soaked and blues-y vocals, and a bare bones, retro presentation. On further inspection these dudes are Swedish, which explains the glib band name. The fact that they’re Norwegian (actually most of the defunct stoner metal band, Norrksen) and totally rock excuses them from stealing their name from a midwestern middle school metal band.
Following my recent enchantment with Skysaw’s Great Civilizations and subsequent 
The turnout for this show was not nearly the Chinese fire drill that showed up for 
Some jerks were even screaming, “last song please!” and “no more!” The odd thing is that this all changed by the last few songs. Honestly, even though I enjoyed the thoughtful presentation of music, I was kind of missing the wide open rock frenzy that I’m used to seeing JC orchestrate. Skysaw really lit it up live, but it was more subtle than the Pumpkins’ histrionic flair. Then they ended with the unreleased “Cathedral” and unleashed a can of whoop ass on everyone’s face. The once lackluster crowd filled in the floor of the venue; the talking turned to howling and screaming, and Chamberlin dropped a crushing solo within a psychedelic jam that allowed Anthony Pirog to open up the rock guitar a little bit more with some face melting antics.
