Looking back at the 2012 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, it was full of outstanding new music mostly performed by artists I had never heard of. Clearly, that is what makes Pitchfork one of the coolest festivals on the planet. One of the standouts was Canada’s Japandroids, a Husker Du-ish duo consisting of Brian King on guitar and David Prowse on drums who steamrollered all over the crowd with their brand of celebratory rock. At the time, their latest record was “Celebration Rock” and it is most definitely one of the best records to come out so far that year. Other highlights from today included another Canadian duo known as Purity Ring who sounded like a chilled out Bjork surrounded by electronic dubstep beats, New Jersey’s Clams Casino, a producer of hip-hop mixtapes who’s hypnotic beats made for some knotty instrumentals and the psychedelic pop of Olivia Tremor Control who released several records in the early 1990s only to reunite a decade later. They are said to be releasing some new music in the future. The day started with Outer Minds whose sound reminded me of 1966 era organ-swirled Grateful Dead. Stay tuned for day-two highlights tomorrow.
