GGFO

Jon Sandler and Luke Moellman are Great Good Fine Ok (or GGFO for regular listeners of their synth-laden music).

They’ve teamed up with Indietronica once again and put together a playlist for us.

Breakbot – Arrested

LUKE: Love the groove on this one. Drums and percussion are sparse and simple but the complexity and funk comes from the synth and guitar rhythms. Lyrics are kind of hilarious to me — likening a romantic encounter to a legal offense? — but it works somehow.

One Republic – Wherever I Go

JON: As a crazy person with a car in NYC, I end up listening to a ton of top 40 radio. When you are suffocated with same 20 songs over and over again, you develop a unique ability to differentiate the “hits” from the HITS. I am not sure what category this song falls into yet, because I’ve only heard it twice, once when they performed it on Jimmy Fallon and once when I just looked it up on Spotify, but I do know one thing, it will soon be on the radio ALL THE TIME. Ryan Tedder is considered one of the best pop songwriters for a reason. From One Republic’s hit “Apologize” in 2006 to their hit “Counting Stars” in 2013 to songs for Beyonce and everyone one else you can think of, this dude never stops killing it. Soon we’ll all be sick of this song and it won’t be cool to talk about it, but for now, enjoy!

Porches – Mood

LUKE: As a producer one of the first things that grabs me about a track is the combination of sounds. The way the elements on this track contrast with themselves in how they give the illusion of space is great. The drums, guitars, bass, and percussion are all super dry, groovy, and right in the front, but the vocals and especially the keyboards are dramatically spacious. The writing is incredibly beautiful as well. Kind of sounds like if Midlake and Prefab Sprout collaborated on a song and James Murphy produced it.

Sia – Cheap Thrills

JON: While I’ve got radio and pop songwriters on the mind, i’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Sia’s latest banger “Cheap Thrills”. Something about a choir of kids singing “I love cheap thrills!” makes me very happy.

Steve Reich – Mallet Quartet: III. Fast

LUKE: Steve Reich has had a huge influence on the music I write. The muted piano part that plays at the beginning of “Always” and continues throughout the track is very Steve Reich to me (although he’d never swing the rhythm quite like that). I grew up playing a lot of mallet percussion, so that’s something that always seems to work its way into my music as well.

Their single, ‘Always’ is out now.

Sounds like: Fenech Soler, Ghost Beach, Yeasayer, Phoenix, Passion Pit, Pistol Shrimp, Penguin Prison, Futurecop!, The Chain Gang of 1974, LANY, Paperwhite

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