Take me anywhere.

Victoria, Canada’s Tayler Thompson is producing some hypnotic tropical getaways under the name Floridas. Little drops of water drip down from the roof— the snow is starting to melt. I know these late-afternoon rays can often be deceptive but this feeling is pure. Spring feels closer than ever. Sunglasses on, I’m soaking it up with Floridas’ first two sun-drenched tracks. Keep an eye on the horizon & maybe we’ll see new things from this project when spring finally arrives.

In northeastern Puerto Rico there’s a place that I’ve been but I can hardly remember. Aided by old photographs of a small me sitting underneath towering cliffs watching water pour down, the El Yunque rainforest and its tumbling falls rekindle memories of my earliest years growing up in San Juan. The rainforest holds a similar place in the memories of the San Juan-born, Miami-based artist Gabriel Berrios, who records under the name Bayatas. On his latest release On Your Clothing, Gabriel includes a track named after the rainforest, a place that he say he misses very much these days. The three-track, bedroom-recorded tropicália collection, as per usual, brims with highlife riffs and wonderfully layered worldbeat rhythms. It’s his third short release in the past few months— so some sort of album cannot be too far away. Download On Your Clothing over at Gabriel’s bandcamp.

Mexico City’s Oscar Rodríguez has delivered a new tune under his tropical pop moniker Matilda Manzana. A dreamy wander, ‘Pez Espada’ (swordfish) is the first single off Oscar’s upcoming album Conjuntos Cartográficos. The release, pegged to drop sometime before the end of year, will hold ten tracks, each paired with a different map (hence the albums title). Matilda Manzana is not a name, it is a place— imaginary, distant, familiar.

Matilda Manzana - Pez Espada

Tree Hopping is the bedroom pop project of Gainesville Florida-based musican Gabriel Berrios. His latest release Tree Hopping Dance Band is full of dreamy guitar riffs, hazy vocals (recorded lying down in bed in the middle of the night, of course), tropical beats and samples. A rather prolific past few months, the album is Gabriel’s fourth release since his first, Tough Summer, from back in November. Check out all of Tree Hopping’s jams over at his bandcamp.

Tree Hopping - Tough Summer (b)

Tree Hopping - Whatever, Dude

Tree Hopping - Dreams Never End (New Order cover)

Just when summer seems to be nearing its end, as it slips beyond the mountains into the unseen crispness of autunm, Barcelona’s El Guincho (Pablo Díaz-Reixa) holds the warm sunlight overhead by spicing things up with the release of the second single off his upcoming album Pop Negro— FM Tan Sexy. Last month El Guincho released Bombay, the first of nine tracks off his second LP. You can download both songs at his website. Pablo Díaz-Reixa has worked hard over the last few years to move his sound forward from Alegranza and Folías; “I did some research on radio hits/big selling singles in North America, South America, England and Spain in the late 70′s, 80′s and early 90′s. I found out that a massive percentage of these hits were engineered (sometimes also produced) by just around 40/50 different guys.”

• El Guincho - FM Tan Sexy

"I started studying what makes them different but also what they had in common and I found out some really interesting coincidences. The reverbs they used (except for more ‘so-eighties’ kind of tracks, all the rest were more keen on using different tap tempo delays as verbs rather tan proper springs/halls); the backing vocals production (there are super interesting coincidences between Michael Jackson/Quincy, U2, Bryan Ferry/Rhett Davies era productions, Mariah Carey/Walter Afanasyev, Nile Rodgers, Teddy Riley, Paco Trinidad in Spain, etc.); the way most of these guys used line + reamping style instead of mic’ing everything when tracking; the way they used stereo image and how they distributed sounds on space (this is where I found less coincidences and was therefore more inspired).

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At the beginning of July Seattle indie pop duo Beat Connection released their Surf Noir EP, which you can pick up on group’s bandcamp for free. The eight-track EP is full of great songs like In The Water, Sunburn, and Same Damn Time. The two guys behind Beat Connection, Jordan Koplowitz and Reed Juenger, describe their flowing mix of electronic beats, pop vocals and tropical flair as “waking up to a sunset,” and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Check out their catchy tune Silver Screen below.

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