Banjo or Freakout

Banjo or Freakout is Alessio Natalizia, a guy who makes super-dreamy tunes, that sound sort of like a mix between shoegaze, dream pop, and "chillwave". It's really great to relax to, or sleep to, or really do anything to. He doesn't tour much at all (yet), which is really unfortunate, but he recently finished recording his first full-length, which is pretty exciting (to me at least).

He's done a looot of covers, from a really wide variety of artists, including Kanye "the voice of our generation" West, LCD Soundsystem, and Burial. You can find and download a lot of these on his blog: WWW.BANJOORFREAKOUT.BLOGSPOT.COM. There are also several mixes he's put together, and his Christmas album, which is really good, although extremely-unchristmas-y.

While his covers are good, his originals are a lot better I think. Unfortunately, there aren't too many of them out right now, but I'm hoping that his album will fix that. My favorite of his is a song called Upside Down, which I think I put on one of my mixes. I really like how it seems kinda faded and far away, so it's really easy to just let wash over you, but it's also really excellent for more active listening. It also has a pretty enjoyable video, and I really am not much of a music video fan, so that is sort of high praise.

Alessio also makes some tunes with Sam Willis under the name of WALLS.

Banjo or Freakout - Upside Down (Official Video) from Blake Salzman on Vimeo.

- Alec