Yesterday was Mother’s Day, hopefully everyone got their moms something nice, and at the very least remembered it was Mother’s Day before this post popped in their RSS. If not there is this Super Mom Mixtape released yesterday by the Very Best, for those whose mothers might be into hearing Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit have their way with LCD Soundsystem, Kate Bush, Kanye West, and Billy Idol. Grab the Tom Petty-sampling “Mama” below and download the whole thing at theverybestmusic.com for the price of an email.

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It was an unseasonably balmy evening in Hollywood as Vampire Weekend made their inaugural Bowl debut. Rounding out the bill was the hypnotic Beach House and a party starting set from the Very Best.

Still with the brightest smile/voice in the game, Esau Mwamwaya’s audio/visual charm make him particularly well suited for the video format, as demonstrated in the Esau + Ezra clip, and why there shall be no stink made about the fact that this video is coming an internet age after the still-great Warm Heart Of Africa LP he put together with production coup Radioclit. In this video, only one half of that coup is present, that being Johan Hugo; Tron is nowhere to be found, but his slot is taken by Mo Laudi, who is reportedly the Very Best’s new MC. So, meet Mo Laudi, a South African native relocated to and making music in London, in other words owner of a story very similar to Esau’s if you’ll trade the South Africa for Malawi.

So Mwamwaya’s way is to be the human manifestation of sunshine, but all that surrounds him in the video for “Julia” are a bunch of stone-faced pretty ladies, any of which could be “Julia” I suppose since my Malawi is rusty enough that the traits Mwamwaya’s lyricizing escape me, and a smoky abandoned subterranean urban warehouse space where there’s a couch (because the song’s laid back) and Mo Laudi’s carrying lifeless bodies (because the song pairs some bleak beats to Esau’s angelic croon). “Julia”‘s got dimension.

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We saw a bunch of bands this past week. Not every set was memorable, but there were more than enough highlights to make the stiff necks and barking feet worth it. Here’s Wednesday, Thursday, Gibbarday, and SXSW’s metal shows, and more. This last post contains our notes, and photos from our intrepid photographers — Ryan Muir, Graeme Flegenheimer, Pooneh Ghana (and her polaroids), and Linda Flores — from Friday and Saturday in Austin. As the news cycle speeds up, it’s difficult to hear groups for the first time at events of this sort, but we did stumble upon a few things. Including things we’d like to forget, a la the disappearance of the taco truck on Red River, the unseasonably cold weather, ice tea-flavored vodka, and that people actually use the term “glow-fi.” That, and plenty of unforgettable things that were far from new, like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and “Hole.”

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What we have here is the Very Best’s cover of the xx’s remix of GGD fans Florence & The Machine’s cover of Candi Staton’s “You’ve Got The Love.” What we also have is an impressive nailing of the critical zeitgeist in under three minutes.

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I don’t know if the Very Best’s people releasing the video for their track featuring Ezra Koenig during Vampire Week will maximize its promotional value or wash it out in the deluge of Contra-related content, but whatever the case, here it is, and it’s a cute one. You don’t need to see the Very Best live to know that Esau Mwamwaya is the human manifestation of sunshine, although seeing the smile that voice is filtered through certainly helps. Ezra and Esau come from different worlds, but somehow wind up in the same place, from that uncanny likability to their apparent chemistry. Shit even their names seem like cultural mirrors of one another’s. There’s some poetry to seeing the pair transported to the warm heart of Africa via the magic of green screen here, considering the likelihood Ezra’s voice was analogously transported into the warm heart of this track via music studio technology. Couple that with shots of the duo lip-syncing up some streets like they were slinging paper planes and you have the official vid for this little gem.

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At some point during the Very Best’s set at Santos last night, Johan Hugo — the half of production team Radioclit that made the trip overseas with the human manifestation of sunshine that is Esau Mwamwaya — said something like “Yo I think all the journalists are up front, we need the fans to come up and get wild up here!” (I think he made it sound cooler, or at least more Swedish accented; probably both.) There were two ways to know he was right: the ring of photographers creating a flashbulb barricade up front, with a secondary line of lots of white haired dudes holding notebooks. Then again, this bill was built to spill ink: Between the visa issues that kept Esau out of the country during CMJ, and the lack of any real business/promotional infrastructure for opening Band To Watch Sleigh Bells — making the Brooklyn duo’s under-attended but modestly epic sets during that same week the ones people kicked themselves most for missing — you could understand why more than one person described the vibe in the Santos basement as that of a “showcase.”

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M.I.A. pals Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit’s post-mixtape debut full-length Warm Heart of Africa got immediate indie-rock attention via its Ezra Koenig-featuring title track, which was subsequently remixed by Metronomy and Architecture In Helsinki. Now we’re moving beyond “Warm Heart Of Africa” (and its B-Side) to another album track “Julia,” here rocked out by cousinly Brooklyn-via-Providence duo Javelin, who mention being influenced by junk shops, flea markets, endless loop tapes, regional dance music, local partying, and New Edition.

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Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit’s the Very Best project is releasing a a 7″ of “Warm Heart Of Africa” in advance of their debut album of the same name.” You already have that title track, which paired Esau with Ezra on a blast of sunny pop that further authenticated Koenig’s evident interest in Afropop; now grab its b-side. For free. Tough to argue with that 7″ release strategy, from an MP3 blog’s perspective anyway. “Yalira” is still all about Esau’s infectious vocalizations, which is always going to be the case when Esau’s on a track, but Radioclit pull their weight with some resounding and emotional production beneath. Mwamwaya over big sustained bass, children’s chants, and pizzicato strings is a formula for win.

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Both bands took “Warm Heart Of Africa” for a spin, with Metronomy rendering Esau and Ezra’s vocals unintelligible and AiH removing them entirely. Take a listen at HypeM.