One way in which FADER wins at CMJ: They throw their parties at non-music venues in the music-venue heavy LES, ensuring mucho blog writeups plus SEO-maximizing post title mentions (if I could I would use a venue name up there). Another way FADER wins: free drinks, and usually a buzz band or three a day. (The place feels like a pit of regret come day last... but so goes too many SoCos.) The Fort was where I finally tied into the third Crystal band you Need To Know, Crystal Antlers, although that shouldn't have been hard given the number of [...]
In case you haven't looked at an mp3 blog this week: Neutral Milk Hotel front-man Jeff Mangum has turned up on several stops of the Elephant 6 Surprise Holiday tour to sing along with his old buddies from various Elephant 6 bands, namely Julian Koster's Music Tapes. Seeing Jeff Mangum twice in one week is sort of like the equivalent of running into anyone else 55 times in an hour, as we've only seen the reclusive, and seamingly slightly agoraphobic singer a [...]
Filed under: Free MP3 of the Day Spinner.com : Artist: The Music Tapes Songs: 'Majesty'Album: 'Music Tapes For Clouds And Tornadoes' [iTunes]Sounds Like: Sebadoh, Neutral Milk HotelDownload: 'Majesty'(MP3)[Get Winamp] [Download Help] Next MP3... Read more
i can't believe the elephant 6 holiday surprise reunion tour is underway, and as always, i can't be there at the party for obvious geographical reasons. as reported in pitchfork , the whole gang - members of the olivia tremor control , the music tapes, and yes even the elusive recluse jeff magnum was present, shouting their way through old favorites like otc's "the opera house". "the opera house" is one of my favorite otc songs, an stomping opener to their debut dusk at cubist castle album from more than ten years ago. sometimes, otc likes [...]
Tiny Mix Tapes reports that Neutral Milk Hotel leader Jeff Mangum performed three songs in New York with Julian Koster's "Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise" tour: He came on stage and sang on part of Olivia Tremor Control's "I Have Been...
The Music Tapes For Clouds and Tornadoes (08.2008 Merge) Verdict: A whimsical pop gem. Julian Koster's first outing as The Music Tapes blended iffy production methods, old time radio interludes, unusual instruments (including bouncy balls and metronomes for percussion) and childlike vocal delivery and subject matter such as: aliens, the death of superman and a mistrust for parents. Needless to say, it's held a special place in my musical heart for some time now. Nine years later Julian Koster is pretty much the same, and that's a good thing. While For Clouds and [...]
Each week (or whenever we have time) we take a listen to some of the top songs from elbows, review them and then give our selection of alternative tracks that we believe should be getting more recognition. The Kooks "Kids" (MGMT Cover) Pretty mediocre cover. It's interesting to hear this song on just an acoustic guitar, lets you know that it works without all the spacey stylings of MGMT, but when it comes to covers, this could be anyone... the artist of the day at Potbelly, or local coffee shop guitar [...]
Head Music Tape Julian Koster has announced a quite rare, quite exciting, quite disappointing they're not coming closer to me tour. The band for this tour is nothing short of stellar: featuring songs of the Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Circulatory System and, of course Music Tapes and including Will Cullen Hart of the Olivia Tremor Control, Scott Spillane of the Gerbils and NMH, Laura Carter of Elf Power, Eric Harris of OTC and Circulatory System and more. Dates below. Get out your vintage Athens T-shirts. Music Tapes 2008 Tour Dates! 10/09 [...]
The Music Tapes, Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes (Merge Records, 2008) MP3 : "Majesty" Mastering the magic of the singing saw takes a lot of patience. So does being a fan of the Music Tapes , seeing as this is their second album in over nine years. Led by Elephant 6 alumnus and former Neutral Milk Hotel member Julian Koster, the Music Tapes has the feel and aesthetic of a strange slice of cinema – the type [...]
Easily one of the most influential, strange, and reclusive collection of bands in independent music, the Athens, GA based pysch-rock-folk Elephant 6 Collective will be assembling several key members for a tour this October. Described by Neutral Milk Hotel member, Music Tapes Frontman Julian Koster as "a big orchestra, variety show, silly happy thing" (via Pitchfork ), the bill will celebrate of the music of Olivia Tremor Control , Circulatory System , The Music Tapes , Elf Power , The Gerbils , Scott Spillane , Nana Grizol , Nesey Gallons, [...]
* The Music Tapes : The Television Tells Us (9.5 mb) | Music_Tapes_MP3 (113.5 mb)| Music_Tapes_Flac (327.0 mb) From Live At Athens Popfest : Aug 16th, 2008 : Athens, GA One of the best shows I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of them) was this band, The Music Tapes . I first heard about them because of their connection to one of my favorite bands, Neutral Milk Hotel. Lead guy Julian Koster had a completely idiosyncratic [...]
As you can see with this week's Graboid, there are a lot of great releases out there to spend your hard-earned cash on. Seriously, I don't even know where to start with this list. A few releases that I can definitely recommend include Ra Ra Riot's The Rhumb (really dig this one - so happy for these guys), Jaguar Love's Take Me To The Sea, Lykke Li's Youth Novels (finally gets its US release) and Stereolab's Chemical Chords. I really had high hopes for The Stills' third album, Oceans Will Rise - thinking they would make [...]
All weekend I lived vicariously through our friends in Athens at the Popfest (I'm still waiting for those Nana Grizol YouTube postings!). Jon Manning was down there and posted some fine photos of the Music Tapes performance to the TIG Sparkly Indie-Pop Photos group. read more
Julian Koster : resident of the Neutral Milk Hotel, founder of Music Tapes, and friend to singing saws everywhere didn't just make that singing saw Christmas album I mentioned. His band Music Tapes also made a new record called For Clouds & Tornadoes to be released by Merge on Tuesday, and you can hear the whole thing at their website for free by clicking here . Also, if you're in New York, Julian announced on his hard to find website [...]
Filed under: Video of the Day Spinner.com : Artist: The Music TapesVideo: 'The Minister of Longitude'Highlight: A giant ticking metronome ventures through a rural town and onto an empty beach in this quirky low-budget video. Next Video... Read more
I have been a little remiss in posting about "new music" lately but I thought I would play catchup here with a few short snappers about some lesser known collaborations and side projects from some more well established bands. The Music Tapes - Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes While technically not a side project, The Music Tapes is an experimental indie band lead by Julian Koster , formerly of Neutral Milk Hotel and Chocolate USA . Music For Clouds and Tornadoes comes [...]
(Mason Jennings) Good news, everyone: Your favorite pretentious internet writer has found himself some employment. The bad news? Uh, MFR hasn't exactly been a hotbed of breaking news. As if it ever was. HA! However, since I have some time off before I start my new job on Monday, I thought I would take the time to make a Catch-Up Playlist of all the tracks that have broken since I started a brief temp job last Thursday (as well as some others that have been sitting on my desktop for a long, long time). There's going to be [...]
We were big fans of First Imaginary Symphony For Nomad back in the day, as well as the Music Tapes' prop-heavy, metronome-toting live show. If you can believe it, that debut came out nine years ago. Around that time, Neutral Milk Hotel was still active, so it was seen as Julian Koster's singing-saw and wire-recorder side project. Since then, NMH went the way of legends, and Koster's kept a lower profile. Well, he and his Tapes are back. Via Merge : [Koster is] working on a story album entitled 2nd Imaginary Symphony for Cloudmaking [...]
In 1997 the then-youngish label of Kindercore Records, operating out of Athens, GA, put out a compilation called Christmas in Stereo. It featured some hip bands like The Olivia Tremor Control and The Mendoza Line , and some more obscure ones, just getting started, like... Summer Hymns and of Montreal . It was a top seller and apparently a lot of fun to compile, so two years later, as the label started to gather more fans and started to put together a rather brilliant lineup, they put out a sequel to [...]
Today would be the one year mark for this site's existence. Perusing the archives you can see a little bit of paradigm shifting in musical taste which is a good thing I guess. According to the site traffic and feed stats we actually have an audience and actual readership (which isn't that much but its still p cool). So thanks for making chinese restaurant in the forest* relevant. Special thanks to Squashed , Moka , Funtime OK , mp3blog.ch , Shay , boomawang , bbqchickenrobot [...]
Stereogum
It's hard to Find a Friend
Spinner.com
i'm waking up to...
Glorious Noise
Forest Gospel
Quarterlifeparty
DETOUR
Consequence Of Sound
the of mirror eye
The Yellow Stereo
Three Imaginary Girls
Bumpershine.com
Minneapolis Fucking Rocks
Optical Atlas Newsblog: Your Elephant 6 Daily Fix of Sunshine
chinese restaurant in the forest
Stream: Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Americana
