Mull Historical Society, "Animal Cannabus" get it on Loss (2001) The real curse of being old is knowing that you're destined to be old-fashioned. As the idiot Abe Simpson once said, "I used to be with it. Then they changed what it was. Now what's it seems scary and weird to me." Not exactly the same, because I do like the glitchy bedroom electronics skipping over the internet these days. But a lot of times I miss a good, carefully [...]
Tennis, "Robin" find it on Young & Old (2012) Tennis is never going to win any awards for variety. They'll play their la la shit for you anytime, and you'll like it or...you won't. But their new album has a little bit more of what the French call production , and said production comes from Black Key Patrick Carney, and rounds the edges a bit more than on their debut, so it's a little easier to...y'know, actually tell the songs apart from each other. This [...]
I wasn't much into Saint Etienne before about 1998. I hadn't yet developed a taste for treacly pop or learned how to forgive bluntly shallow lyrics, and the songs I'd heard of theirs like "He's On The Phone" were more pop than I could take at the time. I can't remember why I gave their 1998 album Good Humor a chance (likely because of that that constant paranoia of the music geek that you're missing out on something good), but it completely turned around my opinion of Saint Etienne. My warming to them is probably in [...]
First Aid Kit, "Emmylou" get it on The Lion's Roar (2012) We first heard about First Aid Kit (didn't we?) when the Swedish teenage sisters popped up on YouTube singing Fleet Foxes's "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" smack dab in the middle of the forest. Four years later, and we realize that these sisters still love Fleet Foxes AND barren forests. But even though they're four years older (funny how that works), they still show their youth on "Emmylou", a song that packs in [...]
Justin Townes Earle, "Harlem River Blues" find it on Harlem River Blues (2010) I was never a Steve Earle fan. His music always struck me as self-conscious as his politics, with every moment too carefully considered and dropped on you with a huge expectation that you're supposed to respond to it in a certain way . Not so with his son, Justin Townes Earle, who made a fantastic record a couple of years ago that is [...]
Tanlines, "Brothers" Is it just me or has the internet had a lot of fun things to offer this week? It seems like every few hours, there's some great link to a funny or horrifying story. 2012 seems to be picking up. With all the quality the internet was offering, it's sort of surprising/no wonder that I perked up when I saw a new song by Tanlines, a band I'd never really thought about twice before and didn't have any of their music. But it was one of [...]
My Morning Jacket, "Outta My System" find it on Circuital I have to say, it's pretty refreshing to have someone look back on their life of crime and drug abuse gladly. I mean, I'm not endorsing it, but there's something kind of ridiculous about people like, say, Motley Crue talking about how insane and fun their lives of debauchery were and then telling people not do it. But on "Outta My System", a song that sounds a little bit like the Beach Boys when they first wake up [...]
Frente!, trailblazers in annoyingly punctuated band names, were best known for their beautiful, fragile cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle", and had a lot of chart success in their native Australia and indie success in the US with the album that followed up that single, Marvin The Album . But as much as I loved that cover, the full album was unimpressive, a product of thinking too much in a fancy studio. Instead, seek out the Labour Of Love EP. It features both the hit New Order cover and the song "Labour of Love", but instead [...]
Los Campesinos!, "By Your Hand" find it on Hello Sadness (2011) It's a stressful time for us music obsessives. The end of the year means a sudden panic of trying to catch up with the music of the last year before the next year's new releases start flowing in. And while most of what I've caught up on has confirmed that 2011 was a less-than-stellar year, there've been a few moments of "where the hell was I on THIS one?!" Exhibit A right above. [...]
2011 was a real chicken-and-egg kind of year in music. Was there really less amazing music or did everything sound a little duller because it was a difficult year for me personally? Was there less sonically interesting music in 2011 or was it because I cut way back on listening to music with headphones? Was there less originality or is it because we're so bombarded with music all the time that it just takes so much more to cut through the sheer volume? While it may have been for personal reasons, it did seem as though 2011 was [...]
Lana Del Rey, "Video Games" find it on Born To Die Remember the episode in Parks and Recreation where Leslie gives Ann a bunch of books to research and includes Jonathan Franzen's Freedom only because "I'm dying to talk to someone about Patty"? That's kind of how I feel about "Video Games". It's a song that's been floating around for a good long time now, but it's only recently gotten in my head and not gotten out of it, and it's been a [...]
My guesses about the future are almost always wrong, and here's one of them: I always thought that digital music would lead to big changes in how albums were constructed. I figured that bands that stuck to a pop or rock sound would go mostly with singles and more frequent, smaller releases, and that full albums would be longer, would be either more conceptual or spottier (the 'great singles with filler' albums) and be a wide variation of musical styles. But 2011 has produced a bunch of fantastic albums that are none of those things. They stick to [...]
AlunaGeorge, "You Know You Like It" find it on You Know You Like It (2011) Okay. Now this is more like it. Dubstep with a purpose, neosoul that's really just neo, and top-shelf, quality pop without the unnecessary sugar. There's at least four solid hooks in here, and while the vocals verge dangerously close to babydoll, there's a Harriet Wheeler (of The Sundays) quality to Aluna Francis' melodies that makes it play a little dreamier than the pop that it aspires to. A sudden, awesome find.
With a simple doorbell begins the album From A to B by New Musik . Something so familiar but incredibly listenable, danceable, singalong-able. Why haven't I heard this before? The glorious-but-lamentable discovery of something that existed all this time: a secret, just waiting to be found. Something that could make you so happy, something that could quite possibly change your life. And there it was. Just waiting. Secret music. A secret to the world, a secret to you. Or maybe just to you. Perhaps someone knew, and of course they did, because that's how it got to you. [...]
Stevie Jackson, "Just, Just So To The Point" get it on (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson (2011) Pity poor Stevie Jackson. Sure he lives the life of a globe-trotting rock star, but he's always been in the shadow of Belle & Sebastian's primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch, one of the best and most beloved songwriters of the last couple decades. While Murdoch has turned his love of the 60s into something unique and modern, Jackson never seems to be able to move beyond 60s and 70s pastiche. While [...]
Florence + The Machine, "Shake it Out" get it on Ceremonials Every now and then, a band comes along that makes you use the phrase "every now and then, a band comes along". Florence + the Machine (does anyone know the sum of that equation? I'm bad at math) is one of those bands, but not in the way that they're some bright signal of a new, brave music, but instead, are a band like Coldplay: one that succeeds in spite of it's negatives. [...]
Megafaun, "You Are The Light" get it on Megafaun (2011) Things I'm a sucker for that are present in this song: Horn swells. In fact, if I was to start up a band, I'd probably call it Horn Swells. You can use it on your own band, but only if you're really awesome. A hymn feel. This is likely the name of the debut album by Horn Swells. [...]
The Go! Team, "Buy Nothing Day (feat. Bethany Cosentino)" find it on Rolling Blackouts I slept really hard on this new Go! Team record. It was put out in January, but I just never bothered picking it up for some reason. Okay, so Proof of Youth didn't really do much for me, but Thunder, Lightning, Strike was a fantastic album, with tracks like "Huddle Formation" and "The Power Is On" pumping me up like I was a little kid on a school [...]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, I cut a morning class with my college roommate Scott and my friend Molly, went across the street and bought a copy of Achtung Baby , came back to the dorm, ordered a pizza and took in the album from beginning to end. I was deeply disappointed. The Joshua Tree was the focal point of my high school rock star dreams, with the live version of "Where The Streets Have No Name" from Rattle and Hum being the live version of said dreams, and [...]
Friend, are you one of those people that hates Facebook like you hate your own brother? You're ready to give it up entirely for something that is Facebook but is not Facebook ? Want to get updates from your favorite music blog (whichever music blog that might be), but all 50 billion (approximate) of the current social sharing tools leave you feeling cold and alone? If so, then you're on the purportedly revolutionary new service from the scrappy startup company with the crazy, it'll-never-be-successful name "Google" that they've revolutionarily named Google+. And you know what? So are [...]
Naive Harmonies
Watch: Trailer for Dave Grohl’s documentary, Sound City
Childish Gambino - "Heartbeat" (Official Music Video)
First Aid Kit – Emmylou
Hardwell Bootleg Pack 2012
Circo Voador anuncia shows de The Kooks, Foster The People, Friendly Fires, Gogol Bordello e mais
