If new bands hope to make a splash when they launch, then you can consider this band mid-dive right now, as we build up to their official promotion later this week. We reached out to the band having discovered them on our good friends at the awesome Killing Moon music blog (credit where it's due, right). The article they'd posted earned the band an appearance on the Music Robot , a specialist UK-only blog aggregator, which allows the public to vote for the track and give it a place in their chart. What followed was a surge [...]
When The Recommender discovers a new artist the first thing we do is try and contact them or their label/management to try and uncover some context and ultimately understand them more. It allows us to deliver you a more complete recommendation, rather than just stating " here's a song, hope you like it ". With today's discovery we were so bowled over that we immediately reached out to them, but at that same time we still hadn't quite got back up onto our feet, as the bowling balls this artist was throwing around were explosive. It meant our initial email [...]
With so many of the modern era's producers often creating their music on computers in their bedrooms we've had a dramatic increase in DIY solo artists that have developed their sound in tandem with the evolution in new technology. Programs such as Ableton and the like have enabled and empowered people, giving them a virtually limitless ability to create - mostly electronic - compositions. The only boundaries that now remain for musicians are their imaginations, and with today's recommendation we have a mind so open and inspired that once it was paired with his geeky love of technology and contemporary [...]
There's been a handful of recent articles cropping up online regarding 'the death of the music blog'. We believe that commentaries such as these are not just dangerous, but plain wrong, and if enough influential voices continue with these bold statements then they'll make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of them. It may be somewhat self-serving and subjective in the extreme, but before they knock the wind entirely from a music blogger's sails, we'd like to provide something of a clarifying argument. With all the changes that have been going on and with all the new online music services that have [...]
The Recommender regularly gets asked if we've ever considered setting up a record label. People enquire because plenty of other music blogs and sites have done exactly that, with The Line Of Best Fit 's label Best Fit Recordings , or Killing Moon Limited 's own singles label proving to be good examples. The key elements to signing hot new acts is that sites like ours are in a great position for discovering emerging music. If we are first to someone particularly talented then why not sign them up and enjoy what spins off from their meteoric [...]
We get sent a lot of music. All bloggers do. Most of it is utter rubbish, or entirely inappropriate for our tastes, but on the odd occasion something aligns perfectly with our quality controls and it gets on The Recommender. The majority of those that get on are of a very high standard, but, even though we have loved their music enough to enter them upon this blog's picky pages, not every artist is entirely resetting the bar. After all, just hitting the high standards is enough to get us excited, but every now and again we discover an artist [...]
We don't care who you are, you are all capable of shedding a tear or two. It doesn't matter if you're 6ft7, covered in tattoos and just out of prison, you're still prone to a weep when the moment is right. It's because we all have a heart, we are all fitted with the full range of emotions, so no matter what a person's shell looks like, they're still human. These personal emotions are directly connected to an irresistible note that's found inside us all, which all the best musicians know is played upon our heartstrings, so when it's reached [...]
You could argue that the talent for song-writing isn't in your ability to tinker with the ivories, to pluck strings in intricate sequences, or to sing like an angel, no no no. The real talent is usually found in the musician's imagination. What creative, fresh designs can you think up? That's what musicians should be asking themselves, bugger the instruments. It's not like James Murphy (overlord of all things LCD Soundsystem) can actually sing particularly well now is it? Yet he's written a number of seminal songs that will stand the test of time. Nirvana made [...]
This sort of whimsical pop rock is often rejected by the cool hunters and tastemakers, as nobody wants to back an average horse. Just look at how They Might Be Giants racked up commercial success before the more edgy genre of grunge blew them back into a quieter existence. Bands such as Fountains Of Wayne or Roachford once had big hits, but they were eventually run over; an occupational hazard if you stand yourself in the middle of the road. Mike & The Mechanics and Hothouse Flowers gained support from [...]
We tend to write about bands that are still at the formative stages of their careers, often still found carving out their sound. Occasionally we notice that what they're cooking up isn't quite ready, yet we allow you to share a sneaky taste as the band step out into the light for the first time. Today's recommendation is a good example of this, but it's not that they aren't ready, or that they aren't accomplished musicians, it is in fact more that we're not convinced they know which path to take with regards to their overall sound. Emerging music is [...]
Right now indie rock is about as fashionable as a Razorlight press photo. Muse just pissed everyone off with their faint attempt at dubstepping their way out of a rock corner with their latest single. They'd gotten away with oversized grandeur up to this point, but the recent album teaser was the perfect example of how to disappear up your own black hole. As you know, we operate in the world of emerging music, so when you hold up successful indie rock bands of the recent past, such as the Arctic Monkeys , [...]
We don't suggest for one moment that The Recommender is 100% successful in trying to deliver music that you've never heard of. That would be somewhat trite and over-confident of us, but we do try and stick to the early stuff, only focusing on artist's debut singles, EPs and albums, as there's not much point recommending material that people are already aware of. We want to work with emerging music and emerging artists, to help lift them into the gaze of a new audience. We were recently sent an email about an Australian band that we'd never heard of [...]
Some music constantly feels like it is about to tumble down and fall apart throughout each song. Consider the early Seattle bands of the late 80s and you get that slacker indie rock that's so flaccid its incredible that any actual melody can stand upon it at all. Well today's recommendation appears to channel that same era of guitar music but they too show off the deft skills required to maintain a song whilst it's in constant threat of tumbling down. It's like finding beauty in a derelict building that looks like it shouldn't be standing up at all. This [...]
What is the single most distinctive element to a band's sound? Which instrument dominates? Which part of a group's sound would you miss most were it to be removed? Led Zeppelin knew they couldn't sound as good after their drummer Jon Bonham died, but was there a noticeable omission once the drummer had changed in their more recent one-off live performances? What about the guitars? Were Oasis as powerful after Noel had departed? They may not have written the same towering singles as they did in their early days, but if you closed your eyes whilst Gem [...]
Tony Marks hosts his New Music Show on Juice Radio , the largest independent station in our home city of Brighton, where he delivers contemporary releases on four shows each week. Once a month Tony generously allows us to deliver The Recommender in a completely different way to a new audience via his busy airwaves. You can find all of the past shows that we've appeared on at this link . Below we have the last two shows from June and July. As always, among our meandering rambles, we tried to deliver a broad, fearless range of awesome [...]
Some people have already called it a ' Blog Station ", others have labelled it a " Selective Collective ". Both monikers feel about right and kinda suit it, but either way there's no denying the increasing buzz that has arrived following today's long-awaited launch of a new music discovery service, called Music Robot . To explain, Music Robot is a new online music chart, voted for by the public, but based on the artists that the UK's established music blogs are covering. If one of the 18 taste-maker blogs writes up an [...]
Sometimes the online hunt for new music becomes something akin to those geeks you see aimlessly wondering the beaches with metal detectors. A blogger's trawl around the Internet looking for awesome tuneage is often a lonely, slow process, as we go 'SoundClouding' or 'Bandcamping' for hours at a time. OK, so it's not quite as weird as metal detecting but you would imagine an afternoon on the hunt is regularly just as fruitless. So why do we do it? Why waste the time? Why sift through hours of god-awful music time and again? Well, even though there is undoubtedly lots and [...]
This week The Descrier was launched. It is an endeavour created by fellow music blogger, Tim Dickinson, (of The Blue Walrus fame). He is well known for running one of the UK's best-established, independent music blogs and his passion for independent voices and quality content has led him to found The Descrier. We've been in touch with Tim and he's described The Descrier as " a curated newspaper for the digital age ". Basically, he hunts around the web sourcing the best content from independent voices online. He curates the most thought-provoking articles around, covering everything [...]
These days if you write stadium-sized anthemic guitar music you will most likely be ridiculed in the UK, none more enthusiastically than by music bloggers. Shelve your sound under the term 'indie rock' and the knives will be out before you even begin, as the key-holders to cool, from the established music publications, to the specialist radio shows, to the taste-maker bloggers, will be attacking your every-man appeal. It seems that by writing timeless tunes you will immediately block any chance of your band being attached to any contemporary movement, or underground scene, as your songs transcend any sense of [...]
As Bill Hicks quite rightly proclaimed , " if you don't believe that drugs did anything good for us, do me one small favour; go home tonight OK, take all your albums and tapes and burn them, because you know all those musicians that have enhanced your lives throughout the years? Well, they were real fucking high on drugs ". Today's recommendation wallow in a genre that sounds like the musical embodiment of being stoned. Sadly though this genre is more often awash with time wasters. Lots of these protagonists utilise common elements, often associated with the genre fantastically [...]
THE RECOMMENDER
Boards of Canada – Reach For The Dead
L D R U – The Tropics
Ace by @thebigsleepnyc #nowplaying
Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe Protein Punched by City Light, Magic Man and Smallpools
