Blog: Indie Music Finds

Pretty old news by now seeing as it was first uploaded well over a year ago but this track/video/rap/monologue by Kool A.D. (formerly of Das Racist fame) deserves some serious appreciation. Unbelievably it currently has just 42,000 views on Youtube meaning that most Kool A.D. and Das Racist fans haven't even heard it yet. Why have I waited till now to post it? Well like lots of other Kool A.D. fans, I was quite dismayed that this nigh-on 10 minute freestyle wasn't included in either the 51, 63 or 19 mixtapes nor released as a stand alone track. [...]

A revisit from imagineIAM who we featured briefly back in 2009 , Chad Faulk is back with a 5 track EP accompanied by his band as they reinterpret his unique, manic percussive solo style. There's a fascinating blend of styles in this EP as Chad's self taught approach to percussion and composing met with Carolyn Scalfano's classical pianist background who helped carry his unclassifiable personal style to its full potential in a 5 piece band. The song Exacto Kiss is back from his earlier release  Merry Go Round  in a reformatted full band version with even more drive and [...]

SchnAAk are one of the most interesting acts I've come across for a while. The duo from Berlin, Josen Döpping and Mathias Jähnig, create an extraordinary infusion of math rock, jazz and analogue electro that is laid out in a kind of ordered chaos. Their music is largely instrumental and has evolved dramatically since their previous releases: 'women on ships are bad luck' a 5 track EP recorded live back in 2009 and their 2011 full length album 'Wake up Colossus'. There's a stronger emphasis on electronic music in the Cool Drink Town EP [...]

Silent Rider, a downtempo producer from Brooklyn has recently released two Radiohead remixes. Both the tracks, Nude and Reckoner are taken from Radiohead's 2007 album 'In Rainbows'. Silent Rider has been featured on Indie Music Finds previously with the video to his track  I Was a Bomb  last year. The Radiohead Remixes are being given away as free downloads through Silent Rider's Soundcloud (see above) and through Silent Rider's own website here .

• Silent Rider - The Radiohead Remixes

Last Friday saw the release of O-Zi's debut solo EP, 'Rus Li', an eight track collection that features some extraordinary album artwork by Vivian Ho. Rus Li opens with 'Intro - Million Man', a track that seems to go at a million miles an hour before slowing down to create a more lucid listing experience more reminiscent of his earlier work with Blue Belt, a Brooklyn based indie hip hop collective of which O-Zi was the founding member. Rus Li is generously offered as a free download at 320kbps through the Blue Belt bandcamp [...]

Sigur Rós have recently announced details about their sixth studio album Valtari. You can listen to the first track to be released from Valtari, Ekki Múkk in the embedded Vimeo video below. Ekki Múkk loosely translates into english as 'Not Seagull'. "i really can’t remember why we started this record, i no longer know what we were trying to do back then. i do know session after session went pear-shaped, we lost focus and almost gave up...did give up for a while. but then something happened and form started to emerge, and now i [...]

Taken from their upcoming album Part & Parcel, Ratatat is a blinding track accompanied by a masterfully shot, black and white video. The Skints seamlessly blend ska, spoken word, rock and dub to create a tight infusion that'll blow you away. The Skints new album Part & Parcel has been funded through a pledge scheme in which it has already raised 155% of the required amount. It's set for release on the 12th of March 2012 and signed copies are still available to pre-order on Play.com for just £8.99. It's also well worth checking out their [...]

The lineup to the Coachella 2012 music festival has recently been announced and boy, this year's festival is definitely not one to miss. Officially known as The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Coachella is held in Indio, California each year and has been since 1999. 75,000 people are expected to attend the festival this year with 3 day passes. Coachella 2012 is for the first time being held over two weekends during April from the 13th to 15th as well as between the 20th and the 22nd to deal with high demand in previous years. Luckily [...]

Advances In Mathematics, a damn fine instrumental band from Manchester, have just released Sad Xmas Present. Their sound is characterised by lucid guitar licks underpinned by shuffled jazz drumming that results in a unique listening experience. Sad Xmas Present has been described as an EP despite containing just two tracks: Borders which is so called as the chord progression 'borders' on being a country song and Sad Xmas Present which was in fact a tremolo guitar pedal band member Ben received 4 years ago. Being an instrumental band, the naming of songs can be a bit indirect and somewhat haphazard. [...]

Advances In Mathematics, a damn fine instrumental band from Manchester, have just released Sad Xmas Present. Their sound is characterised by lucid guitar licks underpinned by shuffled jazz drumming that results in a unique listening experience. Sad Xmas Present has been described as an EP despite containing just two tracks: Borders which is so called as the chord progression 'borders' on being a country song and Sad Xmas Present which was in fact a tremolo guitar pedal band member Ben received 4 years ago. Being an instrumental band, the naming of songs can be a bit [...]

Jónsi, the singer of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós has recently written the score for the film 'We Bought A Zoo'. The soundtrack to the film contains two original songs by Jónsi, Ævin Endar and Gathering Stories which you can listen to now on Jónsi's site . We Bought A Zoo stars Matt Damon alongside Scarlett Johansson and is about a family that use their life savings to buy a rundown zoo in the English countryside. The film was directed by Cameron Crowe, the same man behind Almost Famous as well as Vanilla Sky (which also featured the [...]

As mentioned previously, The Black Atlantic are preparing to release their new EP Darkling, I Listen . The EP won't officially be released until the 13th of January 2012 but The Black Atlantic have made the entire EP available to stream online for free from now onwards. The track listing for the EP is 1. The Aftermath (Of This Unfortunate Event) 2. The Flooded Road (Built on Sand) 3. Darkling, I Listen 4. An Archer, A Dancer 5. Quiet, Humble Man and you can listen to it through the SoundCloud widget below. Darkling, I Listen can be [...]

When Roger Waters embarked on his Dark Side of the Moon tour back in 2006, a new era in album tributes was born. Those who attended the Dark Side concerts remember a startling visual accompaniment to Waters' awesome band and their massive sound. Now, in 2012, tickets to Roger Waters The Wall tour are selling out fast as Floyd fans and others clamor to be amazed all over again. The Wall tour revives the iconic 1979 Pink Floyd album of the same name. It is the fragmented history of a rock star named Pink. Pink suffers [...]

Discovr Music is an iPhone and Mac OS X application to help you find new music. It works in a similar way to last.fm but instead of listing similar music acts, it displays suggestions graphically in interconnected webs. There is also a version to show similar iPhone apps called Discovr Apps. There are some negatives to this application though. It's only available on the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS X 10.6 or later which means Windows or non-iPhone users can't use this resource at all. It's not a [...]

Goodluck Jonathan new single 'The Futures Got No Love For Us' is out on the 28th of November ahead of their second album that's set to be released in 2012 through Something Nothing Records. It's a bit of a challenge to find more about Goodluck Jonathan online as they decided to use the same name as the current president of Nigeria. Goodluck Jonathan offer a great varied and textured sound that although being vaguely similar to Bloc Party, also contains a lot of originality. While I'm a big fan of this song, it has a really [...]

Le Internet medley genius song/video produced by the Israeli rocker The GAG Quartet. It's an incredibly tight and well produced video with some hilarious, and often quite subtle, meme references throughout. Le Internet Medley has been on youtube for just 9 days now and has already racked up over 5.5 million views. As far as I can make out, the medley goes: Nyan Cat, Ievan Polkka (Leek Spin), Keyboard Cat, Trololo, Chacarron Macarron, Numa Numa, Rebecca Black's Friday, Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, Chocolate Rain and then back to Nyan Cat. There's allegedly 40 memes in [...]

Inni, the next instalment to Sigur Rós' now lengthy discography is finally here. It's the band's first truly live album and the second live film after Heima (2007), and is quite simply amazing. Inni, which literally translates from icelandic to english as "inside", is thought of as the opposite of Heima by the band. Whereas Heima was all about Sigur Rós themselves in their homeland of Iceland, Inni aimed for a raw approach showing nothing but the band performing and trying to give the viewer the experience of actually being there. They even performed as just a four man band [...]

cloudeater are a pretty extraordinary band out of Atlanta, Georgia and with the release of their debut full length album 'Sun and Sidearm' in September, the band have put together this video for 'Hardly Wait', the 3rd song on the album. Their sound often feels like a hybrid between the panicky, hectic rhythms of some of Thom Yorke's solo stuff and the brooding atmosphere of Massive Attack. cloudeater's music also features some intense stormy buildups, just have a look at some of the wave shapes of the tracks below and see the kind of dynamics these guys put [...]

• cloudeater - Sun and Sidearm

After the success of The Black Atlantic's 2009 album Reverence for Fallen Trees , the band are preparing to release their EP entitled 'Darling I Listen'. The Flooded Road is the first single to be released from this EP and really shows a certain progression in The Black Atlantic's sound since 2009. The Black Atlantic has planned to release the EP today but due to delays in the mixing process it won't be officially released until the Eurosonic musical festival on January the 13th 2012. However, the full EP will be made available to [...]

• The Black Atlantic - The Flooded Road

“I’m With You”, the tenth studio album from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was released at the end of last month and hit number one in virtually all of the  national album charts . With Red Hot Chili Peppers Tour Dates already announced throughout Europe and another epic world tour planned, it’s going to be another busy period for the band. I’m With You sees John Klinghofer on guitar after Frusciante’s second departure from the band. This reshuffle gives I’m With You a slightly dirtier sound than previous albums with a healthy dose of crunch distortion on the [...]