Tagged: nameyourprice

Brett sent me a particularly enchanting email a few days ago, and I honestly went straight to download their 'Dancer' EP. Upon my first listen I got confirmation of the description of the bands' sound he gave me: " party mystics making ecstatic synth pop music ". Teen Commandments are a Brooklyn synth-pop band with quite some cachet. Think of Depeche Mode's 'Personnal Jesus' thrown at ease with easy sounding synths into 2013 and the lyrical edge of Joy Division, albeit with a little positiveness infused, a tad happier. The band launched last summer [...]

• Teen Commandments - Dancer
• Teen Commandments - Photograph at the Louvre
• Teen Commandments - Soft Pull (In a Hotel Room)

I was longing some chirpy/happy sounds today. It's amazingly cold out in Paris (France) at the moment, and warm interiors make for a dull weather low, need to kick-back... Add 'Paperhearts" to your winter playlist and warm your soul a little. It's sounds you can play and singalong to. Much happier than Plaid Dragon for instance. The music of The Airplanes is written and recorded by Joshua Vest, a songwriter in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Yes, another band from the States. The Airplanes ' self-titled EP features a collection of noisy, melodic pop songs. Vest is currently [...]

• Peterbär - Speleolab..

Yesterday, Bandcamp launched their brilliant Fan Accounts. I wrote a large amount of words on it...

It's probably got something to do with womens' gymnastics, but Greyhound Out Of Mainline and Matthew Collings have returned to the Mancave . The last we heard from them was Big In Mogadishu (broken down into two parts, apparently, the latter of which is something called Mogadishuier ). The title is Dance Of The Mancavettes (pure perfection). So far the standout track (tracks?!) is "Ten Hundred Days," the sensatory likeness of Collings grabbing up sheets of Winford's perfectly usable guitar and crumpling them into paper wads, for [...]

For those readers who think electronic music is a racket, you might stop reading now. To wit: Indian Wells , the Italian "tennistronic" outfit, whose roster lists Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, and Andrè Agassi, among many others. Within ten seconds of album opener "Wimbledon 19803 you'll see what they're up to: tennis ball percussion, commentary samples, well-mannered applause, and a touch of synthesizer for flavor. The title track creates a glitchy net of loops, underspins and volleys. Our favorite service is "Deuce." Slower, murkier, best of three. Game point. Artist [...]

The first half-minute, indeed the first ten seconds set the terms. This whitewashed chorus is the sound of inner dissonance, nothing really to do with the external world of instruments or processing. This is a place of quiet disorder, of serotonin failure. It is a relief when the mournful cello joins the slight vocals. Rapturous when the sharp cracks of snare drum part the ether and echoes and unbalance. The song is named "Badger" and it opens the ravishing EP Future Nostalgia for sale , from Edinburgh-based three-piece Hiva Oa. "Badger" and [...]

One of our most frequently-revisited songs from 2009 is "02," track #6 from the fydhws release Impresii . The artist behind fydhws identifies himself only as "R" and the song truly is a six-minute continent, with all that this implies. Not just performed. Composed. In August we concluded : "It’s difficult to remember a hard rock project so fiercely independent, one so tirelessly devoted to discovery." Today R writes in about a new project: Temi I Idei (or "Themes and Ideas," and the Bandcamp site presents the name in Cyrillic). [...]

Black Swan is back in the news: a one-track collaboration with Dennis Huddleston's alias 36. It's lush, ringing, and over far too soon. Both artists are referring to this as a one-off, but let's hope they reconsider. Stream below. Black Swan links: home | facebook | bandcamp | stable | last.fm 36 links: home | bandcamp | facebook | twitter | soundcloud | last.fm Mist by Black Swan & 36

"Critics who expect you to write the same album over and over again are also fun." We're getting ready to ask you a favor, the financial kind. But first, an explanation: there is no question. This has been the high point for me, our one-take, R-rated interview with Darcy Rego of The Meligrove Band . Before that, I had blogged anonymously for years, and submitted some awful fiction to some unsuspecting periodicals. The Muse In Music was only a notion until January 2009, but by October 2010 it was a fully-forged [...]

"Critics who expect you to write the same album over and over again are also fun." We're getting ready to ask you a favor, the financial kind. But first, an explanation: there is no question. This has been the high point for me, our one-take, R-rated interview with Darcy Rego of The Meligrove Band . Before that, I had blogged anonymously for years, and submitted some awful fiction to some unsuspecting periodicals. The Muse In Music was only a notion until January 2009, but by October 2010 it was a fully-forged [...]

"Critics who expect you to write the same album over and over again are also fun." We're getting ready to ask you a favor, the financial kind. But first, an explanation: there is no question. This has been the high point for me, our one-take, R-rated interview with Darcy Rego of The Meligrove Band . Before that, I had blogged anonymously for years, and submitted some awful fiction to some unsuspecting periodicals. The Muse In Music was only a notion until January 2009, but by October 2010 it was a fully-forged [...]

"Critics who expect you to write the same album over and over again are also fun." We're getting ready to ask you a favor, the financial kind. But first, an explanation: there is no question. This has been the high point for me, our one-take, R-rated interview with Darcy Rego of The Meligrove Band . Before that, I had blogged anonymously for years, and submitted some awful fiction to some unsuspecting periodicals. The Muse In Music was only a notion until January 2009, but by October 2010 it was a fully-forged [...]

Monster Rally - Surf Erie A name your price download is available on Bandcamp … 17 Tracks of joy.

( email | facebook | twitter ) With track names like "Caravan" and "Silk Road," the reader is already piecing together an abstract of the first half: restless, ornate, eastern in scent. That guess will get you pretty close, although there is a strong electronic pulse, here, too: a whimsical side that offers a Tenori-On riff in the same breath as a tabla drum beat. But more remarkable is the project's ability to shed old skin so unceremoniously. Northern (January 2011) [...]

( email | facebook | twitter ) If you don't have a quixotic fixation with Leeds, England by now, you just haven't been paying attention. So this is a good chance to cram before the mid-term: six tracks, all excellent, including a rehearsal recording. "Into the West" was the present correspondent's number two track for 2011. "Pour More Oil" scored Patrick's top slot. This is what industry jargonists refer to as one helluva offer . Stream here, or name [...]

Foxwarren are a relatively new band based out of the tid-bit-nipply, Regina, Saskatchewan.  The guys are group of four best friends who decided to make music.  Their album, Has Been Defeated , came out last month and is available on Bandcamp for "name your price."  They plan on recording a new album this summer and have it out by the end of the year. Foxwarren - Your Small Town ( bandcamp | myspace | facebook )

• Foxwarren - Your Small Town

( email | facebook | linkedin ) Rarely does an album defy both its predecessor and its own copy so boldly. By this measure, Mirador's Northern EP is our first puzzle of the new year. We met them after the release of their Verdant EP (October 2010). The word mirador is Spanish for balcony, or belvedere, and indeed, Verdant commands a wide view from an enviable perch. As we wrote of “Dance of the [...]

( email | facebook | linkedin ) From the first moments of soundcheck, it was clear this would be something different, transcendent, very nearly magical. An audience of about 40 braved the road construction, mud, a precarious u-turn, and some pretty lousy parking to see Chuck E. Costa ( Mon Monarch ) and Bill Buckenroth ( Gobhi ) make various stops along Costa's deeply personal discography. Set in a North Texas living room against a fireplace and a backdrop of family [...]

( email | facebook | linkedin ) We get email. To wit, New York-based fivesome The Republic of Wolves . (What? How else should all the lambs decide on what's for dinner? Put it to vote!) They're announcing their January 1, 2011 EP, The Cartographer , and regular readers will know that this column has had great success with New Years Day releases in the past . Stream it right here. It has a precise, harder-edge-of-indie [...]

( email | facebook | linkedin ) Are we imagining things, or is the DIY music scene trying on something that fits rather like a golden age? To wit, Scott French, who plays drums and synthesizer for Philadelphia-based alt-pop ensemble The Swimmers . December 5 saw the MP3 release of his solo album, The Color Code . Recording as "napostrophet" - or the much more pronounceable "N'T" - his solo material is a fair departure from his collaborative efforts, recalling that fateful week in [...]