Lone

Well i should've posted about Flying Lotus before i posted about Lone, since FlyLo is the American precursor to this British fellow. My slightly uninformed opinion is that Lone is like a cross between Flying Lotus and Phaseone, who you might remember from a previous blog. Oh, there's a slight Boards of Canada vibe with his mini in-between tracks too. I haven't blogged about Boards of Canada yet, since i've mainly been using this blog for new discoveries. Rest assured they're still my favorite Scottish electronic duo. There's too many of these talented hip-hopstrumentalists sprouting up all over the place. I love it! It's an exciting time for music i think...

Lone's myspace:
LONE

And while you're at it, check out his musical cousin Flying Lotus:
Flying Lotus


And if you're still bored, Boards of Canada has a myspace too...
BoC yall

Soulwax

Jesus, i don't know how i fell asleep on these guys. They're like the Belgian LCD Soundsystem, but they predate LCD, so i'm guessing he's more influenced by them than vice-versa.



Just downloaded their 06 and 04 albums and they're great.

You might have heard of their DJ alias, 2 Many DJ's, but Soulwax is their crazy electronic rock band (I hate the word electro with all my heart), and they're amazing. They've done remixes for everyone from Ladytron to DJ Shadow, to Daft Punk..

Check out their documentary on http://www.pitchfork.tv for one week only.

Passion Pit

New band from Cambridge, MA. Mainly the work of one guy.

Beautiful strong falsettos...would be lazy to compare to Prince i think. I'm lazy.

Wait, is it falsetto?? Its hard to tell when it gets that high!

Awesome songs nontheless.



http://www.myspace.com/passionpitjam

Clipse

My fave rap duo just released their newest mixtape.

To quote Prince Paul on the phone to the Biz, "Yo...yo it's ill."



Lil Wayne is nothing compared to these guys.

http://rapidshare.com/files/169283040/Clipse-Road_To_Till_The_Casket_Drops.rar

Dump

is the solo project of James McNew, bass player of Yo La Tengo.

It's warm and fuzzy indie rock, and i love it. It's all i listened to at work today.

In 2000, he put out an album of all prince covers called "That Skinny Mother Fucker with the High Voice?."

Your everyday Prince fans might not like it, since its not as hi-fi of a sound, but i think he definitely does the material justice.

Download it here if you want (don't forget the password, you'll need it when you extract the files):

That Skinny Mother Fucker With the High Voice?
password = p-l-m.blogspot.com

I've only been able to find one Dump video on the youtube...

here that is:


He also recorded a great cover of Why?'s YoYo Bye Bye...here that is:
Dump sings Yoyo Bye Bye

And here he is peforming the song with Why? You also get to hear Yoni quote Snoop Dogg when asked what song they're about to play. Hilarious.

Tone - Small Arm of the Sea

Artist name: Tone
Album title: Small Arm of the Sea



I found this Danish artist via an electronic music website called www.pitchmedia.com, (not to be confused with the popular indie music site www.pitchforkmedia.com). I had no idea i would enjoy her album, i was just happy to see she was giving it away for free. So the music itself is an eclectic blend of many styles of electronica to say the least, but I'm more drawn to her voice, which at times reminds me of one of the girls from Cocorosie,

and at other times, Erykah Badu.

I also hear traces of older female jazz singers, depending on how she sings/filters her voice. Her electronic skittering breakbeats are all very nice, but for me they're overshadowed by her ethereal voice.

Anyway, you can download her album from her page for free here:
www.tonetone.org
You can also donate money to her via the paypal link on her page if you wish. I think she's worth it. :)

Alarm Will Sound performs Aphex Twin

Copy pasted from their website (http://www.alarmwillsound.com):

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band committed to innovative performances and recordings of today's music. Former Musical Artists-in-Residence at Dickinson College, they have established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic virtuosity. Their performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the London Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times says Alarm Will Sound is "the future of classical music."

In their interpretations of Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James), they manage to organically reproduce (with traditional band and orchestra instruments) and perform every single drum hit and synth that were originally recorded by James himself, never to miss a beat. They even stay true to form when its time to shout: "Come on you cunt, let's have some Aphex acid!!!" If you're at all familiar with Aphex Twin's work (and go ahead and wikipedia him if you aren't), you'll know how insane an undertaking this must have been.

Their version of Avril 14th is somewhat unnecessary, since it was a solo piano in the first place, but everything else sounds very fresh and different, while remaining very faithful to the original recordings. I marvel at how much creativity they had in reproducing such a bizarre array of synthetic sounds.

Their merchandise page is hilarious...it's a Cafe Press page, and so it all looks horribly generic, especially the "Alarm Will Sound" thong underwear. I wonder if anyone has ever paid $8.99 for those.

You can stream the whole album at http://www.bleep.com

Beach House

are one of my favorite new bands, and the dreamiest and most soothing music I've heard in quite some time.

Their newest album, Devotion, is nearing the top of my list of albums of the year. #2, in fact.



Victoria Legrand's voice is hauntingly beautiful, and I love the combination of her organs with the guitars and minimal percussion.

Record available via http://www.carparkrecords.com/shopUSA.htm

Here they are performing their new single, Used to Be, as well as a little T.L.C.



Had the pleasure of seeing them at Solar Culture, and they were absolutely sublime.

Christopher Willits

Another solo electronic artist, i first heard of him through http://www.bleep.com, one of the coolest paysites for digital downloads. You're not gonna find a better website for legally purchasing obscure cutting edge electronica. Fuck iTunes!!!

This video/song is too pretty not to post. Even if i just posted about Max Tundra 5 minutes ago. From his 2006 album, Surf Boundaries:

Don't you dare not full-screen the shit out of this.



I wanna melt into this video.

Seriously, i think this is the most amazing video of all time.

Max Tundra

I honestly don't know where to start with this artist. Max Tundra (ie Ben Jacobs), has a notorious reputation for being a total perfectionist, and i'd say it shows with his new album, Parallax Error Beheads You. But for someone who is a perfectionist, this guy makes the quirkiest bizarre pop music I've heard in quite some time. Sometimes quirkiness is not a positive, but this guy totally owns his quirkiness. Its very electronic oriented, but I couldn't really genre file it if i had to. I haven't listened too in depth yet, but so far its very promising!

Check out his website, he's got tons of cool photos that i'm guessing he took himself.



And this is his new video:


Funny story about this video, when i first saw it, i had accidentally opened it up in a new window, and so it was playing, unbeknownst to me, on top of itself, but in a way that it synced up, tempo-wise. So I thought it was the craziest most out-there bizarre thing i ever heard. Which, really, wasn't that far off. :)

Most absurdly long album title of the year...

This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

by Marnie Stern



I'm not too familiar with her music, but i'm listening to Marnie on her myspace page right now, and she's pretty damn interesting. Almost Animal Collective-esque in its zany off the wall energy. It sounds as if she's a virtuoso on the guitar. Kind of like one of her influences, Khaki King, another female guitarist, who happens to be coming to Congress this Weds.

Album titles are great. And the longer the better if you ask me. There's nothing quite as fun and flustering as coming up with a last minute album title. I have little to no respect for bands/artists that give up and go the self-titled route. That being said, here are some of my favorite long album titles.

My other choices for absurdly long album titles:
He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms
- Silver Mount Zion
When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He'll Win The Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters The Ring There's No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right.
- Fiona Apple
now that my tv has wings i'll never be lonely - ...music video?
"This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing
- The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
- Godspeed! You Black Emperor -

Making postrock album titles looks so fun...

So those are the super-long ones. Is there any album title longer than Fiona's?

Now for ones that I just think are really good:
And then nothing turned itself inside out (Yo La Tengo)
We Should have never lived like we were skyscrapers (Chin Up Chin Up)
Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward (A Silver Mount Zion)
Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel (Atlas Sound)
From Here We Go Sublime (The Field)
Shut Up I Am Dreaming (Sunset Rubdown)
Pinkshinyultrablast (Astrobrite)
( ) (Sigur Ros)
The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? (The Unicorns)
I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too (Martha Wainwright)

(also my choice for most sexy album cover of the year)

Hymie's Basement

Way back in 2003, back when The Postal Service were as indie as i got, two of my current (2008 current) favorite indie musicians got together and formed what I'm calling a 'Super-Duo' called Hymie's Basement. Andrew Broder of Fog, and Yoni Wolf of Why?. I didn't realize until recently that Andy Broder was one half of this group. I must not have been listening closely. Their styles compliment each other perfectly, and I think they actually do have pretty similar voices (which would explain why I thought it was just Yoni). The music is pretty somber in tone, which isn't a great departure for either musician, but it's also more minimal than Fog or Why?. I tend to like Why's music more than Fog's, but I feel like the music on this album leans more to the Fog side of the coin. It also seems like Yoni is handling most of the vocals. I really love it when they sing together, because their voices blend like two singers that have possibly been rubbing off on each other.

Here is the full album of Hymie's Basement, download before it gets taken down:
http://www.mediafire.com/?q0qzlklxjze

William Basinski

makes some of the saddest music ever. I use it to lull myself to sleep. Is that sad? I'd genre-file it under 'experimental ambient drone.' Right next to all my other experimental ambient drone music. Ha.

Try the Disintegration Loops I-IV. There's a whole story behind this that i'll probably get somewhat wrong, but as legend has it: Basinski, possibly unbeknownst to him, stored some tapes-loops for years in a not-so-safe place, possibly forgot about them, and then a few years back, he recorded them as they looped on a reel and they proceeded to disintegrate over an hours time, their sound getting more ghostly and broken over the course of each tape loops' recording. The collection is 4 discs long.

Here is the story according to its review from Pitchforkmedia:

During the summer of 2001, Basinski set about transferring a series of 20-year-old tape loops he'd had in storage to a digital file format, and was startled when this act of preservation began to devour the tapes he was saving. As they played, flakes of magnetic material were scraped away by the reader head, wiping out portions of the music and changing the character and sound of the loops as they progressed, the recording process playing an inadvertent witness to the destruction of Basinski's old music.

You can't make that stuff up...or can you?? Either way, i want to, nay, have to believe its the truth.

Not to get too deep on ya, but the music itself is kind of like an aural metaphor for a life (and death) of something (not necessarily a human): full of color and intensity during its beginning stages, but gradually becoming more soft and broken, until nothing is left but a ghostly shell of what once was.



At the 1:17 mark of this video is Disintegration Loop Disc 2, Track 2. One of my favorites. That's William Basinski sitting in front of his laptop, watching the playback in front of a live audience. Talk about minimalist performance. His hair is awesome.

Kinda like this guy in that movie...

Why?

are my new favorite band. Maybe i should've said, "is my new favorite band." People actually debate this on the internet. But since there are three contributing musicians, i went with 'are.'

Anyway, hailing from Oakland, they're now officially a 3 piece who tours as a 4 piece. The guy on the left is Jonathan 'Yoni' Wolf (originally from Berkeley), who is the songwriter and lead singer of the group. His brother, Josiah Wolf, is on the right, and he plays drums and various other instruments. Sometimes he plays the xylophone and the drums at the same time. Wowzers. Stop it Inspector Gadget, this is my blog. Anyway, Yoni's lyrics can be very introspective and personal, and are almost always open for interpretation. Their music, complete with glockenspiels, vibes, pianos, organs and guitars, is a perfectly layered match for his lyrical quirkiness. Their genre placement would most easily fall somewhere between indie and hip hop. I suppose then, that its also worth noting that they're on the experimental hip-hop record label, Anticon. The band's newest album, Alopecia, came out earlier this year, and i'd be hard pressed to recommend anything better.

Here's a video of them performing an as of yet unreleased new song, Eskimo Snow:



All of my words for sadness
Like eskimo snow on unmanned crosses all
Planted in threes in a field for living trees
are hummed as prayers in secret
then sung through speakers in rooms for people to hear it
Even when I'm wasted and numb
With the words for good wine on a philistine's tongue

And I'm under something black
and thicker than a sheet for ghosts
in the first beat of snow
That old cloud's you
On the crosses on the chests of dead soldiers in a field
and I'm still here
Bearing my watery fruits if fruits at all
And I'm still here
Barely understanding what truth that rarely calls

www.myspace.com/whyanticon

Oh, and here i am with them, at their Solar Culture show.

Yoni's tongue looks like its approaching my beard. I'm clutching a paper sack enclosing an oil can of Fosters. Classy. Josiah is workin it with that sweet, sweet Jewfro. Also classy.

Mika Miko

I usually don't like punk rock (too abrasive for my ears), but these girls are just so much fucking fun.



Two lead singers that only sing. I defy you not to enjoy them in this video:

Are Empire of the Sun the new

Tears for Fears???

Judge for yourselves:


They're a conceptual duo with a flair for flashy flamboyant fashion. And I'm an aardvark with awkward auspicious alliteration. They're more likely to be compared to more flamboyant acts such as Wham!. But I'm going a different direction.

Compare with another conceptual duo from the 80's: this is Tears for Fears' 89 classic, Sowing the Seeds of Love.
Man, this song is epic. They try to get a little too 'political' in this one, but if you can ignore all that and just enjoy the multi-tiered amazingness of this song, it all pays off, with the beautiful bridge sung by the other guy, whose name is not Roland.


a confused kid in the pre-beard stage of life wonders if this blogging thing is the beginning, or just the beginning of the end...

Welcome to the coolest blog since...well

HRO.

So i suppose this be's my new music blog.

I won't update it daily, but hopefully at least weekly.

The display is much better than myspace.

Myspace is so 2005/2006 anyway. That is not to say i'm not still addicted to the space....i don't have the ability to stop.

So, i think this will be my music blog for now if not forever.

We'll see.

-HDPJ (hypztr doofus paul jenkins)