A boy with drums and a girl with a bass play rock-'n'-roll in Austin, Texas, and share their creations with the world. We are blessed. "Minimalist" describes their sound very well.
Found it here, but it's streaming free at their Web site.
Hard to describe. It's interesting, winding rock-'n'-roll with heavy reverb, harmonic vocals and a slightly psychedelic bent. The tracks are rather long. Very nice, though. These girls can really play!
Also available as a vinyl double-disc and an MP3 download.
It's like afro-brit pop with computers...I don't know. Must be a hipster thing. Are they competing with Gorillaz? That's how it sounds.
Extremely well produced. These guys must have some serious gear and a lot of money.
Ridiculously loooooong.......and the more I listen, the more it wears on me.
This is similar enough to other stuff I post about that it seems to belong on this blog, but I'm not sure what it contributes musically. It's interesting, and it will sell well because it's Ima Robot, but not necessarily because there's anything really special or new here. As long as the hipsters get their T-shirts that make their co-workers/classmates go, "Whaaa...he must be cool!"
Streaming free at Bandcamp. Kind of a mish-mash of styles with everything from country to high-energy dance to pure rock. Both male and female vocals, but primarily female. Difficult to pin down, but maybe a good party album.
Their fifth full-length album. They've been prolific since 2004, but I never heard of them until today.
At least this one doesn't sound like it was made for hipsters. It's extremely well produced also, but I think it's a lot more interesting and unique than Ima Robot's album. This one's for true music lovers.
All in all, it's pretty good stuff. It's one of those albums that has something for everyone.
They're on tour now and will be playing at the Rumba Cafe here in Columbus tomorrow night.
Here's track 2 from Miracles & Metaphors performed live a month ago. These guys are interesting! You won't be able to see anything until 25 seconds in.
Gram Rabbit - "Candy Flip" (Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival; 9/18/2010)
MP3s are available at Amazon, but the band started giving this away for free (and accepting donations) on Monday at autumnagain.org. I guess you have to pay attention to know these things!
Eleven tracks recorded at ten different sites, running under 34 minutes.
The girl on the cover is saying, "Autumn, again," and the dude says, "Sigh."
This dreamy six-piece pop band from Philadelphia cranks out some nifty sounds and heavenly harmonies. Anyone who is into dream pop will love this, I'm sure. All vocals female.
Track 2, "Fall in love", is about as powerful and impressive as dream pop gets. I'm gonna have to recommend this.
Order the vinyl version here. The Decibel Tolls reports that it glows in the dark. [Edit: He was kidding.]
Here's the track that wowed me so much.
A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Fall in love" (Autumn, Again, 10/19/2010)
Wonder Wheel - Brave New World(Sixteen Tambourines) [Blogspot]
On cassette only, but four tracks are on MySpace. (Scroll down to the last four, "Think Too Much", "Eyes", "After Dark" and "IMHO". You can tell these tracks are new because they have very few plays so far.)
Beautiful, fun, distorted California pop. Recommended!
I don't have much new to write about today, so I thought I'd mention a band I heard on Last.fm Radio this week. I won't be doing this often, believe me.
I haven't come right out and said it, but this blog tries to focus not only on underground artists, but especially on pop music that makes use of "noise" as a medium. This certainly includes shoegaze. I don't consider myself a typical shoegaze fan, though. I'd have to worship Slowdive to be a true 'gazer, but I'm not a fan of their slow, emotional style. I like the punkier stuff.
Having qualified my opinion in that way, I'd like to introduce one of the best shoegaze albums I've ever heard. Around ten years ago, I guess, some number of mysterious young people in Cincinnati, Ohio, released a record on some mysterious label. All I really know is that the band was called Candy Afterlife, and so was the album. They managed to take everything I personally love about shoegaze—the driving, distorted, swirling guitars that drone up and down the scale, the machine-like drums that punctuate every phrase, the reverb that soaks everything until it's dripping wet, the distant, glossy vocals that call out dreamlike for the listener to lose him/herself in ecstasy—and jam it all brilliantly into nearly every track. There's only one ballad in the bunch, and it's a good one, summery and surfer-like, so I don't mind.
Ok, enough mushy praise. I can't find any place in the world to purchase this album, so no one should feel guilty about going here and downloading it for free. All eight tracks are available free at Last.fm anyway, so it looks as though the band intended them to be free to the world.
But if you need convincing, here's one of the really powerful tracks—the final track on the album. This one's practically metal.
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, but the band started giving this away for free (and accepting donations) on Monday at 
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