I’ve been really loving this new site called Shuffler.fm the past week or two. It’s kind of like Pandora, but instead of your music tastes going into an algorithm that predicts what you might like, it’s just keyed into various music blogs and spits out songs based on the genre you plug in – kind of like walking into a world-wide-web-sized independent record store. It’s way more random than most internet radio, and a whole lot of fun.
It definitely has some kinks to work out (the same Gillian Welch song came up for me 5 times in one sitting), but overall I’m really loving it. So I made a mix. About half of the songs below I found via Shuffler – either by groups I’d never heard of before (The Vaccines), or by groups I’d heard of but hadn’t given a chance yet (The Roadside Graves – holy cow, look for more on them soon). The rest is just some stuff I’ve been enjoying lately. Take a listen, then go try out Shuffler.fm for yourself.
Hurricane Bells are following up last year’s album, Tonight is the Ghost, with a new 5-song EP called Down Comes the Rain – made up of two new songs and three covers. Like Tonight is the Ghost, Steve Schiltz wrote and recorded the whole thing in his Brooklyn apartment, but this time he’s assisted on vocals by Ashen Keilyn (of Scout) and will be releasing the EP on his very own Invisible Brigades label. Of the new songs I particularly like “The Waiting Song”, a jangly little number that manages to sound quintessentially Hurricane Bells-y, even with just one album to their name. In addition, the covers of East River Pipe’s “Make a Deal with the City” and Blue October’s “Into the Ocean” are both very good. Other new song “The Deep End” is enjoyable, and his duet with Keilyn on a cover of The Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” is a quaint closer.
Stream the whole thing for free on the Hurricane Bells’ website – and if you pre-order the EP over there, you’ll also get a free remix EP called Ghost Stories, featuring remixes of four songs from Tonight is the Ghost and “Monster”, the track Hurricane Bells contributed to the soundtrack of that one movie you loved.
I know Chris puts no pressure on any of us to post as frequently as he does, but I still feel like a bum.
My blogging habits may suggest otherwise, but my summer has hardly been devoid of music. With the amount of incrediblemusic surfacing this summer, no one should be wanting. A favorite find of the summer for me has been Will Stratton, who was introduced to me through a very special ‘birthday mix’ given to me by my friend Hillary. (The mix also came with a six-pack of coke. Pretty much ideal.)
Will Stratton pretty much has every good thing going for him right now. This 23-year old singer-songwriter has ‘functioned under the wing of Sufjan Stevens” and is a “self-professed disciple” of Nick Drake. These influences, most prominently Drake, are apparent in his music, but I loath to just throw Stratton into a ’sounds like’ category. Far from just mimicking the style and sounds of Drake, Stratton is exactly what made these musicians so beloved, an expert lyricist with the prodigious musical skill to back it all up. His latest album, New Vanguard Blues, was just released last month and its a promising candidate for anyone’s year-end list.
I have been adoring Sufjan Stevens’ recent All Delighted People EP – it’s 60-minutes of beautiful music that is both completely new and unmistakably Sufjan. He’s tinkering more with electronic instruments and drum machines, and his recent turn at symphonic scoring shines through brilliantly on several of the songs (see “Djohariah” and the title-track). My absolute favorite track is probably “From the Mouth of Gabriel”, one of the shorter songs on the record that somehow utilizes electronic glitching, swirling woodwind orchestration that calls to mind Jonsi’s recent LP, and stunningly gorgeous choral arrangements – all in just about 4 minutes.
But as much as I’ve been loving this taste of what Sufjan’s been up to, I’ll admit that I’ve thought it curious that some of the strongest songs from last year’s tour didn’t show up – songs like “There’s Too Much Love”, “Age of Adz”, and “Impossible Soul”. I’ve been fairly confident they’ll show up in one form or another soon… but I wasn’t sure if it would be on a proper album, another EP, or some other internet-assisted way. Well, now we know: Sufjan’s got a new record! Woot!
It’s called “The Age of Adz” (pronounced Odds), loosely named after the apocalyptic paintings of the eccentric Louisianan artist Royal Robertson (1930-1997), and it’s coming October 12th. While Robertson seems to be the inspiration for the general tone of the album (that’s his work on the cover), it’s not based on him per say – or on any other specific theme for that matter. According to Asthmatic Kitty:
This new album (is not) built around any conceptual underpinning (no odes to states, astrology, or urban expressways).
So a state-project this is not. Additionally:
We can say it shows an extensive use of electronics (banjos and acoustic guitars give way to drum machines and analog synthesizers), and an obsession with cosmic fantasies (space, heaven, aliens, love), to create an explicit pop-song extravaganza, augmented by heavy orchestration, and maybe even a few danceable moments. Enjoy Your Rabbit meets the BQE. But with songs. Verse, chorus, bridge, backbeat. Gated reverb. Space echo. Get your boogey on.
I stumbled on this last week and I’ve really been loving it. Incredible Yacht Control is the creative moniker of Bret Vogel, who wrote and played just about everything on his recent album, Ordinary Boys, which he describes as:
Kind of a concept album. Meant to give the feeling of being stuck inside the brain of an agoraphobic retail employee on a Monday morning before coffee.
The song I’ve been loving comes toward the end of the overstuffed album (track 18 of 19) – and it’s called “Ghost to Agent 4”. Listen below, then grab the whole thing at his Bandcamp page. Enjoy.
Well today’s the day, and just as the prophets foretold, it came like a thief in the night. We’ve been waiting for over a year to hear recorded versions of the songs Sufjan Stevens played on that brief midwestern tour, and today we finally can. At least some of them, anyway. This morning, he released the All Delighted People EP via his Bandcamp page – 8 songs/60 minutes that you can stream for free or purchase for just $5. According to Bandcamp:
All Delighted People is built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad “All Delighted People,” a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence.” Sounds delightful, yes! The song was originally workshopped on Sufjan’s previous tour in the fall of 2009. Other songs on the EP include the 17-minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers “Djohariah,” and the gothic piano ballad “The Owl and the Tanager,” a live-show mainstay (and Debbie Downer if you ask us; what’s it doing on a “Delighted” EP?).
According to the Asthmatic Kitty website, it’ll be released digitally on iTunes/Amazon/etc. on Monday, and physically sometime in December (hopefully). Cool? Very cool.
I know I might be a little behind getting on Laura Marling’s bandwagon, but I’m just discovering what a ridiculous talent she actually is. This song kind of sums it all up pretty perfectly – her amazing lyrics, her silvery voice, her fantastic accompaniment (provided by the blazing Mumford & Sons). It all sounds very familiar, almost cozy – but in a completely brilliant way. Just listen and you’ll see what I mean.
We caught Jeremy Messersmith Friday night at the White Rabbit Cabaret in Fountain Square. I’ve been pretty into his most recent record, The Reluctant Graveyard, and I was excited to hear some of his new songs live. He played a fantastic set to an intimate candlelit crowd, and it was one of those rare live experiences where I found myself sitting back and thinking “What on earth is everyone else in this city even doing?” He was that great. Recorded, Messersmith utilizes all kinds of bells and whistles to bring his pop confections to life, but in person it becomes apparent that his songs stand equally well on their own, as he utilized a loop pedal to create backbeats and harmonies with himself right on-stage (for my favorite example of the night, check out the video of him playing “Miracles” below). His loop-tracking was great, but what struck me the most was how clean and clear his voice and playing was – every song sounded absolutely pristine.
Unfortunately the venue dashed our hopes for an encore by turning up the house music too soon, but we did have the chance to say hi to Jeremy after the show. He was completely charming, and during our brief conversation we discovered that he’d actually read our review of The Reluctant Graveyard last week, right here on our little blog! (In case you’re reading this – HI JEREMY!) Anyway, it was a great show, and after spending our last two weekends at ridiculously humongouslive events, it was so nice to sit back and enjoy an incredibly talented musician in such an intimate setting.
You probably already know that I adore Lissie. Her gorgeous debut EP, Why You Runnin’stopped me dead in my tracks, and then her live show stopped me even deader in my tracks (that’s a saying, right?). In the realm of singer/songwriters she is an out-and-out superior talent, so of course I was excited to hear her debut album, Catching A Tiger. So excited in fact, that I couldn’t even wait for our pre-release review copy to arrive, and I had my sister who was in the UK this summer send it to me (it was released there in June). It’ll be released here in the states tomorrow, and after listening to it for a couple weeks I’m here to tell you that it is a great record. BUT. It’s also a sort of cautionary tale for new artists. Let me explain:
So we saw Young Man (which is essentially just Colin Caulfield) about a month ago at Locals Only here in Indy, and I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t that impressed. He was plenty of fun, and he had a talented band behind him – but they really didn’t sound anything like the dreamy pop I’d been hearing swirl on the internet, so he left me a little bit “meh”.
Well, I don’t know if his live show has improved any (though these videos seem to indicate that it has), but I can definitely recommend his recorded music – because holy cow, this stuff is gorgeous. Think Beach Boys meets M83, ala Panda Bear but less sprawling – just pop songs with incredibly infectious choruses, sung in beautiful harmonies over dreamy instrumentation. It’s pretty great.
His debut EP, entitled Boy, is set to be released digitally August 24th on Frenchkiss Records – it’s a concept album of sorts dealing with childhood and what it feels like to leave it behind. Check him out.
I’m not going to write much about this album, except that you really need to be listening to it. And I mean that. As in you really need to be listening to it. In a year that’s produced some stunningalbums, this one might actually be my favorite of the year (and maybe even my favorite of their catalog). I know, I know. Those are lofty claims, and I’ve only had the album for a little over a week – so we’ll just have to wait and see if I’m simply enamored or if this thing holds up over time… but I have a hunch this is gonna last. And trust me. You need to be listening to this.
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Love.
