The Morakestra

ARTIST / BAND: The Morakestra

SONG (MP3): Tell You Something

ALBUM: Witness To Connection

FILE UNDER: Alternative / Experimental / Rock

LABEL: Stratking Records

INFO: Nothing qualifies the sound and essence of Morakestra more than El Paso. Founders and key creative minds David and Will Mora are twin brothers who were proudly born and raised in the West Texas border city. Fellow El Pasoan Jim Ward contributed to the rebirth of Morakestra via production and recording of the band’s latest album, Witness to Connection, out June 2nd on indie label Stratking Records. A musical legend in El Paso, Ward founded post-hardcore innovators At the Drive-In, rock quintet Sparta and alt-country act Sleepercar. Witness to Connection is the first for Ward’s new producing partnership with jack-of-all-trades musician and sound engineer Gabe Gonzalez, who is getting greater acclaim for his production work with bands like San Antonio’s Girl in a Coma.

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General Elektriks

ARTIST / BAND: General Elektriks

SONG (MP3): Take Back The Instant

ALBUM: Good City for Dreamers

FILE UNDER: Soul / Indie / Hip Hop

LABEL: Quannum Projects

INFO: When Hervé “RV” Salters, the man behind General Elektriks, released Cliquety Kliqk in 2005, the record was immediately lauded for its quirky ingenuity and the way it toyed between hip-hop and pop, long before artists like Gnarls Barkley and Santogold hit the airwaves. In thinking about his next album, Hervé decided he wanted to make a record that paid homage to the traditions of his idols before him, but he wasn’t interested in just another throwback. He wanted to continue to make progressive art-soul that said what he wanted it to say and defended the idea of not feeling tied down by rules, even at the risk of falling flat on your face.

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Okkervil River

ARTIST / BAND: Okkervil River

SONG (MP3): Pop Lie / Lost Coastlines

ALBUM: The Stand Ins

FILE UNDER: Folk / Indie / Rock

LABEL: Jagjaguwar

INFO:Okkervil River is an indie folk band from Austin, Texas. Formed in 1998, the band takes its name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya. They self-released their first album, Stars Too Small to Use, which led them to the South by Southwest music festival. After recording their first album in a garage, they signed with Jagjaguwar. Okkervil River continued by releasing four more albums, including critically lauded concept album Black Sheep Boy.^[1]
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New Roman Times

ARTIST / BAND: New Roman Times

SONG (MP3): Smoke In Your Disguise / VCR

ALBUM: On the Sleeve

FILE UNDER:New Wave / Concrete / Minimalist

LABEL: New Granada Records

INFO:Few new-millennium acts seem to have gotten the balance of familiar ’80s-club emotional throb and original contemporary energy just right, but this Austin-by-way-of-Orlando quartet is one of ‘em. Songs from the group’s upcoming full-length On The Sleeve sacrifice neither groove nor heft to their quest for resonant quality songcraft. There’s an earnestness to their tunes that defies the over-it, overly detached posturing of so much danceable rock, that pairs the cool with an engaging humanity. Also, of course, they kill it.

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Nurses

ARTIST / BAND: Nurses

SONG (MP3): Catepillar Playground

ALBUM: Apple’s Acre

FILE UNDER:

LABEL: Dead Oceans

INFO: To immerse yourself in Nurses' Apple's Acre is to delight in a certain mental unraveling. These are songs where the vulnerability of pop with its heart on its sleeve engages in a double-dutch jumprope match with the euphoric surrender-to-the-weird that is essential to psychedelia. And Nurses is a band that scavenges beauty and wonder, uncovering Technicolor where others see somber hues. Their off-kilter psych-pop is driven by ever-swelling vocal harmonies, adventurous electronics, some serious wheelin' and dealin' on the Rhodes piano, and the kind of new-primitivist percussion that may or may not involve a standard drum kit.

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Rainbow Arabia

ARTIST / BAND: Rainbow Arabia

MP3s: Haunted Hall

ALBUM: Kabukimono

FILE UNDER: Live Electronics / Tropical / Zouk

LABEL: manimal vinyl

INFO: For their unexpectedly oddball "Omar K" video, L.A. couple Danny and Tiffany Preston, aka Rainbow Arabia, took their Basta EP tune into a grocery store where a mom and her kid Gang Gang Danced-away their demonic possession. "Haunted Hall," from the forthcoming mini-LP Kabukimono, continues the supernatural theme, though we don't currently have any moving images to go with it. It was produced by Pit Er Pat's Butchy Fuego and, like last time, sounds like someone overlaying colorful electronics and new wave beats and a Sublime Frequencies compilation (or, fair enough, a compilation of Arabic music not stamped by Alan Bishop). The results aren't necessarily distinctive, but it's a fun hodgepodge.

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PAUL "SNOWFLAKE" TAYLOR

ARTIST / BAND: PAUL "SNOWFLAKE" TAYLOR

MP3s: Candle

ALBUM: Share It!

FILE UNDER: Rock / Psychedelic / Experimental

LABEL: Makeshift Music

INFO: Paul “Snowflake” Taylor is a self taught musician, has played on over a hundred records, has received 3 NARASmemphis chapter “premiere bassist “ awards, (which reside in his bathroom over the toilet), and has (at one time or another) been a member of North Mississippi Allstars, Big Ass Truck, Bloodthirsty Lovers (w Dave Shouse of The Grifters), Gamble Brothers Band, Eric Gales, Shawn Lane, Shelby Bryant (including legendary record “Cloud Wow Music” on Smells Like Records), Jimbo Mathus (founder of Squirrel Nut Zippers), Ann Peebles and so many more. Yet, this is probably the first time you’ve heard of him.

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Josh Ottum

ARTIST / BAND: Josh Ottum

MP3s: The Easy Way Out

ALBUM: Like The Season

FILE UNDER: Indie Pop

LABEL: Cheap Lullaby Records

INFO: Josh Ottum (born Mar. 1978) is an American musician and songwriter. Ottum recorded Like The Season, his solo debut, from October 2005 - June 2006. The album was released in the fall of 2006 in Europe by Tapete Records along with an EP entitled Who Left The Lights On?. Ottum was part of the 2006 Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany and toured extensively through Europe in November 2006 and May 2007. Mill Pond Records released an EP entitled It's Alright in May 2007. Ottum was part the Sit Down and Sing tour with Rosie Thomas andNicolai Dunger in April 2008.

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David Mead

ARTIST / BAND: David Mead

MP3s: Last Train Home

ALBUM: ALMOST AND ALWAYS

FILE UNDER: Indie Pop

LABEL: Cheap Lullaby Records

INFO: Almost and Always is David Mead’s fifth full-length release. His most intimate work to date, the album examines life after marriage and the promise of things to come. Mead collaborated with producer Brad Jones (Over The Rhine, Josh Rouse) and new songwriting partner Bill DeMain (Swan Dive) to create a quiet, soulful collection that sets his 21st century pop songs in classic arrangements that recall Harry Nilsson, Paul Anka and Harry Belafonte. As always, Mead’s honeyed voice is front and center, gently accented with classical guitar, woodwinds and string quartet. Almost and Always will be released in Japan on October 22 and the U.S. and Europe in Autumn 2008. In the U.S., the album will be released digitally in two parts through NoiseTrade, a new service that allows users to pay what they want or download for free. Mead will be touring throughout the rest of 2008 and 2009 in support of the album.

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Headless Heroes

ARTIST / BAND: Headless Heroes

MP3s: "Nobody's Baby Now"

ALBUM: The Silence of Love

FILE UNDER: Psychedelic

LABEL: Headless Heroes

INFO: The Silence of Love is a beautiful themed album of covers, dreamt up by a chap named Eddie Bezalel, helped and produced by Hugo Nicolson, who pulled together the songs and a bunch of great musicians (Josh Klinghoffer, Woody Jackson, Joey Waronker, Leo Abrahams and Gus Seyffert) to play on it, all topped off with the voice of one Alela Diane. The record is a simply beautiful collection of lost classics and unearthed gems sung with arresting clarity by Nevada City's emerging new folk star Alela.

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Foreign Born

ARTIST / BAND: Foreign Born

MP3s: Early Warnings  | Vacationing People"

ALBUM: Person To Person

FILE UNDER: Indie

LABEL: secretly canadian

INFO: A holiday escape to the oceanside is meant to keep the tribulations of daily life at bay. Yet every joyous moment of vacation is undercut with a strange melancholy as you do the math on the finite nature of your getaway. So, you take your sweet, sweet time with that cold drink and offer a cheers an extra time or two.

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Jeniferever

ARTIST / BAND: Jeniferever

MP3s: Lives Apart

ALBUM: Spring Tides

FILE UNDER: Alternative / Gothic

LABEL: Monotreme Records

INFO: Jeniferever is a four-piece band from Uppsala, Sweden. They have previously released four EPs and one album since 2002, and have played over 250 live shows across Europe. Over the years, they have gained an ever-growing band of  admirers, who have bestowed descriptions such as ‘lush’, ‘melodic’, ‘swooping’, ‘glacial’, ‘beautiful’, ‘shimmering’, ‘sublime’, ‘electrifying’ and ‘atmospheric’ on their music. 

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Wunderblock

ARTIST / BAND: Wunderblock

ALBUM (MP3s): Act!

FILE UNDER: Techno / House / Dub

LABEL: astorbell

INFO: Astor Bell's eastern outpost is Wunderblock, a collaboration project out of Moscow, Russia. Three masterminds met up to create something new, all adding their different spice to the soup. Michael Teploff is known for his Ill Doggy releases on Salo Records, Berlin and as one half of Multipliar (the other half being Anton Kubikov aka SCSI-9) on the infamous Cologne imprint Trapez. Here he has teamed up with ambient producer Igor Ivanov and local DJ Vladimir Kochenov to push his own limits.

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Savath & Savalas

ARTIST / BAND: Savath & Savalas

MP3s: La Llama

ALBUM: La Llama

FILE UNDER: Latin / Psychedelic

LABEL: Stones Throw Records

INFO: Savath & Savalas is Guillermo Scott Herren (perhaps best known as Prefuse 73), Eva Puyuelo Muns and Roberto Carlos Lange. We’ve been experimenting with some different ways of releasing our records, just as Guillermo Scott Herren is experimenting with a new way of releasing Savath & Savalas, his Catalan acid-folk project which even pre-dates Prefuse 73. We are proud to release the new album La Llama digitally next Monday 3/16, exclusively through stonesthrow.com. The worldwide release of CD/LP will be May 19.

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am architect

ARTIST / BAND: am architect

MP3s: Next of Kin (Bro Safari remix)

ALBUM: The Road to the Sun

FILE UNDER: Electronica / Experimental / Ambient

LABEL: Exponential

INFO: The core of A.M. Architect's inviting sound—laid-back, hip-hop-inflected beats paired with Fender Rhodes melodies, acoustic and electric guitar shadings, and an occasional sample—speaks volumes about its appeal. Though it may be a side project for Diego Chavez (aka Aether216) and Daniel Stanush (aka Magic Note, lead guitarist for the Panic Division), there's nothing half-assed about the dozen fresh cuts that compose The Road to the Sun.

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Dark Knights Of Camelot

ARTIST / BAND: Dark Knights Of Camelot

MP3s: Purple Undertones

ALBUM: Hurrication EP

FILE UNDER: Indie Rock

LABEL: Olympic Records

INFO: Dark Knights of Camelot’s debut release, the HurricationEP, is their valiant, heavy-hitting response to modern day lackluster music. Born in Hattiesburg, MS this robust power trio sets themselves apart by embedding structurally complex songs with accessible melodic hooks. The songs mix epic and soulful themes with elements of Alternative, Classic Rock, Grunge, and Stoner Rock creating a bittersweet and hypnotic mood.

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DEPEDRO

ARTIST / BAND: DEPEDRO

MP3s: Don't Leave Me Now

ALBUM: DEPEDRO

FILE UNDER: Alternative / Folk Rock / Latin

LABEL: Nat Geo Music

INFO: DEPEDRO is the musical Project of Jairo Zavala, singer and guitar player with a long carrer behind him as a session musician. He is front man and foundation member of the rock band VACAZUL, with 5 published records and of 3000 HOMBRES, a blues band with 3 published records. He now starts DEPEDRO, his most personal project. A mixture of latin, border fusion, folk, african music, reggae and blues. The lyrics talk to us directly, making us think about what..s going on in the world and inviting us at the same time, to look into ourselves. His singing and playing brings up all type emotions and lots of magic.

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Post Honeymoon

ARTIST / BAND: Post Honeymoon

MP3s: Night Guard / First-World Problems

ALBUM: Post Honeymoon

FILE UNDER: Indie

LABEL: Two thumbs down records

INFO: Post Honeymoon's roots go back to a summer night in 2001, when drummer Nick Kraska met keyboardist Rachel Shindelman (both ex-Bang! Bang!, New Black) and brought her to a show at Chicago's Empty Bottle.

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Monahans

ARTIST / BAND: Monahans

MP3s: It’s Enough to Leave You

ALBUM: Dim the Aurora

FILE UNDER: Absolutely Kosher Records | Misra Records

LABEL: Indie

INFO: Dim the Aurora is the new album by Austin, Texas’ Monahans, the follow up to their promising debut Low Pining. The journey to this point spans ten years, two bands, and five prior releases. You don’t need to know that to enjoy Dim the Aurora, but it certainly helps to appreciate its achievement.
Greg Vanderpool and bandmate Roberto Sánchez started making music in alt.country outfit Milton Mapes in 2001. Milton Mapes eventually grew to include current Monahans members Britton Beisenherz and Jim Fredley.  After recording three full length albums and performing countless shows, the musicians had outgrown the very band they had created and realized the needed to kick their alt.country habit and explore outside their comfort zone.  They wanted more from their music than Lone Star beer and cowboy boots. The band changed their songwriting process from the old singer-songwriter-with-a-band model to a more collaborative effort, allowing the different talents of all of its members to emerge. The change led to a dramatic evolution away from the dusty alt.country influence of their surroundings in Austin to the poppier anthems of early U2 and the earthier feel of Nebraska-era Springsteen. They realized that what they were doing was so different that it deserved a new beginning, and Monahans was born.

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Sinner DC

ARTIST / BAND: Sinner DC

MP3s: Glass Alley

ALBUM: Crystallized

FILE UNDER: Techno Pop

LABEL: Ai Records

INFO: sinner dc have been forging an increasingly solid reputation for impeccable tunes and sweeping electronic sounds for
themselves over the years. the minimal vocals, captured sound waves and clever programming all pull together to create
another doorstep slice of goodness that ai records are getting renowned for...

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Magic Wands

ARTIST / BAND: Magic Wands

SONG (MP3): "Black Magic"

ALBUM: Magic, Love and Dreams EP

FILE UNDER: Rock

LABEL: Bright Antenna

INFO: Magic Wands formed in 2007. While living in Nashville, Chris found a song on Myspace that he listened to repeatedly, day and night. Soon he discovered it was a song by Dexy, called ‘Teenage Love’. During the course of the summer 2007 Chris and Dexy started talking on the phone until dawn, writing songs for each other and mailing gifts such as toy lions, old records, handwritten poems and one glowing heart lamp. Though 2000 miles apart, they decided they were destined to be. Two weeks later Chris was back in L.A. helping Dexy pack up her old Mercedes Benz for a trip across the country.  

Magic Wands have spent the last 6 months touring relentlessly, and writing and recording the tracks that will make up their debut album. They’ve been on a monster East-West Coast US tour with Black Kids and the Virgins as well as returning to the UK to support CSS on their October dates. 

Tiga

ARTIST / BAND: Tiga

MP3s: Shoes

ALBUM: Ciao!

FILE UNDER: Last Gang

LABEL: Electro

INFO: Tiga (IPA: /tiːgə/) is the stage name of Montreal-born DJ/producer Tiga James Sontag (born 1974). His album Sexor won the 2007 Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year.

He graduated from Selwyn House School, a prestigious school in Westmount. Before producing music, he was involved in the promotion ofrave parties in his native city during the early 1990s, also Tiga was involved in the creation of world renowned afterhours club SONA. In 1994, he opened a record store named DNA Records, and in 1998 founded his own label, Turbo Recordings.

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DINOSAUR JR

ARTIST / BAND: DINOSAUR JR

SONG (MP3): I Want You to Know

ALBUM: Farm

FILE UNDER: Indie Rock

LABEL: Jagjaguwar

INFO:The worry about the reunion of the original Dinosaur Jr. line-up, more than 20 years after their formation and legendary dissolution, was that these guys were just flogging the back catalog as a marketing gimmick. With the release of Beyond, in 2007, the band gave a hearty Marshall-driven "F**K YOU!" answer to those inquiring ears. Restoring the sound established by the opening hat-trick gambit of Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me, and Bug, the Beyond record continued the band's march into rock greatness by making old ears smile and new ears bleed afresh. And now comes Farm, Dinosaur Jr.'s first double LP and their fifth full length record by the original line-up -- J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph -- set to release on their new label home Jagjaguwar on June 23rd.

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SCRIPTS ‘N SCREWZ

ARTIST / BAND: SCRIPTS 'N SCREWZ

MP3s: “BRICK“ | “BIG CITY LIGHTS“ | “FAIRY TALE”

ALBUM: The New Noise

FILE UNDER: Experimental / Hip Hop / Indie

LABEL: The V.E. Company

INFO: The group's resident producer, Loose Screwz, has spent years perfecting his trademark eccentric sound. His lyrics have a cinematic, story-telling quality, and his versatile production makes his next musical moves unpredictable.
Diehard wordsmith Scripts adds an edge to the equation. His vivid wordplay and crushing punchlines about a wide range of subject matter will appeal to any hip hop fan. These two have been working together for close to a decade, and with their unique blend of experimental innovation and mastery of hip hop fundamentals, Scripts 'N Screwz will take the music world by storm.

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Little Big Adventure

ARTIST / BAND: Little Big Adventure

MP3s: Happiest Times

ALBUM: The Hateful Eye EP

FILE UNDER: Pop / Indie / Down-tempo

LABEL: Labrador

INFO: Things turned when I took all my savings and bought a Casio-keyboard. Instead of writing boring guitar songs I could now play everything on this. I’m not exactly a skilled keyboard player so I recorded everything note by note and then cut it all together in my music program. To cover up all my technical flaws I put a noise filter on everything so that no one could hear the glitches between the notes, and no one could hear the noise from the microphone, as everything was noisy.

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Nite Club

ARTIST / BAND: Nite Club

MP3s: Left Right /Good Life (Kanye West) /No Matter Which Way

ALBUM: My Tronic

FILE UNDER: Club / Indie / Live Electronics

LABEL: Tape Theory

INFO: Spitzer started performing at rave events at 16-years-old. He blossomed as a player with prog rock, punk and live drum n' bass groups using modern classical composition as his backdrop. Spitzer pursued a music education in college where he was composition classmates with electronic artist Dan Deacon.
Spitzer has performed across the US, Europe and Japan opening for The Rapture, The Roots, Jamie Lidell, Lightning Bolt, DJ Oscar G, DJ DB, Kool Keith, and The Locust. Spitzerhas also performed at major international superclubs such asCrobar, Avalon, and Spirit.

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TRASHED ON FICTION

ARTIST / BAND: TRASHED ON FICTION

MP3s: “JANUARY“ | “SAFETY NET“ | “KILLING GROUNDS“

ALBUM: Words Trails Maps

FILE UNDER: Indie / Rock / Alternative

LABEL: ESCHE Records

INFO:

Trashed On Fiction synthesizes these bands into infectious, noisy rock and roll songs about awkward romantic relationships, an apathetic folk hero, baggage (lots of baggage), The Woolworth building, a celebrity stalker and removing  your clothes. That's the first half of the new record anyway.

Trashed On Fiction spent a better part of two years working on their album, Words Trails Maps,  scrapping the initial entire studio recording and redoing it themselves after-hours in a music store, a kitchen, the back of a van, and the theater stage of a certain college very late at night. The result giving the songs a warm, intimate, lived-in feeling while still sounding like it could have been recorded at Abbey Road.

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Deleted Scenes

ARTIST / BAND: Deleted Scenes

MP3s: Fake IDs /Ithaca / One Long Country Song

ALBUM: Birdseed Shirt

FILE UNDER: Indie

LABEL: What Delicate Recordings

INFO: Months after releasing their debut album to little fanfare and no press campaign, a lucky Pitchfork review ("brave and ferocious," 8.0) suddenly makes people listen. Band does it the hard way, develops as a live force over three years, and is said to deserve every kind word. Yards of local column inches tell the story of a band "doing it right," in the words ofWashington Post music editor David Malitz.

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