ARTIST / BAND: ALSO
MP3: True
ALBUM: Music Belongs In The Background
FILE UNDER: Alternative / Indie / Rock
LABEL: s/r
INFO: Los Angeles natives, ALSO, will release their third full-length Music Belongs In the Background on February 22, 2011.
In many ways, the guys from ALSO are an anti-rock band. Drew Conrad, Scotland Stephenson, and Mark Zelen are all self-proclaimed neat freaks with families and day jobs. They don’t have tattoos. They don’t do drugs. They take naps.
ARTIST / BAND: Snowblink
MP3: Ambergris
ALBUM: Long Live
FILE UNDER: folk, pop
LABEL: Fire Records
INFO: Recently back from a six-week US tour opening for Owen Pallett, Snowblink‘s debut album Long Live, is now available on Fire Records, in conjunction with a European tour centered around The Sounds Quixotic festival in Vevey Switzerland.
Currently a Toronto-based duo comprised of Daniela Gesundheit (Bruce Peninsula) and Dan Goldman, the line-up of Snowblink past has been known to expand to include other extended-community members — MGMT, Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors), Frank Lyon (Keepaway), Caley Monahon-Ward (Extra Life), and fellow Fire artist Ryan Driver among them.
ARTIST / BAND: SISTER CRAYON
MP3: I'm Still The Same Person / I'm Still The Same Person (Free The Robots remix)
ALBUM: Bellow
FILE UNDER: Indie
LABEL: Manimal Vinyl
INFO: Something small and quiet at first, Sister Crayon began with vocalist Terra Lopez playing classical guitar and pre-programmed beats on a loop pedal to attentive house crowds. With the addition of members Dani Fernandez (MPC 1000 and Microkorg), Nicholas Suhr (Drums and Percussion) and Jeffrey LaTour (Keyboards, Synths, Guitars, etc.), Sister Crayon has emerged as a four-piece whose emotional live performances along with their styles of ambience, hip-hop, and “hysteria” have created a stir with their EP release, “Enter Into Holy (or)ders”. With their debut LP entitled “Bellow” set to be released February 28th, 2011, Sister Crayon spreading the word of their music any and every way possible.
ARTIST / BAND: Loch Lomond
MP3: "Blue Lead Fences" , "Elephants & Little Girls "
ALBUM: Little Me Will Start A Storm
FILE UNDER: Experimental / Folk / Pop
LABEL: Tender Loving Empire
INFO: After a string of head-turning, critically acclaimed releases on Hush Records, Portland's Loch Lomond is bringing their unique brand of raw symphonic chamber pop to the growing Portland label/media arts collective/store/gallery, Tender Loving Empire. Responsible for recent releases from the likes of Y La Bamba, Typhoon, Jared Mees & The Grown Children and more, Loch Lomond has slated their much anticipated second full length 'Little Me Will Start A Storm' for release on Tuesday, February 22nd. The album was mixed by Adam Selzer (who has recorded all of M Ward's records), Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs, The Decemberists), and Kevin Robinson (of Viva Voce). The stunning track
ARTIST / BAND: Torpedo
MP3: Waiting For The Fall [Single Version]
ALBUM: WE
FILE UNDER: krautpop, alternative, electronic
Waiting For The Fall [Single Version] by flagstoneINFO: Torpedo play kraut influenced electronic alternative rock/pop. The band call it Krautpop. A Swedish music blog recently described Torpedo as a mix between Miike Snow and The Knife which could be a good description. Torpedo just finished their second album "We", produced by Christoffer Berg, first single "Waiting For The Fall" is released February 14th and album April 29th.
ARTIST / BAND: Giant Sand
MP3s: "Graveyard"(from Ballad Of A Thin Line Man)
"Uneven Light Of Day"(from Storm)
"Valley Of Rain"(from Valley of Rain)
ALBUM: Giant Sand back catalog
FILE UNDER: IAlternative / Americana / Indie
LABEL: fire records
INFO: 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of Valley Of Rain - the debut album by Giant Sand, the ever-shifting alternative rock band overseen by "the Godfather of Alt. Country" Howe Gelb. With that in mind, the band will spend the next year celebrating in the only way they know how: with a flurry of great music! There is a special one-off show at the City Winery in New York City tomorrow, February 1st! The newest Giant Sand album,Blurry Blue Mountain, will be released on vinyl tomorrow, as well.
ARTIST / BAND: Mathew Sawyer And The Ghosts
MP3: "Myna Birds Call"
ALBUM: How Snakes Eat
FILE UNDER: Indie, Pop
LABEL: Fire Records
INFO: If you were to make maps of the human voice, Mathew Sawyer is someone you'd balk at starting with. A vocal cartographer would have an easier ride with an X-Factor pop vocalist. The resultant sketch would be of somewhere abstract, featureless and dull. A moneybound R&B diva might lead to an Ordinance Survey Map of a smooth and well functioning future city with symmetrical civic parks and equidistant train stations. The growl of a death metal bellower would reveal itself in a landscape of Tolkienesque volcanoes, castles and dragons lairs.
ARTIST / BAND: Sun Wizard
MP3: World's Got A Handle
ALBUM: Positively 4th Avenue
FILE UNDER: Alternative / Grunge / Powerpop
LABEL: Light Organ
INFO: Sun Wizard are your favorite band from when you were in high school, back when the whole world was a little bigger and everything you touched was a bit more golden. You knew all the words to their songs, you bought every last one of their records, and rushed out to the record store every time their new single came on the radio. They were the soundtrack to that endless summer, and they colored your adolescent fever with the helpless optimism that everything was going to be just fine.
ARTIST / BAND: ZOEY VAN GOEY
ALBUM: PROPELLER VERSUS WINGS
FILE UNDER: Experimental / Other / Pop
LABEL: CHEMIKAL UNDERGROUND
INFO: Zoey Van Goey are an indie pop band from Glasgow, Scotland, made up of Matt Brennan, Michael John McCarthy, Kim Moore and Adam Scott. Brennan, McCarthy and Moore, hailing from Canada, Ireland and England respectively, formed the initial trio in Glasgow in 2006, with Scott becoming a fully-fledged member in 2010.
ARTIST / BAND: Jeniferever
MP3: Waifs And Strays
ALBUM: Silesia
FILE UNDER: Alternative / Gothic
LABEL: Monotreme Records
INFO: Monotreme Records is very proud to be releasing ‘Spring Tides’, the second full-length album by Jeniferever.
Jeniferever is a 4-piece band from Uppsala, Sweden. They have previously released 4 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.
Some have compared their sound to the physical beauty of their native country, with its aural landscapes of slow-paced melodies which build to orchestral-like climaxes.
ARTIST / BAND: Nightlands Drops
MP3s: "Suzerain (A Letter to the Judge)" / "300 Clouds"
ALBUM: Forget The Mantra
FILE UNDER: Indie
LABEL: secretly canadian
INFO: Nightlands is the recording project of Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Dave Hartley. The music he creates in his bedroom is itself a bed of delicate, chiming strings and bubbling synths beneath a blanket of choral vocal arrangements. It's dreamy in the literal sense -- the seeds for the album were sown when Hartley began archiving musical ideas that occurred in his sleep with a simple bedside tape recorder. As a result his debut album Forget the Mantra is, in essence, a field recording of Hartley's dreams -- a travel journal through pop music and a collection of psych-hymns from the first human lunar colony. The songs sound both huge and intimate, breathy and cavernous like massive echoes of a faraway concert. It's the big, shadow music from just across the lake.
ARTIST / BAND: All Tiny Creatures
MP3: An Iris
ALBUM: Harbors
FILE UNDER: Electroacoustic / Minimalist / Rock
LABEL: Hometapes
INFO: Stacked melodies, distorted organs, stretched chords, reimagined vocals: Collections of Colonies of Bees/ Volcano Choir multi-instrumentalist Thomas Wincek drops his Emotional Joystick handle for the glorious themes of All Tiny Creatures. ATC's debut release is Segni, a vinyl-only document of four engrossing instrumentals that kindle the fire of something-like-Krautrock through the lens of both rigid methodolgy and a wholehearted embrace of rhythm and its unpredictable results.
ARTIST / BAND: Echo Lake
MP3: "In Dreams" / "Young Silence"
ALBUM: Young Silence
FILE UNDER: Ambient / Pop / Psychedelic
LABEL: No Pain In Pop
INFO: In the summer of 2010, Thom Hill met Linda Jarvis while studying at Camberwell Art College in South London. The two instantly connected after discovering the ex-choir girl's voice perfectly complemented the tracks Thom had been crafting in his bedroom, and they decided to work on a new project together, which would come to be known as Echo Lake.
Matching driving rhythms with ethereal, gorgeous melodies, Echo Lake is an arresting take on the droney side of psychedelia's pop frontier. The band's demos were quickly discovered by indie label and blog No Pain In Pop, who signed the band and posted some of the songs on the blog. The tracks garnered critical praise almost immediately, and were featured on Pitchfork, Gorilla vs Bear and The Fader.
The songwriting duo decided to take a bit of time off from school to record and put together a band with some friends from Thom's hometown of Birmingham. Keen to avoid the stigma often attached to bedroom projects' live performance, they shed the backing tracks the recordings were based on and replaced with a tight, loud set up for shows.
Echo Lake's debut EP, Young Silence, is set to be released via No Pain In Popon February 14 (UK) and February 15 (US). Recalling a pre-Sub Pop Beach House crossed with a more raw side of My Bloody Valentine, it's as bold and complete of a statement as you can expect from a band so young.
Les Jupes - Myth #3 (The Mountain)
Frightened Rabbit - My Brother Tom, the Green Beret (The Philistines Jr. Cover)
In Grenada - Distance And Temptation
The Asteroid #4 - Wild Opal Eyes
Eksi Ekso - Kills of the Flood Tide
ARTIST / BAND: SLEEPING IN THE AVIARY
MP3: Sleeping In The Aviary -- "You Don't Have To Drive" / Sleeping In The Aviary - "Y.M.C.A. (No, Not That One)"
ALBUM: Great Vacation!
FILE UNDER: Rock / Classic Rock / Comedy
LABEL: Science Of Sound
INFO:
The lineup of Kozel, Phil Mahlstadt (bass), and Michael Sienkowski (drums) churned out their debut album, Oh, This Old Thing? in 2007. The disc's intense bursts of lo-fi pop-punk drew comparisons to The Thermals, Buzzcocks, Violent Femmes and Nirvana. Then another side of the band’s musical personality was captured on SITA’s sophomore album from 2008. Expensive Vomit in a Cheap Hotel was a move towards indie-folk heralded by the addition of fourth member, Celeste Heule, on accordion and musical saw. Kozel switched from electric to acoustic guitar for many of the songs, and also found himself screaming just a little less, exposing more of a tender side. This album cued comparisons to artists such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes, Baptist Generals and even Bob Dylan.
For 2010, Great Vacation once again finds the band in fresh musical territory, and also with a newly-added fifth member; Kyle Sobczak on guitar. Layers of backup vocals (including multiple tracks of gargling, which Kozel describes as “the new reverb”) and additional instruments such as harp, trumpet, banjo and mouth harp accompany stories of scuba diving, sinking on a ship, space-like love, an S&M session gone awry (or did it?) and the occurrence of irony the day before one dies. The ten songs on the album were tracked and mixed by the band themselves in their Minneapolis attic.
ARTIST / BAND: THE ASTEROID #4
MP3s: "Ignition Slated For Eight" / "Wild Opal Eyes"
ALBUM: Hail To The Clear Figurines
FILE UNDER: Psychedelic / Folk Rock / Experimental
LABEL: The Committee to Keep Music Evil
INFO: Ups & Downs, Twists & Turns….That is an appropriate way to describe the path traveled by the Asteroid #4 since the latter half of the Clinton years. Hail To The Clear Figurines is the sixth album by Philly psychonauts, The Asteroid #4.
ARTIST / BAND: G e o t i c
ALBUM: Mend (download album for free)
FILE UNDER: Minimal / Ambient
LABEL: s/r
INFO: Music project of Will Wiesenfeld (Bath)
ARTIST / BAND: Silver Swans
MP3: “Holidays” / “Secrets” / “Anyone’s Ghost” (The National Cover)/ “Secrets” (Letting Up Despite Great Faults Remix)
FILE UNDER: Indie Pop
LABEL: Tricycle Records
INFO: The Silver Swans are three fictional characters in the Wonder Woman stories. Each Silver Swan has the ability to create powerful sound waves with her voice. Her "swan song" is capable of devastating a small area of land with its destructive force. By creating a low-level humming, the Silver Swan can form a protective shield around herself that can deflect bullets and projectiles. They also have the telepathic ability to control birds and re-arrange matter with the sound they generate.
ARTIST / BAND: Madison
MP3s: "Santa Baby" / "#1 (RAC Remix)" / "Hot Hot Love"
ALBUM: The Noise Some People Make
FILE UNDER: noise pop
LABEL: G Records
INFO: It may still be a long time coming (January 11, 2011), and it may not have anything to with Oregon (except for the recent RAC remix) or even the West Coast, but Madison’s debut EP, The Noise Some People Make, is electro-hot. And it may be only four swift songs, clocking in at under 13 minutes (we have two of them for you below!), but they’re soon to be burning up the dance-pop charts across the country.
ARTIST / BAND: The Luyas
MP3: "Tiny Head"
ALBUM: Too Beautiful to Work
FILE UNDER: Experimental / Indie
LABEL: Dead Oceans / Idée Fixe
INFO: The Luyas are four musicians named Jessie Stein, Mathieu Charbonneau, Pietro Amatro and Stefan Scheider. They made a record called Too Beautiful to Work at 6 Nassau in Toronto, Ontario, and call Montreal, Quebec home.
ARTIST / BAND: Rachel Goodrich
MP3: "Na Na Na"
ALBUM: Light Bulb EP
FILE UNDER: indie pop, folk, Psychobilly
LABEL: s/r
INFO: Rachel Goodrich is an American musician and pioneer of "Shake-a-Billy" based in Miami, Florida. Her music has also been described as an "eclectic blend of vaudeville-inspired indie pop, swing-jazz andcountry-folk."[1] Her first album, Tinker Toys, was self-released in 2008 to critical acclaim, including a feature in the New York Times which dubbed her as a "queen of the Miami indie rock scene".[2]
ARTIST / BAND: Braids
MP3: "Plath Heart" / "Lemonade"
ALBUM: Native Speaker
FILE UNDER: Indie, Psych Pop
LABEL:Kanine
INFO: BRAIDS’ was formed by four best friends in their last year of High School in Calgary, Alberta. Convincing one another to skip university, they stayed in the garage all year and practiced obsessively, even while their fingers froze during the cold prairie winters. Then, at only 18 years old, they took the bold step of moving across the country together to Montreal, where they began crafting their self recorded/self produced debut album Native Speaker.
ARTIST / BAND: The Liptonians
MP3: You Know I Did
ALBUM: Let's All March Back Into The Sea
FILE UNDER: rock
LABEL: head in the sand
INFO: In 2008, completely unheralded, The Liptonians emerged from a basement in Winnipeg with an "earnest little pop-rock gem" (Uptown Magazine). Much to their surprise, the album picked up a Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Pop Recording, garnered rave reviews, charted on college radio across the country, became a regular on CBC Radio and paved the way for three cross-Canadian tours. The strength of their dynamic live show scored them opening slots for bands like Silver Starling (Last Gang Records) and Chicago indie rock legends, The Sea and Cake.
ARTIST / BAND: Smashing Pumpkins
MP3: Tom Tom
ALBUM: Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol II: The Solstice Bare
FILE UNDER: Rock
LABEL: Virgin
INFO: The newest single "Tom Tom" is here for download!  If you haven't already scooped up your copy already of the second EP, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol II: The Solstice Bare is in still available for a short time in The Smashing Pumpkins store  or at various physical and online retailers.  Again, it is limited edition and contains a 4-song CD, and a beautiful 12-inch vinyl picture disk featuring "Freak," "Spangled," "The Fellowship" and "Tom Tom" as well as the unreleased B side "Cottonwood Symphony." Go get yours before they're gone.
ARTIST / BAND: Les Jupes
ALBUM: Modern Myths
FILE UNDER: indie
LABEL: head in the sand
INFO: Les Jupes are a new band from the centre of Canada versed in expansive musical landscapes, sharp lyrics and an observer’s eye for the world. They are three Anglos with a French name making big, broad and determined music. And they are at the centre of a prairie renaissance growing around Head In The Sand Records.
Cosmo's Academy is a band from the West Coast who just got done listening to the Dark Side of the Moon and eating frozen pizza. Our interests include philosophy, hiking, bean bag chairs and weed. We're really just trying to make the world a better place.
ARTIST / BAND: Eksi Ekso
MP3: "Kills Of The Flood Tide"
ALBUM: Kills Of The Flood Tide 7" Single
FILE UNDER: post rock
LABEL: The Mylene Sheath
INFO: Eksi Ekso (pronounced 'ex-ee ex-o') is a rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. The latest brainchild from the creative forces behindThe Burning Paris and On Fire, Eksi Ekso is the convergence of atypical rock instrumentation, experimentation with form, and the breath of collaborative writing via six musicians coming from very different schools. Nate Shumaker (vocals/guitar), Tom Korkidis (vocals/bass/keys/samples), Sean Will (flugelhorn/trumpet/keys/samples), Clara Kebabian (violin/oboe/vocals), Beth Holub (viola), and Alex Mihm (drums/percussion) compose songs that play out like soundtracks to found footage reels.
ARTIST / BAND: The Happy Hollows
MP3: Faces / Monster Room / High Wire
ALBUM: Spells
FILE UNDER: Rock
LABEL: Autumn Tone
INFO: In the past year, Sarah Negahdari, the singer, guitarist, and chief songwriter of Los Angeles art-rock trio The Happy Hollows, has caused quite a commotion in the music world. Wired Magazine called her “one of the coolest women in rock,” Pitchfork wrote that her voice “commands attention on both the stompers and serenades,” and The Huffington Post branded her a “rock goddess.” Now The Happy Hollows are set to release their debut album Spells via Autumn Tone Records. The L.A. indie label will release the album in the U.S. on January 26, 2010. Sarah Negahdari’s journey to this point has been unconventional to say the least. It all began in a trailer park…well actually it began during the Iranian Revolution….
ARTIST / BAND: Elk
MP3: Volleyball
ALBUM: Lets Get Married
FILE UNDER: Afro beat
LABEL: Shape Up Records
INFO: In 2009, after a brief tour through a handful of midwest cities, Elk (aka Justin Stein) was on the receiving end of some positive feedback for his debut EP Honey Range, which was released on his own Shape Up Records. So, he took the next logical step and began working on a full length release from his Brooklyn, NY apartment.
ARTIST / BAND: Radical Face
MP3: The Deserter's Song/ Doorways
ALBUM: Touch The Sky
FILE UNDER: Indie
LABEL: Morr Music
INFO: Radical Face is the solo project of Ben Cooper, musician, illustrator, and artist based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. On November 16, 2010, Radical Face will release the EPTouch The Sky via Morr Music.
In 2007, Radical Face released Ghost, an album that presented the simple idea: what if houses had memories? Some of the songs on Ghost were from people still living their lives, some were from the point of view of those dead and gone, watching over the living or haunting them. Be sure to check out the "Making of Ghost" documentary that aired across the US on Current.TV. Ben is also a member of the Jacksonville duo Electric President. Made up of Ben and band mate Alex Kane, Electric President has two albums and one EP, also released under Morr Music.
ARTIST / BAND: Twilight Hotel
MP3: Mahogany Veneer
ALBUM: When The Wolves Go Blind
FILE UNDER: Alternative / Roots Music
LABEL: kill beat music
INFO: Twilight Hotel is the musical partnership of Brandy Zdan & Dave Quanbury. Together they possess an elusive chemistry and musical style that is dark, moody and rooted in some kind of nostalgic passion for scratchy records and vintage guitar tones. They combine a rock n roll sensibility, compelling songwriting, and haunting arrangements while standing comfortably outside your predictable genre box.
ALBUM: GUARDS ep
FILE UNDER: alternative new wave power pop
LABEL: 3 syllables records
INFO: GUARDS are living proof that this Twitter / Internet malarkey actually works! Closely affiliated CULTS (you don’t get any closer than your own sister) tweeted an update to their mighty list of followers a few months back that they feature on a new EP by GUARDS.
ARTIST / BAND: Lonnie Walker
MP3: Summertime / Love Turn
ALBUM: These Times Old Times
FILE UNDER: Indie / Americana / Punk
LABEL: DiggUp Records
INFO: Raleigh’s Lonnie Walker will see a national release for debut full-length These Times Old Times December 14, 2010, after a successful local release in 2009. Currently on a month long tour with Future Islands, they will release a split 7” with them November 4, 2010. Titled The Ink Well/Love Turn, the release is limited to 300 pieces of peach vinyl.
ARTIST / BAND: Eat More Cake Site
MP3: Underwater
ALBUM: Climb The Ladder, Live The Dream
FILE UNDER: hip hop, trip hop, electronica
LABEL: Urban Torque Recordings
INFO: Eat More Cake are a 4-piece electronica band based in Harrow, NW London. Their music combines elements of dance, hip-hop and down-tempo which form the basis for an innovative and unique sound.
Their debut single ‘Red Sky’, featuring Alexis Griffith, was released on December 7th and was taken from the album ‘Climb The Ladder, Live The Dream’, due out in 2010 on independent label Urbantorque Recordings.
MP3: TRIGGERS Vol. 1
1. Sub Swara – Steam
2. Distal – Coke Bottle
3. Sub Swara – Bend You
4. Moldy – Embrace the Filth
5. Julio Bashmore – Batak Groove
6. Sub Swara – Vagabond Knowledge
7. Sub Swara – In Ether
8. Kraddy – Minotaur
9. Tinie Tempah – Written in the Stars (Starkey Remix)
10. Sub Swara – Schemes
11. Sub Swara – Future Fresh
12. Ultragamma – Stars Collapse
13. Big Boi – Shutterbug (Sub Swara Remix)
14. Stuart Bogie (Antibalas & Superhuman Happiness) – Horn Interlude
15. Sub Swara – October
16. Sub Swara – Bird of Paradise
ARTIST / BAND: Lille
SONG (MP3): "Tall Shoulders" / "Tall Shoulders" - Todd Buchler (Duchess Leo) Remix
ALBUM: Tall Shoulders
FILE UNDER: Melodramatic Popular Song
LABEL: Whale Heart Records
INFO: Lille is Grace Bellury, an eighteen year old songstress from Atlanta, GA. Born a poor asian boy, Grace accompanied his father and three sisters to America, where they sailed on a ship carrying spices to every corner of the earth. He was the friend of every swarthy sailor and sat up late at night in the cabins below the deck, the warm lantern glow radiating off the roughened yet kindly faces, spinning stories of exotic girls from every continent and exploits worthy of a Conrad novel. The sailors constructed papooses made from sturdy rope for Grace and his small sisters and they hung suspended from the ballast every night, sleeping peacefully
ARTIST / BAND: Elizabeth & the Catapult
MP3s: "You and Me" / "Go Away My Lover"
ALBUM: The Other Side of Zero
FILE UNDER: Folk / Singer Songwriter / Pop
LABEL: Verve Forecast
INFO: “I’d hope there’s humor to both of our albums, but they’re actually quite different from one another,” says Elizabeth Ziman, the singer/songwriter/keyboardist behind Elizabeth & the Catapult. “While Taller Children has the sarcastic lightness of a Woody Allen film, the new record’s more in the vein of Kubrick or Lynch. It’s a bit darker, a bit more tongue-in-cheek—another side to who we are.” The reason for this shift isn’t as simple as a sudden breakup or breakdown. The dissonant strains are lurking between the lines, from the clanging chords and galloping groove of “The Horse and the Missing Cart” to the hopeful but bitter contrasts of “Thank You For Nothing,” a heartbroken ballad that channels the Buddhist teachings of an old Leonard Cohen poem. As it turns out, Elizabeth read Cohen’s Book of Longing collection from cover to cover while working on the Lincoln Center song cycle—performed last spring for a commission from NPR’s John Schaefer—that gave The Other Side of Zero its title and a handful of tracks. As the pages sunk in, one particular theme stood out: Cohen’s struggle to meet Buddhist goals in a monastery, which Elizabeth felt paralleled her own coming-of-age struggles while living and growing up in New York City. “Once I finished the book,” she says, “I realized that reaching this zen state wasn’t a realistic goal. Not for Leonard, and certainly not for me.
ARTIST / BAND: Giant Sand
MP3: Fields of Green
ALBUM: Blurry Blue Mountain
FILE UNDER: alt. country
LABEL: Fire Records
INFO: Inaccurately yet affectionately dubbed the Godfather of Alt. Country by the British press, Tucson, Arizona-based musician Howe Gelb has remained the sole epicenter and creative force behind the ever-fluid configurations of Giant Sand for over a quarter century. 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the bands 1985 debut long player Valley Of Rain – the point in which Howes music visions began – and will see the release of the complete works of Giant Sand, Howe Gelb, Arizona Amp and The Bands Of Blacky Ranchette – a collection of works that maintains its own genre-defying singularity drawing on the not-so disparate threads of his south western roots, lo-fi, country, jazz, and punk … “Giant Sand is a mood,” explained Howe, as if to simplify the dizzying breadth of his prolific output as an artist.
ARTIST / BAND: Underworld
MP3: Always Loved A Film (Christian Martin Remix)
ALBUM: Barking
FILE UNDER: Electronic
LABEL: Universal International Music B.V.
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