INDIEBLEND Fall 2010 Mixtape

Happy almost Veteran’s Day everyone. Here is a sampling of some great songs from this year.

The songs this month skew a little darker and a little broodier. Y’know for that nice seasonal affective disorder feel.

MEDIAFIRE

1. Best Coast – Crazy for You
2. Silver Pines – Travelling Bones
3. Women – Locust Valley
4. Sufjan Stevens – I Walked
5. Gonjasufi – Holidays
6. Claps – Fold
7. Blonde Redhead – Will There Be Stars
8. Abe Vigoda – November
9. Suuns – Armed for Peace

Mountain Man

This wonderful trio crafts minimalist folk, heavily relying on three part harmonies. In many songs off of the trio’s debut LP Made the Harbor there is nary even a guitar melody. The simplicity of the music has an interestingly unpretentious air about it; the pastoral modesty the are aiming for shines through brightly. If you like Fleet Foxes, they are an absolute must as an addition to the growing neo-folk scene. I would love to see them live.

Mountain Man on Bandcamp

MP3 download: Animal Tracks

My 29 Favorite Albums of 2010 So Far

The following are my favorite albums of 2010 so far. I did not include a lot of big releases this year, notably Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, which when viewing the rest of my choices may be surprising, but hey, I didn’t get that Pitchfork tattoo yet, so I’m not always inclined to do such things.

29. Matthew Dear – Black City

Dark techno driven by groovy beats and moody vocals.

28. Punch Brothers – Antifogmatic

Good neo-bluegrass, the insane talents of singer and mandolin player Chris Thile hold up the album.

27. The Sword – Warp Riders

There isn’t enough good, accessible metal these days. I love heavy guitar work and fun riffs and the one album that really filled that need for me this year was The Sword. They opened up for Metallica this year and I don’t believe that attests to their sound. It’s dark and brooding at times, but interspersed throughout their album is a good dose of powerful guitar and drum work. Head bobbing fun that will let you remain socially accepted. Air guitar rating = 8.5

26. The Radio Dept. – Clinging to A Scheme

I mostly just love the production on this album. Indie pop tends to have this misty sheen on it, but the acclaimed Swedish band really did a great job this time. Noted for using a drum machine instead of a drummer (which after dreaming of not having to deal with drummers ever again is a wonderful idea to me), they craft a really catchy sound that is both new and throwback at the same time. Go Sweden!

25. Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monae is creative as hell. Personally, I don’t think the album was the masterpiece that most critics claimed it was, only because the robot sex-goddess theme was a bit too tongue-in-cheek to be taken too seriously. Having seen her perform live I can attest to her talent, and as far as neo-R&B/funk/soul musicians go, she definitely has moved very high up to the top in that respect. However, all music in that genre can be crippled in ingenuity by owing a lot to other musicians in the genre, and she suffers from being a bit too much like a James Brown, and not really enough like an independently identifiable musician.

24. Pantha du Prince – Black Noise

Minimalist techno; the above single features Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox

23. Vampire Weekend – Contra

What hasn’t been said about Vampire Weekend? Contra incorporated a more electronic sound.

22. Surfer Blood – Astrocoast

Finally a Florida band I can be proud of. “Swim” is a perfect single. The band seems like it has distilled the concept of a “rock band” down into the perfect formula of fuzz-guitar tracks and well timed breakdowns. They just simply rock, and they rock well.

21. Wavves – King of the Beach

Regardless of all of Nathan Williams’ issues last year, he seems like a pretty damn cool guy. Boyfriend of Best Coast’s lead singer (whose album barely misses the cut for this list), he crafted a fantastically pop-punk-lofi (I hate doing this sort of thing, I’m sorry) album that is incredibly catchy and hey! It has audible vocals! It’s almost like pop-punk you don’t have to be ashamed to listen to. Reminiscent of a lot of the 90s punk that was such a big force in California, this is a perfect summer album.

20. Caribou – Swim

Dan Snaith cannot stay focused to save his life. Nary a release as Caribou (formerly Manitoba) sounds like another. Andorra had awesome 60s jam rock. Start Start Breaking My Heart was IDM. The Milk of Human Kindness was sampled and ethereal. Swim belongs in…the club? “Odessa”, the biggest “hit” off of the album is a dark groove completely unlike other Caribou releases.

19. Sleigh Bells – Treats

Lo-fi is in. Sleigh Bells is the epitome of lo-fi. Derek Miller’s hair metal riffs combined with Alexis Krauss perfectly shouted vocals. At times she sounds like an excited cheerleader, and well, its sort of an odd musical thing to experience once you then hear giant booming beats crackling over the previous two musical elements. Innovation in 2010 comes in strange forms….speaking of odd innovation…

18. Gonjasufi – Sufi and a Killer

I first heard Gonjasufi when he guested on a Flying Lotus track. I enjoyed the track, but didn’t really think he would do anything that special as a solo artist. Boy was I wrong. Incredible use of unique samples from all around the globe. Gonjasufi crafted a tripped out lo-fi sound that just seriously hasn’t existed before. The album is a challenge to listen to, for sure, but its rewarding for the simple fact that you won’t find other artists anywhere that sound like him.

17. Four Tet – There is Love In You

There Is Love in You isn’t as beat driven as Four Tet’s previous releases, but draws much more from ambient and emotional layering.

16. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffti – Before Today

Ariel Pink is a weirdo. This is well established. Before Today encompasses all the genres cool kids of today like to parody, 80s synth rock, 80s indie rock, etc. But at the same time, Ariel Pink and his band of uber-hipsters happen to do it very well.

15. MGMT – Congratulations

I was incredibly worried about Congratulations. When “Time to Pretend” and “Kids” got huge I feared the idea of MGMT creating a weak album departing from their true psychedelic roots. Well, my fears were quelled with the release of Congratulations. Long form jams and vague lyrics and most importantly, not a bit of a catchy chorus in sight. That’s my MGMT.

14. Fang Island – Fang Island

The happiest bunch of musicians you’ll find releasing an album this year. The band described the album as “the sound of everyone high-fiving everyone”. I’m inclined to agree with them.

13. Curren$y – Pilot Talk

Weed rap done right. Curren$y isn’t pandering like Kid Cudi or Wiz Khalifa, who have become parodies of themselves. Fantastic guest spots from Mos Def, Jay Electronica, and of course, Snoop “Dee Oh Double Gee”.

12. Twin Shadow – Forget

Embodies the “post-ironic” genre of modern indie music. Twin Shadow creates his faux-80s music with a bad moustache and probably some sort of TASCAM, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound really great.

10. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

Deerhunter has failed to produce an uninteresting album. With Halcyon Digest, they maintained their lo-fi style, but opted for more acoustic guitar and sampled bits. Bradford Cox’s solo project Atlas Sound is starting to show through more in their music, which I believe is for the best. Also, hands down the best use of saxophone on an album in many years.

9. Das Racist – Sit Down, Man

Very clearly influenced by the delivery and short metaphors and analogies of MF DOOM. Funny. Intelligent. Clearly don’t give a damn whether or not people think they are “legit”.

8.  Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

Album to album, Damon Albarn’s eclectic project rarely sounds like the same group. Still best known for their 2001 single “Clint Eastwood”, Gorillaz have moved past that grimy stage (which was actually only present on that one single) towards a .Plastic Beach is littered with incredible guests and such a dichotomy of musical styles that it barely sounds like a Gorillaz album and more like a dreamy pastiche of what’s good in music right now.

7. Beach House – Teen Dream

Dreamy-landscapes of emotion

6. Big Boi – Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

OutKast fans have been waiting a long time for a proper OutKast release, especially after the mediocre soundtrack album Idlewild, and while SLLF:TSoCD is not an OutKast album, its the same return to the 808 and brass production we have come to know the duo (especially Big Boi) for. Big Boi’s style is so important and iconic to the dirty south rap scene that it will surely be the name mentioned by future rap historians (a job I really hope exists in the future).

5. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

The harpist either pisses you off or enamors you. And for several years I refused to listen to her music simply because her voice felt too grating and whiny. When I have Have One on Me a chance I was very pleased to see that her talent much overshadows an initially unlistenable voice. In fact, her vocal abilities are quite impressive, albeit quite incomparable to others. Have One on Me was an ambitious release, spanning 3 cds and lasting almost 2 hours. Her songwriting is more than beautiful, painting amazing imagery and unique stories.

4. Flying Lotus  – Cosmogramma

The term “genre-crossing”is thrown around in about 9 out of 10 Cosmogramma reviews, but with Flying Lotus’ newest release his departure from purely hip-hop instrumentals has indeed soared into a magical land where funk, jazz, IDM, breakbeat, hip-hop, chiptune, and ambient can all exist in a surreal Dali-cum-Aphex Twin landscape. In a recent interview with The Sound of Young America’s Jesse Thorn, the artist stated that as a child he wanted to be Dr. Dre, well, in my opinion he has transcended the production skills of the almighty Dre already with this latest release.

3. The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt

Swedish singer Kristian Matsson crafts beautiful pastoral scenes with a unique singing and fingerpicking style. The incessant Bob Dylan comparisons are silly, primarily because Matsson is a much more talented singer and he has crafted a much more unique style than Dylan. His rusty croon has the ability to do fairly magical things in a very traditional folk mindset. Impressive stuff. The tape-scratched production is a perfect accompaniment to the ambiance of the music as well.

2. Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz

Sufjan Stevens, the posterboy of indiedom, hadn’t released a proper LP for five years. When he put out the pre-LP EP All Delighted Peoples, fans were probably perplexed (but pleased) with the unseen change to Sufjan’s style. Although, if you had heard The BQE, a recent symphonic release from Sufjan (or his first proper release Enjoy Your Rabbit), you would have gotten an idea that he was moving away from banjo plucking, opting for synth twinkling and drum machine boom bapping. Age of Adz, inspired by the crazed “religious prophet” and outsider artist Royal Robertson, is an incredibly crafted electronic album. Imagine if you will, a world where Ben Gibbard and Sufjan switched places and the Postal Service was ambitious and matured a LOT and incorporated glittering strings and woodwind arrangements into their synth driven music. It’s a lot like that, but much, much better.

1. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

Few moments in my music listening life will ever compare to hearing the main synth drop in on “Dance Yrself Clean”. James Murphy and the rest of the LCD crew honed the long form “disc0-punk” jam down to an exact science. Let’s just hope he was being serious when he implied this may not be the group’s last release.

Seven Seven Inches I Had Laying Around My Record Collection

The art of the 7″ single has been revamped with digital download incentives and the possible awesomeness that could await on a unique b-side or remix. The popularity of the little suckers has exploded with the Record Store Day and Vinyl Saturdays occurring at record stores across the country. Also, many are shipped to stores to be giveaways, which surprises me because most employees seem to never give them to me unless I ask if they have any giveaways. Five out of seven of the below singles are giveaways, some were welcome free gems, others…. not so much. Another thing people don’t consider is the manual effort involved in playing a 7″ single. You HAVE to want to hear it because in 3-4 minutes, the song will end and you have to flip the thing over. Yeah, it’s less efficient than an eight track.

So I’ve decided to take a little adventure through the seven inches I’ve amassed over the past 9 or so months. As I said, several were giveaways, but some were just too awesome to pass up.

1. Chairlift – Evident Utensil 7″

A-Side: Evident Utensil
This is a sublime little single from the Brookyln electro-pop group. Released in 2007, it is a well crafted piece of indie pop. Not amazing, but very fun and listenable. Danceable, too.
B-Side: Evident Utensil (MGMT Remix)
I like this version more, but with its sparse percussion and more sonically laidback sound it sounds much different from Chairlift with the exception of the occasional synth line. It’s even a little tepid for MGMT. Another somewhat disappointing big name remix. The lord-mother of them all being directly below.
Origin: Throw in from my local record store, Vinyl Fever.
Rating: 6/10

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero

A-Side: Zero
Possibly one of my favorite songs of the year and its on one of my favorite albums of the year (It’s Blitz). What’s not to love? The driving synth line and the soaring Karen O vocals are perfect. You can dance to it and enjoy intensity of the track. Just great.
B-Side: Zero (Animal Collective Remix)
Now when I saw this, I was very, very, very excited. Just three months before I got this single I had gotten Merriweather Post Pavilion, one of the best albums of the 21st century, and something I could easily call one of my favorite albums of all time from the weird folks in Animal Collective. Now when I saw an awesome band like that was remixing another great band, I envisioned a blend of the YYY’s synth pop with the weird aurally textured Animal Collective. Instead, I get syncopated vocals over what seems to be a weed eater whacking jello. Dreams, succesfully crushed.
Rating: 1 Crushed Dream

3. Daniel Ash vs. Zak Ambrose – Rock On

A-Side: Rock On  (Dirty Queen Mix)
Really boring bad 80′s-esque bar rock. Just plain weird. They actually pressed this on vinyl for Christ’s sake? Who did they think would ever play or enjoy this? Print it on a pack of Marlboro’s and leave it on a table in some bad bar where they have cover bands only.
B-Side: Rock On (Space Echo Mix)
Suck + techno. I knew an already bad 7″ would have a worse b-side.
After a little listening time, it’s a hundred times better than the “dirty queen” version. But please, please tell this producer that laying some rock bass (mediocre rock bass, mind you) over a techno-y beat doesn’t make it good. MAKE IT STOP. NEXT.
Origin: Throw in at Central Square Records in Seaside, Florida.
Rating: 2/10

4. The Killers – Human/Crippling Blow

A-Side: Human
This is really pleasant alternative pop rock. Partway in some awesome 80′s-esque keyboards drop in and it becomes a really interesting song. Brandon Flowers isn’t a half bad songwriter either. I actually like this one.
B-Side: Crippling Blow
Dirty distorted bass and strong piano mixed with some almost White Stripes sounding vocals in a piano romp equals a really fun song. Really old school for the Killers. I really like this one as well. Bonus harpsichord included. Sounds likes a single straight out of the seventies.
Origin: Throw in at Vinyl Fever.
Rating: 7/10

RECORD STORE DAY ACQUIREMENTS
5. Modest Mouse – Autumn Beds/Whale Song

A-Side: Autumn Beds
Wonderfully chill folky Modest Mouse song from their new EP. Hints of banjo and theremin(?) make this a fantastically different new song.
B-Side: Whale Song
Led by Eric Judy’s strong bass, this is a mostly instrumental b-side with Brock’s unique guitar licks multi-tracked over the jam. Sounds like they just screwed around in the studio, and knowing Modest Mouse, this seems very likely. But definitely a very fun song.
Rating: 7/10

6. Wilco – You Never Know/Unlikely Japan

A-Side: You Never Know
It’s happy Wilco from their latest album Wilco (The Album). Beautiful classic rock harmonies during the harmony. Such an upbeat song, it’s nice to hear Jeff Tweedy in a good mood.
B-Side: Unlikely Japan
Now this is an absolute treat. This an early version of Impossible Germany recorded at Stoma Studios in 2003, absolutely different version of the Sky Blue Sky cut. The second half of the song calms down and Tweedy uses a vocoder over his vocals, very weird for a Wilco song, but a must have for any Wilco fan.
Rating:8/10

7. Elvis Perkins in Dearland

Wonderful Harry Nillsson-like vocals and amazingly fun instrumentals with clarinet and oboes, a crashing cymbal with tromping piano gives a wonderfully ragtime feel to the track “Lookout, Lorraine”. The second track has haunting double tracked vocals and a shivering organ, really, really interesting.

Rating: 9/10

Too boring AND crappy to put on the list. Anberlin – Feel Good Drag 7″

A-Side: Feel Good Drag
Pop-punky crap is my first impression. And that’s pretty much what it is. Oh excuse me, indie pop punky crap.
B-Side: Blame Me Blame Me (Remix)
Repeated stupid hooks, and apparently a “remix”.
Origin: Throw in at Central Square Records in Seaside, Florida.
Rating: 4/10

Where’s my iPod?…

It’s Late. I Am Aware of This. My Ten Favorite Albums of 2008.

2008 was a great year for music. If you keep up with any music blogs at all you have heard that already, and you have seen countless top 10 or 50 lists. If you are anything like me you disagreed strongly with some (PITCHFORK) or just noticed obvious favoritism for bands that website was strongly attached to (Paste). So I am prefacing my top ten list with simple fact. My list is not of the ten “best” albums of the year, simply those which I enjoyed the most, and generally tends to correlate with the number of plays on iTunes or scrobbles from iPod. Nevertheless, here are my top ten favorite albums of 2008.

10. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals was my (and I think most listener’s) first exposure to Greg Gillis, the Pittsburgh, PA, mashup wizard. I first heard the album in early February and from the first 3 seconds I knew I was in love. If you had read the other stories here on indieBlend you may notice how much I disdain popular rap. The second I heard pop rap over Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” I knew I would love this album. Indeed I did. The animals is 53:21 of mashup perfection, with Gillis pulling the tiniest pieces of pop history to make the most dance worthy album I have heard in a very long time. In March I will get to see Girl Talk live, which should be amazing, and believe me, it will warrant a story here on indieBlend.

9. Tapes N’ Tapes – Walk It Off

2008 was a great year for alt rock, with releases from The Hold Steady and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; but one of my favorite releases this year was Walk It Off from Tapes N’ Tapes. Pitchfork gave it a poor review (5.9) and I will chalk that review up to their consistent passing off of anything that is popular in the “blogospere” as the reviewer called it. Walk It Off is a wonderfully crafted, catchy, and aureally appealing album. Favorite track: “Hang Em All”.

8. Dr. Dog – Fate

Dr. Dog, on the outside, seems like a one trick pony. We sound like the Beatles and the Band got into a bus crash and the members went with each other and formed a band… is what some may assume Dr. Dog wants to project about their self. However, critics who give them the chance to be enjoyed love them. Yes, their vocal harmonies and southern rock guitar are insipired by the classics like The Band, ELO, and the Beatles, but is that a bad thing? They aren’t a cover band! “The Old Ways” is fantastic and almost all the tracks have their own respective charm. Give it a chance, and you may just fall in love.

7. Fuck Buttons – Street Horrsing

Street Horrsing is an odd album. Mystifyingly beautiful is the incessant synth drone present in about half of the experimental group’s first “full album”. “Ribs Out” is one of the more unique tracks on the album, with reverberating, chilling stutters and calling out over a tribal background. You need patience for Fuck Buttons, as the tracks are generally slowly evolving, yet wonderfully constructed. It’s noisy, it’s loud, but ethereal (and rough at the same time) and pleasing as well.

6. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend has gotten a lot of flak from the “indie” crowd because they can remain loved by those will listen to the usual top 40 trash. Just because a band can cross boundaries and is genuinely talented doesn’t mean they will hurt your “indie music street cred” if you admit to enjoying them. Anyway, Vampire Weekend had some of the most simply crafted, and nearly perfected alterna-pop songs with a Cape Cod rich kid flair ever, which is to be said, the only ones ever. They provide a new perspective on music, some priveleged kids with varied backgrounds and influences, with a genuine love for music, made wonderful music.

5. Beach House – Beach House

Beautiful tales of woe, loss, and love are delivered through a heavy layer of reverberating vocals, organ, and never-to-overbearing drums. The vocals are beautiful and soothing even when weaving tales that are not so happy. This Baltimore duo calmed me down a lot this year. Giving them my fifth favorite album and most soothing album of 2008.

4. She & Him – Volume One

There are several things that contributed to my love of this album. It’s produced by M. (Matt) Ward, one of my favorite musicians. Zooey Deschanel is beautifully spotlighted in her first musical release. I love Zooey Deschanel through her simple association of playing Trillian in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Also, there’s some good music on this album. Composed  almost entirely by Ward himself, the album is viciously retro, which fits Deschanel’s voice well. The lyrics are sincere and meaningful, and fitting since they all sound like 50′s love songs.

3. No Age – Nouns

Noise rock is not easy to make. I have tried. Wait, scratch that, noise rock is really easy to make! But you usually end up sounding like you are trying to make it sound like shit. No Age manages  to produce a lo-fi gritty album without sounding over ambitious in their attempt to sound grungy. All of the high energy songs on Nouns from the well established garage duo work out well, although you may need a bit of an acquired taste to appreciate them. One upside is you don’t need 500 hundred dollar Sennhesier cans to appreciate the album!

2. Lightspeed Champion – Falling Off the Lavender Bridge

Dev is a weird songwriter, to say the absolute least. He writes about being sick in someone’s mouth. It sounds childish at first, but the former noise/dance/rock musician of Test Isicle’s has made a wonderfully complex album, with a plentiful smattering of strings, bluegrass slide guitar, and fine acoustic guitar fun. While the lyrics are unorthodox, there is still an obvious emotional set obvious. The album is catchy, playful, and downright pleasing to listen to. Midnight Surprise is a 9:55 epic that evolves majestically and shows a lot of promise for Dev’s future ambitions, whether they are with a group or solo. The album wasn’t critically acclaimed for the most part, but I certainly loved it.

1. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping

I did not think I would like Skeletal Lamping so much when I heard Kevin Barnes had oriented it around Georgie Fruit, the black she-male writing persona Barnes had taken on for Skeletal Lamping (much like whatever Ziggy Stardust was for David Bowie). The album is extremely sex oriented, I cannot stress that enough, ever. The album is so incredibly ADD and hilariously fun that you can’t help but like it. Barnes had planned to release the album as a huge mixtape like album and not each bother with splitting up the tracks. But obviously, Barnes has way too much fun with naming songs (Triphallus, to Puncuate! and Beware our Nubile Miscreants are some good examples). Barnes recorded almost the entire album by himself and it really shows a bit of insight into his mind, it’s an eerily fun place it seems. The musical landscapes are shifting like some sugar rushing acid trip. The album is so divinely unique (even for Of Montreal) that I couldn’t resist putting it at number one. Also, I listened to “Gallery Piece” about 90 times.
Thanks for reading, I’ll be writing more often now that Christmas and New Year’s are past. See you around!

The Collective Impresses

If you are a rabid fan, you may have heard, but two songs were recently leaked off of the closely guarded Animal Collective 2009 release, Merriweather Post Pavilion. They were taken down almost immediately, but they have been absorbed into the web much too quickly.

First off is Brothersport:

Next is my personal favorite, My Girls:

I can not wait for the new album. These two tracks have been awesome already. As for the leaks… just use your internet intuition (cough*google*cough) and you will find them.

Edit: Shh… http://tinyurl.com/62qzcv

Band in Review (and other assorted comments): Belle and Sebastian

Belle and Sebastian

It’s hard to find bands with such wonderful consistency as the Scottish group Belle and Sebastian. Founded in 1996, they garnered lots of popularity throughout the late nineties due to their slick sound and the beautiful, balladic touching lyrics delivered by Stuart Murdoch. They recorded their first album in 1996 at Stow College, whose music professor was so impressed by their singles that he allowed them to record a whole album, Tigermilk, on their college label, Electric Honey. Only 1000 copies were pressed into vinyl, and now sell upwards of 600 dollars on eBay and the like.
Next, they joined Jeepster Records and recorded their most critically acclaimed album, If You’re Feeling Sinister, which would go on to be named one the best 100 albums between 1985 and 2005 (Spin Magazine).
The band released several more critically acclaimed albums over the next 8 years, notably Dear Catastrophe Waitress, which had several songs used in the unduly indie flick Juno.
In 2006, the band released The Life Pursuit, which is my personal favorite album to date, if only due to how much it varies in genre and pacing. But of course, their generally upbeat nineties alt-rock guitar and organ are present throughout. One of the highlights is “Sukie in the Graveyard” which contains a fantastic organ chord progression, tells the story an odd hipster girl who hangs out in a graveyard, no less, and meets a guy in the attic of the sculpture building at an art school. “Song for Sunshine” is a perfect example of the genre shift, with elements of funk, laced with beautiful harmonies.  On a more technical review, I am moreso impressed by and drawn to their recording style, which somewhat reflects the sound I strive to achieve when I record my own music. Slightly reverberated vocals to add depth, clean guitar, super crisp drums, and dry synth create an aurally pleasant album.
Much more recently, I picked up their compilation of songs recorded at the BBC studios, The BBC Sessions, which is a nice collection of previously unreleased songs. Unfortunately, Belle and Sebastian are currently on hiatus and do not plan on releasing on any more studio albums, but only time will tell.

On a side note, today I visited one of the premiere record stores in the country today, Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas. It is home to many unique vinyl records, some of which I picked up, like Modeselektor’s Happy Birthday Remixes, Aphex Twin’s Analord, and Atmosphere’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Better Paint That Shit Gold (with really, really awesome yellow pressed vinyl), all of these are fantastic albums as well. If you are ever in Austin, Texas and you have the slightest interest in music, I recommend you visit. It’s adjacent from the enormous Whole Foods, a place I could write an entirely separate blog about.

Furr

I recently discovered the Portland experimental folk band Blitzen Trapper, whose newest album Furr just released. I am really enjoying it so far, and I think you should pick it some time if you like folk music, or the likes of Dr. Dog; you will definitely enjoy it.

I have a new chiptune band with another local artist Josh Kaplan, Cash$Duke, and we are planning to have several shows in Tallahassee within the month of December. Check us out MySpace and on Facebook for the future showdates!

Music from the soul. What music means to me. What does it mean to you?

Self expression is not easy. It is a challenge to most people to be able to fluidly spill their emotions onto paper, whether it be in picture form, simple semantics, or in musical notes and vocals. All my life I have appreciated the emotion and passion that goes into music and how it can psycologically affect us all. Music for me is not just a hobby or fun time consuming extended project, but a way for me to put a piece of me, a piece of my soul into the aether. You can view the undercurrent of emotions I experience in my music. With my earliest written lyrics anti-establishment, then evolving into love songs, and back into pessimistic apocalyptic ballads. All corresponding to real events in my life, or viewpoints I took on.

As for instrumentals, I have always loved unorthodox sounds. The accordion, for example, is something I have always adored. It holds a character not many other instruments can. For the longest time is has been confined to polka bands and Weird Al Yankovic. But after digging into my Polish and Czech heritage and finding out how awesome the instrument really is, I began to use it for my music.

There is no bound to what I can express with my music, and without it, I would not be a complete person.

My challenge to other musician bloggers out there, do this same thing, express how you feel about music and what inspires you to create it in the comments back on Digg. I would love to see what my peers are driven by. Cheers!

TheSixtyOne Spotlight: Stephanie Nilles

Stephanie Nilles

I’ve been a member of TheSixtyOne.com only for about 3 1/2 months under several different artist users and I have found many, many artists that really impress me that I would not have found had I not searched through the wonderful site. For the uninitiated, TheSixtyOne is a user controlled site that is in essence, Digg for music, but with an achievement and point basis. Users ‘bump’ songs that they like and they make the front page if they receive enough bumps.

Anyway, most recently I found the singer Stephanie Nilles. Now, generally her upbeat, jazzy music is not something I would not usually get into, however, I was absolutely hooked after hearing her wonderful witty lyrics and jumpy jazz piano (note: She is an INCREDIBLE jazz pianist); timed with her high pitched, incredibly ranged voice, makes for a really fun listening experience.

Her lyrics are real, not cliche in any sort of way and incredibly sincere. This all combines into one of my favorite new(found) artists so far this year. If you are in New York City (or anywhere in the Northeast or hell, the south pole) check out her MySpace.

Favorite Songs:

“Jump Monk/A Constellation of Endeavors”

“Kool Aid Stand”

Stephanie on TheSixtyOne

Podcast Coming Soon!

Coming very soon, a full 30 minute podcast filled with reviews and all kinds of stuff. Also I’ll actually play some of the music I recommend. Look for an episode to come out every Monday!