Daily Music Post #1

The Naked & Famous - Birds

I’m one of those weird rare people who really likes music. I like sharing it too. My friends will tell you that most of the music they like they discovered through me, cause I’m cool like that. Thought I’d make a music post a regular daily feature of my blog and share the musical love. I just discovered this band through a fellow tumblr…er? http://incubi.tumblr.com/

Really digging them. Hope ya like. If you don’t, that’s okay, maybe you’ll like the next one.

Daily Music Post #2

Heartsrevolution - C.Y.O.A.

Heartsrevolution is Ben and Lo, their tour bus is not a tour bus, instead it’s an ice cream truck they call The Hearts Challenger, which they sometimes drive around dispensing white heart-shaped vinyl and other knick-knacks and goodies (see? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7LG0Fofkv4). I found out about this band in 07, when they did a split EP with Crystal Castles. I love Crystal Castles, and I think this duo is just as good, who knows, when they release their first full length “Ride or Die” I might like them slightly better, they seem to have that potential.

I chose to post C.Y.O.A. because it’s fun and dancey, and I think people would respond more to that than my favorite tracks by them which are more slow melodic songs:

The Rose and Her Prince http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1w7SWKyPOQ

Digital Suicide http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwInjLLZZJw

You can also check out their site for more videos, news, info and etc: http://heartsrevolution.com/zine/

Hope you enjoyed the music. If you didn’t, that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #3

Free Blood - The Royal Family

This is one of my favorite play with the volume all the way up dance tracks. Heard it a few years ago and thought for sure this band was about to blow up, at least on that indie level. As far as I could tell that didn’t exactly happen, I have yet to meet anyone who’s also heard of them, they don’t even have a wiki page, haha. That may change soon though because they’ve got a song on the 127 Hours soundtrack, “Never Hear Surf Music Again”. Hopefully this raises their profile and they release a full-length. As of now they have one album, Singles, which is 6 songs, plus some remixes of their songs by other people.

Free Blood is John Pugh, former singer and drummer of !!!, and fashion designer Madeline Davies. I love !!!, but for me their latest album lacked a little bit of what made me dig them so much, it felt a little watered down, and I can’t help but think that it’s John Pugh’s absence that’s responsible. Free Blood has that same infectious funk pop danceyness that I loved in !!!’s earlier stuff. I look forward to more.

If you’re curious and want to read some more about them:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/09/beloved_singer-drummer_john_pu.html

http://archives.heavemedia.com/interview/2009/04/15/free-blood-part-2

http://encoremag.com/new-york/articles/353/new-blood-for-john-pugh

Hope you enjoyed the music, if you didn’t that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #4

Pepepiano - Los Angeles

I’ve literally only known about Pepepiano for about, I don’t know, 15 minutes or so. I was listening to music on youtube, trying to decide what I was going to post today, and I came across these songs. I can’t stop listening to them, perfect music to relax and get some artwork done to. Also check out this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSXzQX1dLTQ Good stuff. A google search tells me that Pepepiano is the recording alias of David Bird, google also lets me know that he just so happens to have a tumblr page, so instead of me telling you about him you can go to his page which has an interview up http://pepepiano.tumblr.com/ and learn some more and follow him if you’re keen to.

Also, if you like FREE music he has some albums for download on bandcamp, http://pepepiano.bandcamp.com/ you’re welcome.

I’ll leave it at that, so I can get back to listening to it myself.

Hope you enjoyed the music, if you didn’t, that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #5

Miami Horror - Sometimes

Miami Horror is an Australian band with a elctro-disco-pop-indie sound… I don’t know or care what genre they’d be classified as. Originally Miami Horror was one guy, Benjamin Plant, producing music alone, then it expanded into a band to perform the songs live as I understand it. Discovered them a few days ago. This is perfect summer music to me because you can either dance to it or relax to it. I wonder if they’re a big deal in Australia. I wouldn’t be surprised. You can check out their

You should also check out the following video which is awesome because the dude looks like Zoidberg from Futurama, haha:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF8dt1hpZ9M

and here’s their official site http://www.miamihorror.com/

Hope you enjoyed the music, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #6

Computers Want Me Dead - We Walk in Circles

This is my 2nd favorite male musical duo from New Zealand (I hope I don’t have to tell you who the first is). Since they’re from NZ I guess you’d pronounce it “Computers Want Me Did”. I love this video because it finally uncovers how to build a machine capable of time travel. AWESOME! These dudes are apparently sorta brand new, they’ve been playing shows for a couple years but they’ve just released their first self-titled EP this past Monday. I haven’t had a chance to check that out yet, but from the 3 songs they have online, this one, “In Your Blood” and “letters and Numbers”, I look forward to hearing the rest.

In Your Blood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29bZHfMvjvw

Letters and Numbers: http://vimeo.com/21034779

Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE_APrA3Evk

Hope you enjoy the music, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #7

Tune-Yards - The Bizness

Firstly I have to give credit to another tumblr blog for this discovery: http://www.musicfansmic.net/ it’s a pretty good music blog if you’re looking for ones to follow.

Tune-Yards is the recording name of Merrill Garbus. “The Bizness” is the first single off her upcoming album “w h o k i l l”, which is due next month. I can’t imagine this song not being one of the most buzzworthy songs of the year. As a single it’s extremely successful because it makes me really really want the album, just based of this one song. Remember the days when buying an album was a gamble? Back before it was so easy to preview the entire album before buying, back when all you had to go on was one or two songs? Remember how disappointing it was when album sucked despite a great single? I don’t take the risk anymore, I listen to a whole album before I buy it unless it’s an artist I really trust (Radiohead, Mars Volta, Daft Punk, etc). That being said, I feel like I would risk buying this album, just based on this song. It’s just a great song, and it really seems indicative of a unique album. Also, this video is pretty great. Little kids going crazy, who doesn’t love that?

“w h o k i l l” will be the 2nd album, “Bird Brains” was the first, which I am listening to as I type this. Interesting thing about this album is she recorded all on her own, no help from anyone, with a digital recorder and a freeware music program. Pretty impressive. I don’t know what other people label her genre-wise, but I think “experimental” fits pretty well, she definitely sounds like someone who’s just trying different things from song to song, interesting instrumentation, looping vocals, and you can hear lots of different influences, r&b, reggae, hip-hop, folk, indie, etc. The closest things I’d compare Tune-Yards to is The Dirty Projectors and maybe Animal Collective. I think those 3 would make an awesome bill for a tour. Merrill also has a pretty interesting versatile voice too, lots of different tones and textures coming out of her mouth. Yeah, I’m pretty excited to hear the next album. If Tune-Yards gets hyped out of control I think it’s deserved.

Here’s a couple tracks off Bird Brains

“Hatari”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svgh_MZOmaw

“Real Live Flesh”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDEQWaSiEU

Here’s a live rendition of “Bizness”, sounds really great:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcmJnNYAkFI

official site: http://www.tune-yards.com/

Hope you enjoyed the music, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #8

Thieves Like Us - Shyness

I almost forgot to do this today! I wish I could say it’s because I was busy, but I was distracted and it really just slipped my mind. So here we go, right under the wire, haha.

I’m not sure if this is a bad that a lot of people know about or not, I don’t listen to the radio or watch music video channels or anything so I tend to be clueless about that sort of thing. I’ve never heard anybody talk about this band though. I discovered them a few months ago using this website that randomly plays different artists, I wish I could remember what it was because it was pretty cool… the name was a number, that’s all I remember, haha. The song I heard was “Drugs In My Body” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArQCkbP07Ao off their 2008 album “Play Music”. I listened to that album, and I was into it but I wouldn’t say it made a super big impression on me. Then I listened to the newer album, “Again and Again”, and I really feel like the band leveled up, that album gets a lot of play on my ipod. The band is partly Swedish, and they have videos for all their songs on youtube, using edited old Swedish films, and they all seem to fit really well with their songs. “Shyness” and “Never Known Love” are my two favorite songs from them, I guess because I identify with those themes, haha, plus they sound great.

Never Known Love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1m590Elgl0

Also, I should mentioned, apparently this band has been pretty poorly reviewed by NME and Pitchfork, maybe others, I don’t know. So maybe the general consensus might be that they suck? Haha. I don’t know, I tend to not align with music reviewers very often anyway. I dig this bands sound, it’s very mellow but has a nice groove to it, there’s definitely a vintage feel to it as well. One reviewer called them “hijackers” and said you’d get a more authentic experience listening to New Order or Joy Division, but to that I say balderdash, everybody in music is stealing from somebody. A lot of reviewers have also criticized the vocals as “uninspired”, and I guess I can understand why they say that, this band isn’t very emotive, but in a weird way I kinda like the somewhat emotionless feel of the vocals, they’re light and sort of lend texture to the music. But listen for yourself and decide if you’re into it.

Hope you enjoyed the tunes, if not that’s okay, perhaps you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #9

Smoosh - We Are Our Own Lies (live on kexp)

I’m guessing (or hoping) that Smoosh isn’t something new to most of you, but I thought they’d be especially relevant to post right now because of the whole Rebecca Black/Ark Music Factory shenanigans going on. I don’t have anything against Rebecca Black, she’s a kid having some fun, and she’s probably a moderately good singer that could be a great singer without copious amounts of autotune and the proper training, as well as songs that actually let her sing instead of that weird half talk/half sing thing. But with all these young tweens and teens singing pre-written songs over generic beats with all the humanity digitized out of their voices… I thought it would be refreshing to post Smoosh. Smoosh started as 2 sisters age 8 and 6 making music, they released their first album at the ages of 12 and 10 in 2004. They play their own instruments, but that’s not really what’s impressive about them, because lots of kids can be taught to play instruments. They write their own music and lyrics and they’re surprisingly sophisticated for kids their age, I like to think of them as like Eisley Jr. They’re older now, 19, 17, and 15 (they added another sister when she got old enough to play music) if I’m doing my math correctly.

I think these girls are great and demonstrate young girls can make music that’s not vapid and… well, sucky, for a lack of a better word. I don’t blame girls like Rebecca Black because it’s really adults who don’t really encourage them to actually be creative, kids can do really amazing things when you let them. On a side note, how fucking weird is it that two grown adult men wrote “Friday”?

one of their early songs “La Pump”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUhUS11I1tI

Massive Cure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCMXH2K661g

Hope you enjoyed today’s Daily Music Post, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #10

Rachel’s - Water From the Same Source

This song right here is one of my favorite songs, it’s one of my go-to songs when I want to take a peaceful stroll and just be all contemplative. It always makes whatever I’m doing seem like a very poignant moment in a film when I listen to this on my ipod. When I saw the movie Hancock and this song started playing I was like “HEY THAT’S MY SONG!” …in my mind. Of course the movie used it for it’s most contemplative poignant moment, cause this song is just perfect for that. Rachel’s is Rachel Grimes, John Noble, and Christian Frederickson, and while you might assume that it’s named Rachel’s after Rachel, John Noble was actually use that as his name for his solo act before he started collaborating with Rachel and Christian. To be honest I don’t know why they’re called Rachel’s, I’ve never looked into it.

Anyway, their music is mostly instrumental and is largely influenced by classical music. If you like stuff like Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai, that’s just pretty and nice to relax to then I’d recommend adding Rachel’s to your repertoire.

one of their songs with vocals “Last Thing’s Last”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuYOxyZkSM

Falling in With Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5NzCbvtMto

Hope you enjoyed today’s music post, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next.

Daily Music Post #11

Vitalic - Flashmob

If you like Frenchies who make ass-shaking music (Daft Punk, Justice, Cassius) then Vitalic should be right up your le ruelle. That’s French for alley, or at least that’s what le google says. Le Anyway. Unlike the aforementioned compatriots, Vitalic is solo instead of a duo. Pascal Arbez, as he was born, has been a part of the electronic music scene since the late 90’s, but he didn’t release his first album “OK Cowboy” until 2005, then followed it up with “Flashmob” in 2009. I just heard of him last year, and Flashmob has gone into heavy rotation in my songs to sweat to and practice the robot when I’ve got the house to myself playlist. I don’t keep track of what the appropriate genre labels are for music, to be honest I find that kind of stuff confusing and sort of annoying these days, so I don’t know what people call this kind of music… French electro disco house? Whatever, it’s fun to dance to. Here are some other videos for your enjoyment:

experimenting with dry ice, cool - See the Sea/Red: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56bCjzFMghI

some ladies being bonkerstown smearing their lipstick all over the place - Poison Lips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2dfGC1oziE

Vitalic’s most interesting video, the weird things that go on in bathroom stalls besides pooping and peeing. I can definitely relate to going into the bathroom to eat snacks or take a nap back when I worked a shitty dayjob - Second Lives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuwRxha8zSU

Hope you enjoyed today’s daily music post, if not, that’s alright, perhaps you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #12

Astronomer - remix of Metronomy’s Not Made for Love

I was out of the house all day today, and I was mostly listening to remixes by Astronomer on repeat, and I figured why not do today’s music post on a person who remixes other people’s songs? I’m a fan of Metronomy so that’s how I discovered Astronomer, it was among a bunch of other remixes of this song, and while I dug the others as well, this one just really stood out. I got so hooked on the song that I went in search of other remixes by this person.

What I like about Astronomer’s remixes, aside from the crazy danceability, is that he seems to play to the strengths of whatever song he’s remixing. A lot of times I hear remixes that are so divergent from the source that it seems like they just created a whole new song and laid the vocals on top of it. Not that that can’t also make for good listening, because it often does. But I like that Astronomer builds on what’s already there and just makes it dancier. I also love his choice of songs.

I’ll post some remixes and their originals so you can compare and contrast:

Micachu & the Shapes - Lips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dImT-Xs9RMI

Astronomer remix - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RFgCg2AYw

The XX - Basic Space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHZVGqqf3gg

Astronomer remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXdLjxYWi6Q

and I wanted to post his remix of Foals’ “This Orient”, which is really good, but I don’t see that on youtube. Give it a listen on his myspace though…

http://www.myspace.com/astronom

According to this interview: http://pejhy.com/2009/09/13/beyond-earth/ he’s supposed to have been working on some original music. That interview is years old and there’s no sign of his original music as far as I can tell, but I hope it’s coming.

Hope you enjoyed today’s music post, if you didn’t, that’s alright, perhaps you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #13

Little Red - Rock It

Okay, tonight’s REAL daily music post. Nickelback sounds like poop tastes is not a band I particularly care for. This band, Little Red, I enjoy though. They’re from DOWN UNDAH! Melbourne Australia that is. This song is off their 2nd album “Midnight Remember”. Little Red has 4 singers, each of them doing lead on different song while the others sing back up harmonies, and they’ve got a very straightforward old-fashioned rock thing going on. For this they’ve been compared to The Beach Boys and The Beatles. I feel like this is one of the few bands my mom could come over and hear me playing and not be like “What are you listening to?” which really means “This music is very weird to me, why do you like these strange noises?” It’s just that simple and accessible, which usually is not a great thing to me, but in this instance I think it works for them. The songs are catchy and fun and usually make me want to sing along.

I only have one criticism of this band. With 4 singers in the group, I think they could do some more interesting things playing off each other, instead of usually just having one person lead sing and the rest sing back up, especially since one of them has a very different voice from the rest of them (so much so that it almost sounds like a different band when he’s doing lead vocals). There’s the potential there to use that contrast to their advantage, The Blood Brothers come to mind. I think it would make them much more dynamic of a band. Perhaps they’d prefer to just keep it simple though, and I respect that, it’s their prerogative.

You can see what I mean by one of the other singers having a very different voice in their song “Coca-Cola”, toward the end the 2 main singers do play off each other a bit, I think they should do a lot more of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OyCEDTeRmI

Hope you enjoyed today’s music post, if not that’s okay, maybe you’ll dig the next one.

Sorry again for the Nickelback post.

Daily Music Post #14

S. Carey - Mothers/Action (live)

S. Carey, or Sean Carey, is also the drummer and supporting vocalist of Bon Iver, so if you like Bon Iver this may be up your alley as well, it might be up your alley if you don’t like Bon Iver too, you never know, listen to it. If you don’t know Bon Iver either, then sweet, this is like a double find for you.

As the story goes according to wikipedia, S. Carey’s solo album, “All We Grow”, happened as sort of an accident. When not on tour with Bon Iver, at home he would experiment with song ideas and layering sounds together, and it just kept building until he had a full length album. Most of the instruments on the album he plays himself except for a couple exceptions where he had friends play instruments he couldn’t.

To be honest I like his solo album a little more than I like Bon Iver’s album, and I really really liked Bon Iver’s album. Carey just has a nice quality to his voice, the harmonies beautiful, this album never fails to put me in a relaxed mood. It’s like the chamomile tea of albums, except it doesn’t put me to sleep. I look forward to hearing more from this guy.

Here’s his first video, for “In the Dirt”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaDncGbTo9w

Hope you enjoyed today’s daily music post, if you didn’t that’s okay, perhaps you’ll dig the next one.

Daily Music Post #15

Ólafur Arnalds - Ljósið

I want to know what it is about Iceland that produces these artist that make this really beautiful evocative sounds. Sigur Ros, Bjork, Amiina, and Olafur Arnalds. I found this video using stumble upon a while ago and I couldn’t stop watching it.

I’m a little busy right now, so I’m going to take the easy way out and just quote another blog. “Born in a suburban Icelandic town, Mosfellsbær, he composes melancholic, emotionally fueled, and undeniably beautiful music. Ólafur studied piano when he was very young. After about a year of lessons, he decided to switch to drums instead. He kept his studies in drums up until two years ago, when he switched over again, this time adding classical theory and composition. Influenced by electronic, post-rock, and modern classical music alike, Arnalds incorporates various stylistic elements into his work. He seamlessly embraces contemporary symphonic composition and instruments but also makes use of electronic instrumentation.”

-http://www.headphonecommute.com/exclusive/olafur_arnalds/olafur_arnalds.htm

A song from his latest album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tvUPFsaj5s

His official site: http://olafurarnalds.com/

Hope you enjoyed today’s daily music post, if not that’s okay, perhaps you’ll dig the next one.