I recommend all these tunes because apparently I can't stop playing 'em: here's a quick alphabetical assessments of what's been hummin' in my iPod on Metro the past few weeks! The Blank Tapes, "Coast To Coast" from the album Vacation A little Zombies-meets-Badfinger surf hippie flower power pop from this (not surprising) SoCal band. The Blank […]
It’s simply amazing to me that a group from the drizzly grey of Glasgow could consistently creates such effervescent, make-you-want-to-sing-along head-bopping pop music — but that's exactly what Camera Obscura does time and again. Their fifth album, Desire Lines, is a stunningly bright ray of musical sunshine. This latest release is grounded in beach music […]
We had to have some good tunes to get us through a year of watching a psychopathic plutocrat trying to pitch us back into the black and white world of fifties-era paranoia and imperialism. That victory against vileness confirmed, going back over the songs that made us swoon for the past few months is very […]
What's up, haterade-makers? Are you ready for the next Wavves or Coco Rosie to dump "comments" scorn on in this city of ciphers? Well, Claire Boucher (who is Grimes) sees herself as Phil Spector per Pitchfork, and the multiple internal personalities she evokes through her Nylon magazine collage of fashion-friendly-but-flirting with sounding roguishly ugly, J-Pop […]
With his bass-baritone register and emphasis on sordid narrative, Mark Lanegan bears many similarities to Tom Waits and Johnny Cash. But while you love their gravelly voices because of the stories they tell, you love Lanegan’s stories because of his leathery voice: handled by Mark Lanegan, even the alphabet would sound profound. Unlike his melancholy […]
I’m going to start this new “album round up” for Three Imaginary Girls with the above recent You Tube video for Sean Rowe‘s “Jonathan”: (1.) Because I think it’s the best song off of his recent Magic album (recently given full treatment here) and though it’s been out a while the video is new. More-so, […]
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B8OAj9F7hI] One of my favorite albums of the year comes from the Oxford-based band Stornoway. It’s an understatement to say they craft sumptuously understated melodies that draw from ponds of the Decemberists, later-era Lucksmiths, and Nick Drake and would sit comfortably on mixtapes between Teenage Fanclub, Belle and Sebastian. Given the line of influence, it’s […]
(The National plays with Okkervil River at the Concerts at the Marymoor in Redmond, WA on September 11, 2010.) I’m a latecomer to The National, the band that somehow sounds like a son of L. Cohen fronting a farm of Radiohead fans with both acoustic instruments and electronic gizmos. I first heard them on […]
Before Today follows up Ariel Pink’s previous two Haunted Graffiti projects (and becomes its own “thing” via its addition to his name) Worn Copy (2005) and House Arrest (2006). It lives up to Ariel Marcus Rosenberg’s affection for Joe Meek’s home-recorded production odysseys, and in the infectious swoon of fifth track “Round and Round” and […]
Music from The Big Pink was the 1968 album from The Band. Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell know this, as their band’s website is musicfromthebigpink.com. Yet, The Big Pink, circa 2010 bears little resemblence to The Band of 1968, and sounds more like what might happen if My Bloody Valentine reveled in the mid-90s Blur/Oasis/Pulp Britpop scene, […]
