With Spoon, Beach House, Interpol, Vampire Weekend, Four Tet, The Magnetic Fields, Hot Chip, and Rogue Wave (among plenty of others that I’m forgetting, surely) all slated to drop new records in early 2010, the new year looks like it will be starting off with a bang. At least for fans of independent music anyway. Of any of those though (besides Spoon), the upcoming release I’m most excited abo
actor from davidshanesmith on Vimeo.David Shane Smith - Beauty Force from Gato Blanko on Vimeo.As I’ve said before, David Shane Smith’s most recent album, Cloud Pleaser, is filled with avant-garde folk songs that peer into a decaying future. It’s also his best album to date and one of the better albums by a local artist (um, despite the fact that he now lives 3000 miles away) that I’ve hea
From Teen Dream, the Sub Pop debut and third album overall from Baltimore’s Beach House. Here comes 2010. MP3 :: Norway(from Teen Dream. Info here)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few weeks ago I tipped you off to the blazing first single from Maudlin, the brand new sophomore record from Capgun Coup. “Bad Bands” showcased the charmingly fuzzed-out garage-punk side of the band, but fans of 2007‘s Brought To You By Nebraskfish know there’s more than that to these guys. The newest single, “Sitting On The Sidewalk” offers a glimpse at the other side of the Omaha c
Three weeks ago I posted a list of my 50 favorite albums of the past decade. You can catch up with that here, here, here, here, and here, if you’d like. While drafting the list I found that I rediscovered plenty of albums that were and are still worthy of more attention, even though they ultimately weren’t included on the finished product. It was extremely difficult to cut many of them, especi
Roadside Graves - "Ruby" - HearYa Live Session 8/26/09 from HearYa.com on Vimeo.Personally, I don’t feel like anybody should compile a “Best of the Year” list without giving a fair amount of time to The Roadside Graves’ tour-de-force My Son’s Home. Hear Ya just posted a video/audio session they recorded with the band that highlights a couple of key tracks from that album as well as a few
“October Fires” comes from the forthcoming debut from Wolf People, the first U.K. band to sign with Jagjaguwar. That debut, called Tidings and due February 22, is actually a collection of singles recorded between 2005-2007 for Battered Ornaments. The track finds the quartet sporting a rather large debt to their forebears of the British Invasion - it’s a bluesy, psyche-rock romp that sounds l
Blakroc Project from Myrhax on Vimeo.Maybe you’ve heard about this upcoming collaboration between The Black Keys and a wide assortment of some of hip-hop’s biggest names, but if not here’s the scoop (knew about this for a few weeks but was reminded today via Music For Kids Who Can‘t Read Good). Damon Dash, of Roc-A-Fella Records, has brought together Mos Def, Raekwon, RZA, Q-Tip and severa
Tennessee-by-way-of-Philadelphia singer-songwriter Matthew Ryan has very quietly built up quite a prolific back catalog since the blue collar hard-folk of 1997’s Mayday. Since then he’s slipped out stark, stripped-down records, like 2001’s underrated Concussion, as well as a few that dip their toes into more ethereal, modern sounds, such as 2003’s Regret Over The Wires and 2007’s From A
Two weeks ago I posted a list of my 50 favorite albums of the past decade. You can catch up with that here, here, here, here, and here, if you’d like. Or, you know, just scroll down a little bit, I guess. That’s probably easier. While drafting the list (there were 164 original considerations) I found that I rediscovered plenty of albums that were and are still worthy of more attention, even th
Tarot Sport is U.K. electronic/noise band Fuck Buttons sophomore album, following hot on the heels of last year’s terrific debut, Street Horrrsing. The new album sounds like a more fully realized, mature work from the duo. Songs like “The Lisbon Maru” and “Olympians” may share moments that recall their past work, but the absence of the unintelligible, scream-o vocals that pervaded Street
For the past week or so I’ve been catching up with the new Built To Spill album There Is No Enemy, and I have to say I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I don’t mean that to sound like I’m surprised, it’s just that besides “Conventional Wisdom” I didn’t find much to enjoy on 2006’s You In Reverse. I’m not sure yet if the new album is the equivalent of their mid-to-late 90s run of clas
With all my focus last week on running my list of favorite albums of the decade I didn’t really pay much attention to other stuff going on in the music world. So, there’s some catching up to do this week. First off is the best news I’ve heard in a while - Spoon will be releasing their 7th studio album on January 23, and it’s called Transference. Once again Merge Records has the honors. Str
MP3 :: Easy - Pure EcstasyMP3 :: Love Like A Sunset (Animal Collective Remix) - PhoenixMP3 :: Crown On The Ground - Sleigh BellsMP3 :: Shine Blockas (ft. Gucci Mane) - Big BoiMP3 :: I Don’t Like Your Band - AnnieMP3 :: Bad Bands - Capgun Coup (original post)MP3 :: Something In Common - Free EnergyMP3 :: Twenty Cycles To The Ground - Molina & Johnson (original post)MP3 :: Trust - Old Canes (orig.
I’ve had a lot of fun this week bringing you my 50 personal favorite albums of the past ten years. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well, and if there are any records on this list that you’ve ignored or missed or simply haven’t heard of by all means check them out. Feel free to leave a comment as well now that you’ve seen the whole thing. Peace.------------------------------------------------
We’re getting down into it now. Here’s # 20-11 of my favorite albums of the decade. Thanks for stopping by, and look for the top ten tomorrow.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------20. Let’s Get Out Of This Country / Camera Obscura (2006)A nearly flawless gem of a record from the co-ed Scottish group that just gets better with age. The title track, “
Here’s the Humpday edition of my favorite albums of the decade. Check back Thursday and Friday for the final two installments. Hope you’re enjoying it so far.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------30. Fleet Foxes/ Sun Giant EP (2008)Fleet Foxes’ stunning Sub Pop debut does a fairly common thing - it mixes traditional folk sounds with heavenly vocal
Here is "Part 2" of my 50 favorite dad-rock albums list of the past ten years. I’m not trying to be dramatic or self-important or whatever by breaking it into 5 equal segments, it’s more a result of the difficulty I always have in formatting large posts like these. Blogger can be a pain in the ass with large posts featuring multiple images, and breaking it down like this makes that somewhat ea
This week on PHW I’ll be running a countdown of my 50 favorite dad-rock albums of the past ten years. I’m not trying to be dramatic or self-important by doing it over 5 days and breaking it into 5 equal segments, it’s more a result of the difficulty I always have in formatting posts of this nature. Blogger can be a pain in the ass with large posts featuring multiple images, and I’ve never
AON Sessions: The Antlers, "Two" from All Our Noise on Vimeo.Earlier this year The Antlers released the critically-lauded Hospice, an album that I never really dove into despite the fact that I really enjoyed the two songs I heard from it - “Two” and “Bear”. From the looks of this beautifully shot backstage video from the folks at All Our Noise I’m probably missing out on something speci
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