Irks

I hate hate hate when commercials utilize the wrong kind of songs. For example T-Mobile’s Flext commercial featuring Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan. It’s such a quiet, sweet, and unassuming song – it doesn’t deserve to be used for nasty commercial reasons.

Actually, I have to admit something. That is part of the reason, yeah, but the main reason is that I think of it as MY song. I found it before the silly commercial. I don’t want to share it with the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I hope this blog will help me share good music to other people – other good people, who actually appreciate weird, quality music.

Oh, some people.

Filed under: Musicians

Time Off

For the past several months, I’ve been traveling and have not had a stable internet connection. As such, no posts and no new music downloaded. I’ll be back for good in July.

Filed under: Musicians

Internet Goodies

This week has been a good one for treasures online, and it’s inspired me to do a weekly post about where you can find good music on other blogs and sites.

Amon Duul II at Swan Fungus: I only have two Amon Duul songs, but I love them both dearly. Unfortunately, before this post, the internet hates them. I’ve had a hell of a time finding their songs. He’s posted an entire album, and it is wonderful. His is an amazing blog, too.

New strangeness at Motel de Moka: I love Motel de Moka’s playlists. They’re always feature obscure artists that one would never be able to find on one’s own, and that is what a good music blog should be. Seriously, just add them to your RSS feeds or bookmark them, and try everything. I especially enjoyed the Tosca songs from this list.

Found some new, good music and want to share? Let me know!

Filed under: Musicians

This is hard work

I have three tracks by Lizzy Mercier Descloux and I need more. Unfortunately, I’ve found them quite difficult to find. I thought her music and voice were quite original, and she even has a song (kind of) about WaWa.

A couple of months ago, I found this little gem of a blog and I saved it due to the full albums he offers. And also because his pen name is Senor Bungle, which just makes me smile.

Anyway, he has one of her albums up and I jumped for joy at being able to download it.. only to be held back by cats.

Seriously, Rapidshare? It honestly took a few tries to finally get the damn album. Can you tell which ones are cats? Talk about security.

Filed under: Musicians

Sounds Of Barcelona

I just got back from a trip with my boyfriend to Barcelona and Fez. The trip was documented well by words and pictures, but here’s a chance of the music that came to mind.

Download the playlist here. ( 45 MB)

Trip to Spain
Andres Segovia – Asturias
I love Spanish guitar, and who does it better than Segovia?

On The Balcony
Blonde Redhead – Spring and by summer fall
Sitting on the balcony, enjoying the warm breeze..

Montjuïc
Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three

Walking in the alleyways
Yann Tiersen – A Quai
One of my favorite songs, always reminds me of being lost in my own world in a big city.

Cimetière du Sud-ouest
Erik Friedlander – May It Please Heaven
An amazing cemetery, although you couldn’t tell by looking at it. Looks like a row of apartment buildings, not graves. The music should be intense – we spent quite a while sneaking around the cemetery, hoping to find a way in – but still have a peaceful element to it. I was thinking something of Zorn at first, but this certainly does the trick – and the album cover is beautiful, too.

Güell Parc
World’s End Girlfriend – Garden In The Ceiling
I love the way the “flowers” seem to be coming out of the ceiling.

Segrada Familia
Death Praxis – When The Sun Shines I Can See Your Mind
The church that will probably always be unfinished. I had a difficult time picking out a song. I wanted something religious, or at least personally spiritual, but that didn’t seem right somehow. Most of Gaudi’s work is so organic and beautiful, I wanted more natural than catholic, if you know what I mean.

————–
Plus: Abbey Mott – Africa From Here, seeing as how we wound up in Africa. I also listened to this song almost constantly.

And a bonus track: Everyone’s favorite Beach Boy’s song Wouldn’t It Be Nice because the trip and all the time spent with my boyfriend just left me with such a good feeling.

Filed under: Playlist, World's End Girlfriend

The Mars Volta & Lists

The Mars Volta show is tonight in London. I’ll be heading off to London soon, so just a short post today about my favorites of the past week.

Favorites this week:

• OOIOO – Jungle Japanese people.
• Fennesz – An old favorite.
• Yesayer – First listen ever this week. Hype only has two of the three songs that I have and I don’t know where they came from. Check them out, though. They’ve got a nice slow sound that’s kind of bizarre at he same time.
• Mick Harris – An old favorite. Dark, creepy electronic music.

Other Discoveries:

• Hushush – Hardly a new discovery, this label introduced me to the drone, ambient, ‘dark hop’ genres.
• Musique Machine – Some interesting-sounding samples.
• Ad Noiseam – Another label featuring noise, electric music, and strange genres all ending in -core. Lots of MP3s.

Filed under: Fennesz, Mick Harris, OOIOO, Shows, The Mars Volta, Yesayer

Viking Metal?

Wednesday night was a heavy metal show down in Southampton, UK featuring three unbelievably odd bands.

Alestorm – Featuring Robert Smith and some crazy long-haired pirates, Alestorm provided my first look into the world of pirate metal. Under the guise of Scottish pirates, they sang songs about rum, wenches, and sailing the seas. More seasoned pirate metal fanatics brought their swords and axes, the lead guitarist poured some rum for the front row, and I laughed a hell of a lot. The lead guitarist had a few solos which sounded great. (Robert Smith isn’t really in the band, but the man looked just like him. Didn’t really fit in with the pirate theme.)

Norther – Pssh. Pirate metal, get real, right? Ah, good! “Melodic death metal”! Only slightly more legitimate, but I am familiar with this genre. I did like Nightwish for a long while afterall. A Finnish group that played very good, even if they were way too serious. The lead singer had long hair and no shirt. He also looked possessed.

Turisas – The highlight of the evening is an obviously popular Finnish group. They came out in pelts and face paint, and they took the stage by storm. Very powerful presence. I didn’t get to stay for the whole set because I had to go back to Reading, but they were a pleasure to see. Hype only has one track, I’m afraid.

It was quite a funny night. I don’t really see “viking metal” as a legitimate form of music, but for what it was, it was very good. All the bands looked and sounded amazing. It’s just nice to see performers of any kind putting so much out there during a performance. Even if its not your kind of music, it’s still nice to see.

Filed under: Alestorm, Metal, Norther, Turisas

One hell of a week

Before the Menomena show the other week, the last concert I’d seen was Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO in May 2007. I’d forgotten how great of a feeling it was seeing a band you admire so much up there, live. I’m not going to forget for a while now.

Last week, it was three nights out at some of Reading’s heavy metal pubs to see a few live bands. Now, it was all nameless heavy metal, local bands. To be honest, none of them impressed me. On Friday night, to be honest, I was too drunk to remember anything except the long hair on each of the band members. And on Saturday night? It was just bad. Relentless, repetitive noise.

This week, however, is going to be awesome.

Wednesday night will be spent at a metal gig in Southampton with Matt and his friends. I know nothing about the band, even their name, but it should be fun.

On Thursday, some friends of mine are playing at a local pub here in Reading. I’m sure they’ll be great and entertaining, too.

But, the one I’m most excited for? The Mars Volta in London on Friday. Oh my goodness, I cannot wait for this. Expect a very live-track, Mars Volta inspired week.

Filed under: Acid Mothers Temple, Menomena, Shows, The Mars Volta

Their sound is weird (This week’s loves.)

This week I found a new favourite band: Marnie Stern. Oh my goodness, I now love this band. A friend of Matt’s gave him the CD, and while the most of the album is loud and noisy and nonsensical and divine. But the last track of the album, Pattern of a Diamond Ceiling. It makes no sense at all:

I am not looking to find a pot of gold
I will paint you a picture that’s inside my head
First I must carve out a place
Picture yourself carving out a place in a room
Now look up there’s the diamond ceiling
Look up now, this is what it sounds like
Around you is a solitude trilogy
And glass slippers are on your feet
When I say go
You’ll here the solitude trilogy come in clearly
Go
Now look down the glass slippers are on your feet
This is what they sound like as they meet
Now walk in the self-eaters
Their sound is much clearer
So you sit down and start to think of ideas of the north
But in walk the latecomers
They back shuffle forwards
Their sound is weird

See what I mean? There’s been other great discoveries, all of which deserve listening rather thank blathering on about. Expect a playlist soon.

The Last.fm’s recommendations of this week also look very interesting. There are a lot of bands that I’ve never heard of before such as:

• Princess Rotative, classified as experimental avant garde noise and breakcore, an absolutely divine combinations. I’ve never heard of any of the similar bands (Babylon Disco, Schizoid, Lolita Storm and Malaria Labs) so this one is looking good. Unfortunately, the Hype Machine has failed me this time. It sounds interesting enough to invest some money, though, if I can find it.
• Glenn Branca, similar to no-wave artists like This Heat, James Chance & The Contortions, Teenage Jesus and The Jerks and Boredoms, sounds pretty cool, too. This time, the Hype Machine pulls through.
• And then there’s Dosh, hiphop, idm and experimental. Now, I am a big fan of intellectual hiphop and really getting into DJ Shadow and the like, so this could be good. Once again, Hype is helping us out.
• Ryoji Ikeda, tagged as noise, glitch, experimental, electronic, AND minimal. (I think minimal is the kind of description that should stand alone. No modifiers with minimal, it just is.) Plus, he’s Japanese. I’m definitely trying him out.

Check ‘em out, and let me know what you think.

Filed under: Dosh, Glenn Branca, Marnie Stern, Princess Rotative, Ryoji Ikeda, To Find

Now darlin’ stomp all over me (This week’s loves.)

Every Friday, I’m going to write about some of my recently discovered music and mucisians that I would really like to hear more of. This benefits all of us. You can hear about more obscure music that no one else cared about. I have a place to keep track of new artists that I want to find out more about.

This week on Last.fm I’ve been love-ing songs like crazy this week. Some of the songs I’ve had forever and just never properly paid attention to, like Frank Zappa – Debra Kadabra – Carolina Hard Core Ecstasy. Catchy as hell at the end, crazy in the beginning. Others, like Cortney Tidwell – The Missing Link, I’ve never heard (of) before and only own one song by them (Who the hell is Courtney Tidwell?) I think the greatest feeling in the world might listening to a huge amount of tracks stolen downloaded throughout the week and finding some real gems in it.

Of course, on Wednesday I went into London to see Menomena and was really impressed by one of the supporting bands, Sky Larkin. You can expect me to write about them a lot in the coming week as I download more of their music. (Of course, you can download their songs or buy the album and tell me how you feel about them, too.)

Speaking again of Last.fm, I have some interesting Recommendations (by far, the best reason everyone who cares a damn about music should have a Last.fm accout – great recommendations) for this week. We have:

• Ronnie Williams: Similar to Mike Dunn and the Kings of New England, Reed Foehl, Ghost Towns and Sadie and the hotheads. Based on the fact that I’ve never heard of any of these musicians before, I have to try them out.
• Ghost: Similar to White Heaven, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Ai Aso and Boris With Michio Kurihara. Sounds promising, definitely. Crazy Japanese stuff is always nice.
• White Williams: recomended by another great musician.

Filed under: Cortney Tidwell, Experimental, Frank Zappa, Menomena, Ronnie Williams, Sky Larkin, To Find