Stephen Christian seems to have done it all. Top 15 album? Check, with Anberlin's Cities. Started a charitable organization? Yup, Faceless International. How about written a novel? Absolutely, The Orphaned Anything's.
So naturally you'd expect him to keep trying new things, something he has done with his side project Anchor & Braille. Written by Christian himself, and co-produced with Aaron Marsh of Copeland, the debut album Felt sounds like nothing we've heard from him before. It is a compilation of songs that Christian claimed were too personal to be shared on a mass platform and that just didn't have the same feel as Anberlin's material.
Felt is one of those rare albums that seem to get better with age, and the more often I listen to it the more I am able to notice the depth of the lyrics and the masterful progression from one song to the next. If you're a fan of Anberlin or Copeland, then this should be right up your alley. Fortunately however, it is such a good album that it will likely appeal to a much wider audience.
Us vs. Them - Common Prayer [mp3] (myspace) Common Prayer is a Brooklyn group led by Jason Russo of Hopewell. This is the first track off their upcoming There Is A Mountain, which will be released digitally on June 1st on the band's own label in the US. A slightly grunged hard beat drives this piano/acoustic guitar number into a summer indie romp.
Night and Day - Chief [mp3] (myspace) California 4-piece Chief are set to release their debut album Modern Rituals on August 17th. There's something vintage Coldplay in their sound, although their songcraft is not as latching, but nevertheless, the harmonies are satisfying and the tunes quite good for a debut. Check out their myspace for more info on their US tour, which kicks off today.
Fingers - Corey Dargel [mp3] (website) (iTunes) This midi-harpsichord track flushed with 8-bit filters is off Dargel's Someone Will Take Care Of Me album, which came out earlier this week.
Brittle Bones - Richard Walters[mp3] (myspace) (iTunes) To be quite honest, I'm not quite sure why I got an email about this Oct 2009 release today, but the track was too solidly good to pass up. Richard Walters is a man who writes about unusual topics - the anxiety of starting a new affair, having a seizure, and domestic abuse from the point of view of the abuser - and brilliantly places them in gorgeous quiet numbers filled with light acoustic guitars, eased pianos and heart-wrenching falsettos. This is the type of song you can get lost in.
Minnesotans Peter Pisano and Brian Moen, better known collectively as Peter Wolf Crier, just released their debut full length Inter-Be earlier this week, a collection of plucky indie folk-rock tunes harboring the smudged edge of home-recording. Indeed, the album was recorded in Moen's house, with various spur-of-the-moments attributing to the final sound. "The only reason there would up being piano on the album," Pisano told the Star Tribune, "was because Brian went out and bought one a week before we recorded."
Peter Wolf Crier is set to go on tour around the US this summer with Freelance Whales and the Heartless Bastards, but they have to wait until school gets out - Pisano is currently a teacher of science and photography for K-8th graders. Whether or not he returns to teach in the fall is yet to be determined, but given the praise and attention that Inter-Be has been getting as of late, I wouldn't be surprised if he trades his classroom for a stage.
Kathryn Calder of The New Pornographers has put her singer-songwriter skills to the test with a breakout solo album, entitled Are you My Mother?. The Canadian native went back to her hometown of Victoria to record with producer Colin Stewart. Fellow bandmates Neko Case, Kurt Dahle, and Todd Fancey join as guests, as well as members of Ladyhawk and Frog Eyes.
After spending years of half-writing songs for The New Pornographers, Calder decided it was time to dive into the full process. This took her 2 years and is largely inspired by her time spent caring for her terminally ill mother. You can hear a sense of both melancholy and hope with the track "Slips Away."
The album officially debuts August 10. While Calder hasn't announced any tour dates, she's playing with The New Pornographers on their current tour.
Every now and then a song builds in just the right way that makes it seemingly perfect for its own little world. Seattle-based folk rockers Moondoggies have accomplished that feat with "Fly Mama Fly," a track off their upcoming EP, You'll Find No Answers Here, which drops June 8th. I highly recommend you give it a listen.
With a shout of "Aloha!" Hawaiian native and ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro took the stage last night at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. The venue was completely sold out with folded chairs squished together, the crowd abuzz with conversations of "so how did you first learn about Jake?" After opener Jake Armerding performed his acoustic pop-ballad guitar set, Jake Shimabukuro bounced on stage.
When you see the ukulele master live, what proves to be his greatest strength is his charismatic inventiveness. Not only is he a technically gifted player, but Jake Shimabukuro is able to create playful works that entwine a large range of whimsy and genius. He can go from Schubert to the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix in a split second with the greatest of ease, all the while divulging humorous antidotes about his childhood and experiences with famous folks - like the time he met the Queen of England, standing in between Bette Midler and Lady Gaga, and found himself bowing again and again uncontrollably. "It must've been the Japanese in me!" he quipped.
Starting off by introducing a new song called "1-4-3" from his upcoming album, which is due to come out later this year, Jake said, "I remember when I was in high school. We didn't have cell phones, we couldn't do text messaging or emails or all that. So if you were cool, you had a pager. We'd all carry a pager, and if you were dating someone, we all had these numeric codes, and so the numeric code for 'I love you' was 1-4-3." This quickly garnered a chorus of "aw"s from the audience as he began playing the piece, the idea of love certainly present with delicate soft picks interspersed alongside strong chord surges. Music theory buffs would also appreciate the use of 4-3 suspensions which played off the "1-4-3" idea.
Up next were some old classics like "Blue Roses Falling," "Let's Dance" and my personal favorite, "Me & Shirley T," a song dedicated to the over-consumption of Shirley Temple drinks as a child. The fun breakdown at the height of the sugar rush can be seen in the video below:
Jake went on to display his large array of skills, banging out a crazy 9-8 beat learned from the crew of Jimmy Buffet in "Trapped," shredding the uke with the Bruce Lee-meets-Eddie Van Halen number "Dragon," and capturing the delicate nuances of classical composition with his "Piano Forte" (a number that is modeled after such, with left hand and right hand parts that unfortunately require a recording studio to hear both at the same time).
By the end of the evening, Jake Shimabukuro had wooed the crowed, earning hoots and hollers throughout the concert as well as two standing ovations. He was all an audience could ask for - humble, sweet, gracious and extremely talented. He's continuing his tour around the globe for the rest of the year, so do yourself a favor and find out if he's coming to your town and then buy your tickets immediately. Regardless of your age, seeing Jake live will put a smile on your face. That's guaranteed.
Set List: 1-4-3 Blue Roses Falling Let's Dance Me & Shirley T In My Life While My Guitar Gently Weeps Sakura Sakura Piano Forte Trapped Dragon Orange World Encore: The Crazy G
Swingset Committee - the new BK based natives - are hitting the scene tonight with their debut show at Cake Shop. I stumbled upon this group at a Bear in Heaven day show at SXSW and it was the kind of moment where I knew I was witnessing the beginnings of a band going big. Formed by David Dahlquist and Andrew Belinksy at UC Berkeley, the multi-instrumental duo brings a full sound of electro and new wave beats, mesmerizing the crowd with their energetic dance moves. They recently returned from a year in South Korea, gaining a large following among the locals. With the new addition of drummer Timothy Morrison, I suspect that their rhythms will be even more dancalicious.
Swingset Committee is opening for Netherfriends (Shawn Rosenblatt) as a part of his 50 songs in 50 states tour. In each state Rosneblatt joins up with local musicians to play a show, writes a new song, and then moves on. Netherfriends brings ambient pop with strong harmonies, like a more pop version of Animal Collective.
Hey NYC readers - I helped plan this huge party in Bushwick on Saturday, May 22nd, and all GFP readers can get $5 off cover at the door by saying "my guilt free pleasure is _____________" (you can make up whatever you want). Brooklyn band Raccoon Fighter will be playing, among many other festivities. It should be a really good time. I've done two other events at this space (including the Matt Jones show), and they both turned out great! Really good people, really great music, really fun times. The party is at a secret location, so you can RSVP on Facebook (also you can view all the other details for the party there), or if you don't have Facebook, you can email me and I will send you the address. Hope to see you all there.
Wow, this is the 900th post - perhaps a bit underwhelming because all I'm going to say is that you should head over to Menomena's website to download the first single off their upcoming album, Mines, due out July 27th.
The Secret Life of Sofia has shed it skin to become the Brooklyn-based Milagres, an indie folk rock-pop band that is re-releasing their album Seven Summits as they finish up recording a new one due to be out later this year.
The awesome aspect of Seven Summits is that it was recorded on an abandoned farm in Massachusettes and is a collection of stories picked up from mountain guides, fellow climbers, history books and folklore in the climbing community. Singer Kyle Wilson, an obsessed mountaineer, is to be thanked for that, and the eeriness of recording in an abandoned location comes across beautifully in the tracks. The song below starts off with aching vocal harmonies before cutting to a surprisingly more upbeat tune that carries on the organic and reverberating nature of the album itself.
Here are a couple videos to chew on this rainy morning -- or at least it's raining here in LA, and I'm using Vetiver's "Everyday" to block out that fact. Has this song been in a commercial yet? It should be. It makes me want to run through the park and buy housewares, at Target or something. Take a look at all of its 80's glory:
And as an added bonus, since I didn't mention it a couple weeks ago and probably should have, here's the latest video from Local Natives for the tune "World News." I love this song but I'm still wrapping my head around this...
Two albums that I've been excited about for quite a while are coming out tomorrow: Swedish group Marching Band is releasing Pop Cycle and the fabulous freaky Janelle Monae is release TheArchAndroid.
Janelle Monae's The ArchAndoid is an epic 18 tracks featuring all kinds of genres from R&B to classical to hair metal to old timey show tunes and much much more. I don't really understand why Janelle Monae has been labeled "pop" by some people (though she is what most pop artists should aspire to be), beyond the fact that she seems to be gaining notoriety rather rapidly. She's freaking weird (and I love it)! Definitely nothing mainstream about most of her songs, though some of them will definitely be big dance floor hits this summer, I suspect. The whole album is available to stream on her MySpace NOW. So go check it out. I'll let the music speak for itself.
Marching Band's album couldn't be much more different than Janelle Monae's so it's probably rather strange that I'm writing about them in the same post but oh well - time is of the essence. We featured Marching Band on our Artists to Watch for 2010 list. Pop Cycle is the perfect album to ring in summer. The peppy percussion and pleasant vocals will have you bopping your head as you drive with your windows down and the wind in your hair or as you walk the streets and feel the sun shining down on you. There really is a warm feeling about the album and it has me even more excited for summer to truly arrive than I already am. You can buy the mp3s now, or buy a hard copy of the album tomorrow.
Cowboy Indian Bear is a electronic pop band that crafts featherweight melodies with softly whirring beats. CJ Calhoun, Beau Bruns and Marty Hillard formed the band back in 2008, building on demos that CJ and Beau had complied in the past and finally releasing their three-song EP in February of 2009. Now the group has released their full-length debut album Each Other All The Time, full of numbers that seem to border between minimal and infectiously lush. With reassuring harmonies and a honeyed resonance, they are certainly worth a listen to, so get to it below:
This video by The xx caught my eye today on Pitchfork - it's simple but looks really good and is an understatedly elegant and fresh idea that stands apart from other music videos (unlike, for example, The National's new half-assed video for "Bloodbuzz (Ohio)" which is simple and a very stereotypical "artsy" music video in black and white with pensive shots of the lead singer in various locations). Well done The xx.
On Tuesday night, I had the privilege of going to see Ane Brun perform at Bowery Ballroom. Last time I saw her at Union Hall, she was amazing, but it wasn't an ideal show because of Union Hall's not very raised stage and me being not very tall and unable to see anything. So I snagged myself a front row spot at Bowery this time to make sure I could actually see my favorite Scandinavian songstress.
Olof Arnalds was up first. She's adorable. She had the audience singing along on multiple occasions and she made cute jokes (like when she did a Bruce Springstein cover and talked about bruise(bruce)-ing her ass on tour in Canada). While I just can't seem to get as into her music on the recordings I hear of it, she is a good performer - her music comes alive much more when she's playing it in front of an audience - and she's a good fit to play with Ane Brun. She too has a unique voice and specializes in slow, folky tunes. It was also fitting because she started out singing an Irish folk song, which dedicated to her grandmother who passed away, and she sang it completely acapella. Ane Brun ended her set with an acapella solo, something kind of operatic but I'm not sure exactly what the song was. It made very nice book ends to the night.
Ane Brun was spectacular. She pretty much has the perfect voice - different enough to stand apart from other singers, but completely beautiful, entrancing, haunting, even chilling and always in the perfect tone for what she's singing about, whether it be melancholy or happy, lovestruck or lovelorn. It's one of those few voices that sounds the same live as it does on the album so you know she's not being auto-tuned. She's also adorable, not to mention gorgeous, and she's a very humble performer. She kept thanking the audience and all the artists and Bowery Ballroom for being there and saying how excited and honored she was to be there. I really kind of want to be best friends with her.
She played most of my favorite songs except for "Song No. 6," and she told little stories in between about what inspired the songs or just things that were somehow related to the songs. And she had a few guest artists performing with her - a cellist and singer for a few songs, and then Anna Ternheim came on stage with her for a song during her encore. Ane is spectacular by herself - that's one of the great things about her - but it was quite nice to see her play with other people, to hear the rich harmonies that are on her album, and the cello complimented it well. One of my favorite parts of the show was when she had us "oooo"-ing along with her song "Rubber & Soul" (one of my favorite songs of hers) and at the end she goes "wow, you hipsters... you can sing." All in all, a great night - one of those concerts that makes me think as I'm walking home about how lucky I am to be living in New York City and to have access to all this amazing music.
SET LIST:
My Lover Will Go
To Let Myself Go (? not 100% sure about this one)
Round Table Conference
Raise My Head
Ten Seconds
My Star
The Puzzle
Lullaby For Grown Ups
The Changing of the Seasons
The Treehouse Song
The Fall
It's Alright (cover)
Rubber & Soul
Balloon Ranger Encore:
Gillian
Off the Road (by and featuring Anna Ternheim)
Alfonsina (? Also not sure about this one, as I can't quite read the set list)
In honor of The National's follow up to 2007's applauded Boxer, here's one more track from High Violet, which releases today. Also, make sure you tune in to YouTube on May 15th at 8pm EST for a live concert!
My mother is a punk rocker. She went to concerts a lot when I was growing up. She was even in the "Somebody to Shove" music video by Soul Asylum when I was a kid (just an extra, but I still thought it was pretty cool). Instead of listening to children's music in the car, we listened to great late-80's / early-'90s music like EMF, Nirvana, Midnight Oil and Erasure to name a few of the ones I remember liking the most as a child. And so it is fitting that the mothers' day present she requested of me was a playlist / mixtape. Sorry it's a little late, mom. Here were her requirements:
~Ramones-fast
~No ballads, only exception one or two hooky high drama numbers
~No sensitive singer/songwriters; they've got to rock like they mean it
~No Britney - no exceptions (I like to annoy her by putting Britney Spears on the mix CDs I make for her)
~Released in the last year, unless it is absolutely the perfect choice between two songs
~Must make me want to get out of the car and dance
Here is what I came up with. They don't follow all the criteria perfectly, but I think I did pretty well. Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments:
And I offer this last song separately because I feel like I've already put it on one of her mix CDs even though it's not on my list. But I'll throw it on just in case, because if it's not on there, that's a travesty.
Bruno Mars is releasing his solo EP It's Better If You Don't Understand on May 11th, and my, how the buzz is rolling in. Bruno Mars is one half of the Sneezingtons, who've done production and writing for the likes of K'naan, Maroon 5, Flo Rida and Matisyahu, but now he's stepping out on his own with a stellar four-song EP. Bruno's "Billionaire" has already hit the airwaves here, but take a listen to the stronger and fantastic Cee-lo and B.o.B. brew below.
After a week in Russia and several solicitations, somehow the most passionate recommendation I've received for a Russian artist is "old-school rockers" Kino (Кино, Russian for "film"). Oddly enough, it comes from a bunch of 16-year-old kids who weren't even born when the band existed. (They're also quite fond of Metallica.)
Kino was founded in the early '80s in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) and initially had to keep a low profile, as rock music was considered "bourgeois" in the USSR. They found considerable underground success nonetheless, and with Perestroika in the late '80s their popularity increased and they were able to tour the USSR and even travel abroad. But then in 1990, lead singer and songwriter Viktor Tsoi died in a car accident. His death was seriously mourned in the Soviet Union (the image above is a wall in Moscow covered with graffiti in his memory), and the band released their final, untitled album with a funereal all-black cover, à la AC/DC.
Included below are the title tracks from their two most popular albums. This also counts as a "Flashback Friday," if you happen to have grown up in the Soviet Union.
Gruppa Krovi (Группа крови – "Blood Type") (1988) [mp3] Zvezda po imeni Solntse (Звезда по имени Солнце – "The Star Called the Sun") (1989) [mp3]
The Philly favorite Drink Up Buttercup returned last night to play a free show at Brooklyn Bowl, hosted by Paste magazine. There was a fair turnout for the monstrous space, especially since half the city was out celebrating Cinco De Mayo, but the fan base somewhat lacked given the band’s recent surge of attention with their debut album, Born and Thrown on a Hook.
The set started with "Gods and Gentleman," a pop-infused song with loud crashing cymbals. Ben Money commanded the stage, freely strumming away on the bass with a maraca in place of his hand. At the song’s finish, Jim Harvey – the lead singer and founder of the band - gave a cheers to the audience, downing his signature combination of a shot followed by a beer. It was a fitting intro for "Mr. Pie Eyes," a noise-infused track about a drunk man stumbling home at night. With part performance/part reality, the group bounced and stumbled around on stage, bringing high energy and heavy distortion.
The audience seemed confused and intrigued all at once. They finally started dancing when "Young Ladies" came on – a crowd pleaser, despite the fact that the band has received flack about the so-called “misogynistic” lyrics. But for Jim, the music comes first and the lyrics follow. The band likes to tell a story with each song. People may coin them as “60s psychedelic” or “carnival,” yet Harvey finds that “movies are more of an inspiration for us than songs. That’s what we do. When we’re in the van we don’t really listen to music, we watch old VHS tapes and DVDs and that’s where we get our stories from.”
"Young Ladies" is influenced by his favorite movie Roger Dodger (dir. Dylan Kidd). “It’s kind of obscure,” Harvey admits, “but it’s a dialogue driven movie that is idiotic, yet eye-opening at the same time. It’s a misogynistic movie about some guy being an idiot and he realizes that by the end. But it’s not something I necessarily live my life by [he says this in all sincerity]. It’s just something I enjoy peering in on…because I’ve always been kind of the guy at the parties who likes looking at everybody else because I've never really been friends of everybody who’s at the party. And I'm like wow, the limits and how far people will reach just to hook up with somebody is disgusting in a way.”
The highlight of the night was the release of their new song, "Walk Loud." This dance number conceived by keyboardist Farzad Houshiarnejad (and Harvey’s brother) had surprisingly strong funk rhythms, a seductive refrain,and a heavy build up as the finish. Harvey tells me that it’s influenced by “The Devil’s Rejects, a Rob Zombie movie that’s really about, just you know, this crew of girls that are a family that stomp around and look for people to kill.” He admits that stylistically the song is nothing like their other work and that we can see more of these changes in the future. “For our first album we were kind of like ‘Oh, this is what Drink up Buttercup is. We’re going to sound like Drink Up' and we tailored everything to sound like Drink Up. For our next album we’re not going to have any restrictions. We’re just going to go ‘whatever, let’s just play everything and anything’ and whatever comes out – it’s still us.”
Harvey’s unrestrained expectations make perfect sense. The multi-instrumental band comes from a background of performance, classical music and, for Harvey, years of listening to hip hop. So what’s his Guilt Free Pleasure?
“The remix of Ignition by R. Kelly. [It] is the best song of all time – in my opinion – and some people might be surprised that I think that’s the best song of all time but that’s my favorite song ever. I mean that is like the masterpiece of modern times. And I don’t give a fuck. I’ll admit that.”
Kristin Wiig lends her voice for three tracks on the soundtrack, and we've got one of them for you to check out right now - it's the 80's pop styled "Champion." The MacGruber soundtrack is out May 18th and hits movies theaters May 21st.
Imagine four demonic Bunraku puppets. Now imagine they play hard-core psychadellic surf rock. That's what you'll get with Daikaiju. Based out of Huntsville, Alabama and our very own Washington Heights, the band's name means "giant monster" and their music lives up to it.
I saw Daikaiju perform last night at The Shrine in Harlem, a great spot that brings free nightly music. The quartet ran out onto the stage behind their signature Japanese mutant masks and immediately went into an ax-grinding, heavy instrumental song. There are no lyrics - in fact, they never spoke once - maintaining a bad ass anonymity similar to Kiss. Taking on the names Secret-Man, Rumble-Man, Hands-Man and Rock-Man, they are as much performance as they are the music. Their syncopated movements compliment the strong percussion of the double drum sets and reverberating surf riffs. This band is not for the faint of heart. Daikaiju brings a heavier sound that pushes beyond the typical surf rock genre. And if you don't feel the urge to dance, you're probably a paraplegic.
Daikaiju will be performing at Don Pedro's today, 5/4, Death by Audio on 5/9 and Shea Stadium on 5/10. Check out an exclusive track off their upcoming album and/or purchase their self-titled album here.
Songs about death and dying aren't really covered by indie pop artists, yet Minnesota's own Jeremy Messersmith has complied an entire album's worth on the subject. From undaunted numbers about death like "John the Determinist," with pulsing strings and narration like "all we are is ticks and tocks/seconds in a pocket watch" to the captivating depressed number of "Repo Man," whom nobody weeps for, Messersmith explores the spectrum of the enigmatic subject of death with unbelievable range and focus.
Lazy Bones starts this introspective album off unexpectedly poppy and excited, with the impressive "Dillinger Eyes" following suit with a snappy 60's guitar hook and fast drum kicks. The radio-shared "Violet!" which despite its slight melancholy tone, remains effulgent, romping on and urging one to overcome injustices.
But even though more than half of this record is bright and melodic, a syncopated beat empirically placed in the third and dark track "Organ Donor" alongside slow strings sets an abstemious yet haunting tone that lingers, unmasking the macabre nature of the other tracks. The nice-yet-spooky theme culminates in "Deathbed Salesman," a song chorusing living life to the fullest and finding someone to love while selling you your coffin extrinsically during the verses. All in all, Messersmith's songwriting has evolved skillfully, shaping an album full of upbeat songs with 60's flair into something brilliant.
The Reluctant Graveyard releases today, May 4th, and can be listened to and purchased here.
So I have some behind the scenes footage, but I thought I'd post this little video that I found floating around on YouTube of footage from our first ever GFP showcase here in Brooklyn, featuring Matt Jones. This is a song called "Hand Out the Drugs." The sound quality isn't the best, but I think the video does a nice job of showing how intimate and warm the show was.
Part Company is a band that takes its inspirations from likes of Captain Beefheart, Pavement, Animal Collective and classic 60's rock. At the end of this summer they hope to release their debut EP, a collection of hazed-out rock numbers tinged with upbeat drums and stamped with raw unguarded vocals that seem to drip the very essence of the 60s. At this time there's no place where you can purchase or download their music yet, so snatch up this track while you can and keep your eyes and ears out for when the EP hits.
Stephen Christian seems to have done it all. Top 15 album? Check, with Anberlin's Cities. Started a charitable organization? Yup, Faceless International. How about written a novel? Absolutely, The Orphaned Anything's.
)
) 
)
)
) 
)
)
)
)
)
After a week in Russia and several solicitations, somehow the most passionate recommendation I've received for a Russian artist is "old-school rockers" Kino (Кино, Russian for "film"). Oddly enough, it comes from a bunch of 16-year-old kids who weren't even born when the band existed. (They're also quite fond of Metallica.)
!
.
