Last week was the final triumph of quality over quantity. Well done.
My rec: indie rock by a friend of mine, full album here. The Forest and the Fire.
Also, Billy Bragg's beautiful You Woke Up My Neighborhood, off of Don't Try This At Home (which included Michael Stipe, among others).
EDIT: could someone add 'weeklymusicthread' to the tags? And for even more recs, check out ButterflyEffect's new music blog.
The new Atoms for Peace album came out earlier this week and I've been listening to that all week. Pretty enjoyable album.
New Beach Fossils album. Pretty solid album I think.
Some Adebisi Shank cause they're fun as hell.
And new Iceage.
Yeah no worries! Adebisi Shank is fucking dope and just makes me want to run.
No worries, listen to Wild Nothing or DIIV if you wan't more of that style.
I'm not sure what to think of Amok.
Some of the track are amazing (Ingenue, Amok...) but I'm already tired of some others (I might have listened to much to Default before the release of the album).
I guess I'll just listen to it a bit more to see if other tracks start to grow on me, that's how it went with The King of Limbs.
Yeah I feel like it's basically a one trick pony, but one that I enjoyed quite a bit. Like the song Unless, I love that song.
The new Iceage album is great. I think I prefer their first album to it though, might have to go back and relisten to that one...
I haven't listened to the old album, I will though.
Death Grips - Hacker: I feel like I am a bit late to the party, but there we are.
The latest Pitchfork Classics documentary has reminded me how much I love The Soft Bulletin by the Flaming Lips. Can't wait for their next album and I'm so tempted to go their show in London in May.
I was really into Death Grips around September. Get Got still is one of my favorite pump up songs.
I've been listening to some classic Swans. Pure aggression. Pure anger. Two bassists.
And I'm slightly late to the party on the leak of the new Shlohmo EP Laid Out, but what a party. When someone told me it's better than Vacation I had a hard time believing that, but it just might be true. The tracks are so well layered and the sounds he chooses give this EP a really incredible feel.
And a little later to the party of the new Buke & Gase album General Dome, which has some really great tones and vocals. It sort of reminds me of classic Sparks, but it's done with their eponymous custom instruments rather than synths. They've got some very catchy riffs and basslines going on here and the percussion is impressive as well.
I've also been listening to Have a Nice Life's Deathconsciousness and also Giles Corey's self titled (they also have a new release which I've been meaning to get around to), but I must say they really have to be listened to as full albums. The former is very drone metal influenced, combined with post rock, shoegaze, a little electronic and a host of other influences. It's sort of like the heavier darker cousin to The Antlers' Hospice. Very dark, depressing and emotionally powerful. Giles Corey is similar, but less layered on around half the tracks with more folk influence and a more clear story, as well as considerably better mastering (tho I'm of the mind that Deathconsciousness is the better album regardless).
Just got "Before Today" by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. Can't stop listening to the first half of the album, although the second half is just kind of okay. A friend got me onto "We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves" by John Maus, which looks like it's gonna keep me occupied for a while.
As for singles, can't stop listening to "The Dream" by Thee Oh Sees, and "Congoman" by The Congos. On a big hypno-jam kick right now.
I don't know how to format links, otherwise I'd link to some of that stuff...
I've been listening to this guy Madeon a lot recently. He's just an 18 year old guy, but he honestly has some great talent. He's mainly electro/dance songs and remixes.
Here's a live mashup he did: Pop Culture
Some other of his songs: The City
I've got you covered on the community tag, and thanks for the blog shoutout!
That is a great, great Billy Bragg song.
This week I've been listening to a lot of Jawbreaker, one of the best 90's emo/punk bands, and one whose music stands up very well to the test of time. It's great if you feel like being angst-y and sad for a little while.
I've also been listening to early music by The Strokes, namely music off of Is This It. If there's one band I wish I could go back and see, it would have to be The Strokes back when this album first came out. Is This It and Room on Fire are just good, flat out good garage rock in it's purest form.
I just realized that You Slut! came out with a new album last year called Medium Bastard. So far Elton Chong is my favorite track. Check out their other album Critical Meat while you're at it, it's pretty awesome. Roofio shoots, Roofio Scores!
So something slightly off topic but related.
My sis works for Harmon Kardon and someone in her group needed some SoundSticks for a conference or trade show, and they were back ordered throughout the entire company. Since I just got a set, I loaned them out. Couple weeks later they returned them and threw me a pair of these headphones:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/636439/akg-k167-ti-sto-discussion-i...
I pretty much spent all weekend next to my stereo listening to music on these. It blew my mind how good everything sounded. The last time I had an actual set of cans over my ears was probably when I was 6 or 7 years old listening to Sesame Street records on my dad's stereo. In this age of crappy ear-buds that come with phones and shitty MP3 formats, I was just blown away at how good music could sound.
If you haven't tried a pair on (or have not in a while), I highly recommend doing so. It completely transforms the sound. Also, it was pretty interesting diving into the headphone subculture on the net. These AKGs had a thread talking about them over 100 pages long. That's just this particular model. Really cool.
Edit: But here is a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMQJ3HXeKG4
I was very fortunate in that the speakers were a Christmas gift from my sis (which she got at about a 70% discount off retail), and the headphones Harmon tossed in were unexpected and no charge to anybody.
I'm definitely not Mr. Moneybags :)
On a side note, I got to see her company intranet page where employees log in to get their discounts on products. It is INSANE how much of a markdown they get. I was imagining something like 30-40%. It's actually closer to 60-70% across the board. They must be making some serious margin in the audio electronics market, unless they are giving them to their employees at a loss, which I wouldn't imagine they'd do.
Well the point was how incredible music sounds through a pair of over-the-ear headphones as opposed to speakers or earbuds. If you love listening to music, it really improves the sound immensely...by almost a shocking amount. Some people might be into that.
I've definitely mentioned Vetiver before on Hubski and I was actually introduced to them via a hubskier... but I cooked yesterday and while doing so, I listened to the Errant Charm. -it's a really great album.
So incredibly laid back. My problem with these alt-indie lo-fi bands is that in their genre, it takes a lot to stand out at all. It's easy to fall into the trap of sounding just like every other indie singer/songwriter with odd taste in instruments.
I guess I don't think much about them being in a "genre". If I like it, I like it. Don't get me wrong, I can tell when something seems formulaic but I can also tell when something seems genuine and that's the vibe I get from Vetiver. It's a really enjoyable listen. I don't find their instrumentation all that "odd" either.
Perfectly fair.
- I don't find their instrumentation all that "odd" either.
I just meant slightly different. Non-guitar string instruments. I get a vibe from bands in the indie folk movement sometimes that they've added a cello or a ukulele or whatever just for a gimmick, and it puts me off. I don't know much about Vetiver so I'm probably being really unfair to them by extrapolating all this :p
I've been listening to Kishi Bashi lately, The Vaccines, The Bambi Molesters and Pixies.
Edit: Also some Colin Stetson
of Montreal was exactly what I expected -- silly sidetricks and gimmicks, lots of set pieces. Good band, but an odd show. Kishi Bashi came out, rocked the fuck out with instruments that I didn't think could sound like they do, manipulated feedback with his feet, got down and dirty with us, was sweating like nuts afterward ... I think he broke one of his guitars ... it was excellent. I don't think the crowd appreciated quite what they were seeing.
Buke and Gase. Especially Misshaping Intruduction, which is the song that introduced me to them. Their new record just came out this week and I highly recommend it.
I've also been listening to Never Fade Away by Spector. Very catchy and Fred Macpherson's voice is simply incredible.
Oh dude yeah, I listened to the new album and is so bizarre and good. I loved it, probably one of the best of the year so far.