It wasn’t hard to pick the lead single for this week’s Best New Releases feature. It is a great track, and our song of the day, “Love and Leave,” from Chicago indie band Scattered Trees. The dreamy, lush track is a near instant MP3 hit, and contains an ironic anthemic quality, not to mention sounding amazingly like 1970’s pop rock band ELO. That said, we tag Scattered Trees as a band to watch in 2011.
As we were putting together this post playlist, it became apparent that there are a good number of impressive tracks from relatively unknown bands. While Scattered Trees have been around for about five years now, there are still a lot people who have not heard of them. They have been compared to Radiohead and Coldplay. They combine elements of electro-pop, rock, and grunge, so it’s difficult to put them into a genre. Their new album, Sympathy, dropped this week.
“Love and Leave” – Scattered Trees from Sympathy
Bonus: “Four Days Straight” – Scattered Trees from Sympathy
Edwyn Collins’ Praised LP Finally Drops in U.S.
Scottish-born musician and producer Edwyn Collins‘ influence on indie rock is unquestionable. As the founding member of Nu-Sonics in 1976 – which was later renamed to Orange Juice – his remarkable electric guitar pop riffs had a significant impact on scores of young bands in the U.K. during the late 1970’s and most of the 1980’s. Orange Juice disbanded in 1985. They only had one hit single, “Rip It Up,” but their importance in the U.K. indie and alternative rock remains intact.
During his long career, he has produced The Proclaimers, A House, Space, Robert Forster, The Cribs, and Little Barrie. In the 1990’s, Collins had two big hit singles – 1994’s “A Girl Like You,” became a huge hit in the U.K. and U.S. When the song first came out, some people understandably thought it was a new Bowie track; either way, it’s one of the best rock songs of the 1990’s. “A Girl Like You” has been featured in films like Empire Records, Charlie’s Angel and The Secretary.
“A Girl Like You” – Edwyn Collins from Gorgeous George
Collins suffered a double brain hemorrhage in 2005, and has made a remarkable recovery since then. Last year, he released a new album, Losing Sleep, to huge critical acclaim from mainstream media critics, bloggers and fans throughout the U.K. Check out this awesome video “Do It Again,” featuring Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand.
The album features tracks co-written by members of Franz Ferdinand, plus Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers, and Ryan Jarman of The Cribs and The Drums.
“In Your Eyes” (featuring The Drums) – Edwyn Collins from Losing Sleep
Datarock Release Techie USB Filled with Everything Datarock
Datarock calls the release of their up-coming single, “Catcher in the Rye,” the “most extravagant single in history.” The single’s toy designed USB stick will feature 110 tracks, 20 music videos, and an one-long concert film, Never Say Die, a five-track EP, the latest album, Music For Synchronization, the remix album Mixed Up, two other previous albums with bonus tracks, new Lost and Found B-sides and rarities, 1,500 photos taken at their shows in 33 countries, and 15 instrumentals.
“Catcher in the Rye” – Datarock from Catcher in the Rye 7″
Cotton Jones is an indie folk-pop band from Cumberland, Maryland. Cotton Jones began as a project band for Michael Nau, lead singer and founder of the now defunct Page France, and has since become a full-time project. The single’s title alone will getting you thinking.
“Egg on a Sea” – Cotton Jones from Sit Beside You Vegetables
As with all the choices for the weekly Best New Releases, we listened a number of times to dozens and dozens of singles. Obviously, we don’t have the time to listen to all of the albums these songs come from, but we do our best to keep up.
Puro Instinct floored us with this dreamy and melodic track, “Stilyagi,” that will definitely be on our year end list for best song of 2011; we’ve already spun it like ten times. Puro Instinct and Phineas & The Lonely Leaves are bands to watch in 2011, and you should be hearing more about them in one of the upcoming editions of Bands to Watch in 2011.
“Stilyagi” – Puro Instinct from Headbangers In Ecstasy
“The Kids We Used To Be” – Phineas & the Lonely Leaves from The Kids We Used To Be
The following bands have appeared as fairly lit to bright blips on our music radar for 2011: Puro Instinct, Phineas & the Lonely Leaves, PT Walkley, Make Out, Powerdove, Marcellus Hall, The Caribbean, Six Organs of Admittance, and Hotels.
In keeping with tradition, please write any comments or reviews of songs in this playlist mix in the Comments section. We love reading them, and you guys leave a lot of great observations of posts and playlists, as well as engaging one another in conversation about a song, album or artist. Plus, we love when you Tweet, Like on our Facebook page, and share music from Indie Rock Cafe with others because we love spreading great, rarely heard music.
“I Don’t Want Anybody That Wants Me” – Make Out from Make Out EP
“Edita V” – Balkans from Edita V
“Outskirts” – The Caribbean from Discontinued Perfume
“Mr. Let’s Find Out”– The Caribbean from Discontinued Perfume
“Hold But Let Go” – Six Organs of Admittance from Asleep on the Floodplain
How Do We Determine if a Band is ‘Relatively Unknown?’ One way that we measure a “relatively unknown band” is to search their name in Google and see how many music sites and blogs have written about them. We also check Wikipedia to see if they have a page in Wikipedia. If they don’t, we think that is a pretty good additional clue of a new and under-the-radar artist. Another measure we use is to check the number of views and friends on MySpace, followers on Twitter and Friends and ‘Likes’ in Facebook.
“Laughing With You” – Marcellus Hall from The First Line
“The Bat Watusi” – Hotels from On The Casino Floor
“Birdsong”– Powerdove from Be Mine
“Love You Dearly” – PT Walkley from The Ghost of Chivalry EP
“Speed of Light” – Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion from Bright Examples
“Ma Do Nar” – Los Chicharrons from Roots of Life
“In Manila” – Eagle and Talon from In Manila
More well known indie bands like The Cave Singers, Floating Action, Danielson, and The Builders and the Butchers also have new releases this week. We wish we could do a write up on every artist featured in this mix, but we simply don’t have the many, many hours available that would be required to do so.
However, if IRC’s regular readers/listeners (not comfortable saying “followers”) audience keeps growing as it has been over the past year (and nearly one million visitors a month), it may be possible some day to do so much more of what we want to do. For now, we hope that IRC becomes your one-stop place for indie music.
“Lullaby” – The Builders and the Butchers from Dead Reckoning
“Swim Club” – The Cave Singers from No Witch
“Please Reveal” – Floating Action from Desert Etiquette
“People’s Partay” – Danielson from Best of Gloucester County
Bonus: “Grow Up” – Danielson from Best of Gloucester County
Make sure to check back tomorrow for a special edition of In Dee Mail, a playlist series that focuses on the best music we receive in the mail. You can’t miss this special edition – it has some of the most amazing artists you’ve probably never heard of, but will likely be glad you did.