Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
Author: Max Hammer
Discovering and sharing the best DIY/alt/indie/underground music you've never heard. I've been writing about music and other topics since the mid-1990s. We are also music industry professionals - PR; promotion; management; branding; etc.
Okkervil River's new LP, I Am Very Far, will be officially released on May 9th.
For what we think is a web first, Okkervil River are not releasing their new album, I Am Very Far, today, but instead will perform it live, song for song, on KUT in Austin in collaboration with NPR. You can listen to the live cast at 7 pm EST Wednesday evening. The Foo Fighters recently performed their entire new album, Wasting Light, on a special web-only live cast, which you can still stream here. However, Foo Fighters had already released Wasting Light prior to the performance.
Although the new Okkervil River album doesn’t officially drop until May 9th (pre-order here), it will mark the band’s first album since 2008’s The Stand Ins. So, it has been a long time and waiting for fans of one of the best indie folk rock bands of the past decade.
Compared to a relative blitz of releases early on in the band’s career, Okkervil River has released just two LPs in the past six years. But the idea to perform the album live first is a great marketing event, and also a nice treat for hard-core fans. Here’s the first single from the album.
Okkervil River formed when former high school friends from New Hampshire, vocalist Will Robison Sheff and drummer Seth Warren decided to meet in Austin after college to work on some music they had been discussing. The duo added bassist Zachary Thomas soon after and recorded several EPs, including Stars Too Small to Use, in early 2000. About the same time, multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg joined the band just in time for the band’s SXSW debut in March 2000.
Producer Brian Beattie agreed to produce the band’s debut LP, Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See. During the recording of the album, Warren left the band to move to California and was replaced by drummer Mark Pendini. The band then signed to Jagjaguwar Records who released the debut LP in 2002. The next year, the band released their sophomore LP, Down the River of Golden Dreams. In 2005, Okkervil River broke out big time to the national stage with the release of Black Sheep Boy, and several months later, the Black Sheep Boy Appendix EP. In 2007 and 2008, the band released The Stage Names and The Stand Ins, respectively.
“Lost Coastlines” – Okkervil River from The Stand Ins (2008)
Okkervil River will officially drop I Am Very Far on May 9th. The following week, the band will headline at Heaven in London, and then at Gota Kallare in Stockholm on May 20th. On May 31st, the band will kick off their 2011 summer tour at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.
The three week tour, according to the band’s MySpace page, will take the band across the U.S. (and Canada), but no shows are scheduled for California, which is a bit bizarre. The tour will end up at the magnificent Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon – yes that gigantic room up the top of the stairs with the bouncing floor. We saw Panda Bear there last fall during MFNW. If you’ve never seen a show there, this would be a good reason to go, and you might just get to see the ghosts.
In a world full of troubles, news and chatter about the Royal Wedding 2011 are useless to most people, but welcomed distractions for millions of others, regardless of the innate elitism, pomp and circumstance – even silliness – of the British royals and their trumped up social events. This coming Friday, Prince William and Kate Middleton will wed at Westminister Abbey in London. The royal wedding date is set for April 29th. And, you’ll never believe what Will and Kate’s favorite song is – in a million years.
Apparently the biggest Royal Wedding Twitter hashtag is #rw2011. That is not an insignificant piece of information when you consider that the royal couple of William and Kate announced their engagement to the world via Twitter.
Anyways, we thought it’d be cool to pull together themes – like kings, princes, princesses, queens, royalty, weddings, marriage, love, and so on – to make a royal-sized music mixtape of songs for the royal wedding mania. Afterall, we haven’t seen any other interesting mixtapes for the royal wedding online – just a few mixtapes of ho-hum, predictable songs (“Chapel of Love” or “When A Man Loves A Woman”), mostly in lists that are not even playlists that you can easily listen to it.
So, we thought, we make mixtapes that people seem to like; we’ll do it. Unlike our other mixes, we’re not splitting up the mix with photos of bands and album covers. So, now there’s something reliable on the web for people to go to a search engine like Google and search for “royal wedding mixtape” or “royal wedding playlist” or even “alternative wedding songs.” *
* The inclusion of this awesome track from the legendary Icelandic band Sigur Ros was suggested in an article on Squidoo, and here’s the video to go with it.
** This is a rare Paul McCartney demo tape – which seems additionally fitting since he’ll be attending the wedding – and of course the song is about love. Afterall, this is the king of silly love songs; he said so himself. “Really Love You” is a real jam if there ever was one, and as McCartney explains in the intro, he just started out with a simple one-two bass line and became something bigger.
Currently, there is a waiting list on Amazon when the rare vinyl import, Twin Freaks, of which this song (not sure if the same version as above) is from, will be available. Sony has said this will be the last vinyl pressing of the Twin Freaks import.
Royal Wedding 2011 Website, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Websites, Wedding Resources and Links
See the official royal wedding 2011 website with news, photos, information on the service, the royal wedding procession and William and Catherine’s wedding reception. View the official Royal Wedding Procession map via Google Maps and the official royal video wedding guestbook. Stream the official Royal Wedding live webcast on Friday at 5 am EST.
View Prince William of Wales official website and Prince William’s official Facebook page. Interestingly, the prince only has a little over 64,000 Facebook fans. We also found what we think is the real official Kate Middleton Facebook page, but only by searching Google for ‘Catherine Middleton Facebook page’. That page, which really does seem to be the official one, mostly based on it’s customized Facebook web address URL, which is . That page has a more believable 35,000 fans/friends. If you search for Kate Middleton Facebook page, you’ll get a link to the Kate Middleton’s ‘Official’ Facebook page, but that page has barely 4,000 fans/friends. Facebook, still a young company, has kinks to work out, that’s for sure.
Seriously Will and Kate? Your Favorite Song?
According to U.K. Telegraph, the royal couple’s favorite song is “I Like The Way You Move.” Really? Seriously? With all of the amazing music out there, this is the song? That’s what they said. Well, ummm, alright.
The track is by the Australian dance/house duo Bodyrockers, consisting of Dylan Burns and Kaz James. In April of 2005, the song peaked on the U.K. Singles Chart at #3, and later become a top dance charts hit in the U.S. after being featured in a Diet Coke commercial.
People are still talking and joking about this in the cafe; they’re coming up with some funny answers to the lingering question(s) we yearn to ask the royal couple about their favorite song. For example: “If you will please, Prince William and Kate, tell us the story behind why you chose ‘I Like The Way You More’ as your official favorite song? What is it about this rather insignificant, and not very good, song that makes you pick it above all of the other great songs to choose from. Is there some special moment tied to that song, and that’s why? Was it something that was always the case, or just what you came up with because you were not ready for the question and couldn’t think of anything else? Do you want to change your answer?”
We’re dying to ask those questions, but we doubt Kate and Will are going to talk to us now because we’re making fun of them. British royals are fun to make fun of. We’re Americans for Pete’s sake, so naturally, it’s a joy to poke fun at British royalty. But still, the song. The song. Anyways, here it is, by the ‘Bodyrockers’. OMG. LOL.
How We Approached Creating a Royal Wedding Mixtape
The songs we looked for, sifted through, listened to again and again, and ultimately picked for this week’s S-25 mix are not intended at all to be literal or autobiographical of either William or Kate; it’s just a mix of songs we like that kind of fit the over-arching theme of the royal wedding. We broke the presumed 25-song limit (again) because we didn’t want to cut out any more of the songs we ultimately picked for inclusion in this mix.
Plus, we’re not trying to be formal or appropriate either – that’s up the folks at the palace; this is just an experiment in mix-taping, nothing more. While the songs are obviously not literal, they are meant to tell a story altogether, and with some free-roaming imagination. Essentially, it’s just another opportunity to share music we love with you, and which is not restricted to indie rock, both of which are what we love about the weekly Sunday Mix.
From right: Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Mick Avory and Peter Quaife on a bench with a sleeping man in Enbankment Gardens
As wild and crazy Kinks‘ fans since childhood, the latest chatter out this past week regarding a possible Kinks’ reunion is somewhat nerve-racking when it should be cause for jubilation. But hard-core Kinks’ fans know the fragile relationship of brothers Ray and Dave Davies, could snap expectations of a reunion into pieces, as it has done in the past.
Interestingly, but certainly not surprisingly, the latest Kinks’ reunion talk arises from yet another less than brotherly love controversy in the press, especially so in the U.K., and one which some fans and critics blame on Dave for being unnecessarily sour and resorting to name-calling via the press.
In a recent interview in the current edition of Rolling Stone magazine, Ray, the Kinks’ legendary lead songwriter and vocalist, told RS that he was for a reunion if his equally legendary lead guitarist, vocalist and brother Dave was.
But Ray’s comments came only after the latest round of drama set off a couple of weeks ago when Dave told the U.K. Independent that Ray was an “arsehole,” and “I love him to death” in the same breath. As he’s done many times, and who knows, perhaps understandably, Dave resorted to telling the world how he feels about his brother.
“I don’t know when it happened, but at some point Ray kind of lost the ability to share,” he told the Independent, adding: “Emotionally – not just with money. Even though that [money] would help. A lot.”
He added: “But having said that Ray is a vain, egocentric, narcissistic arsehole, I won’t have anybody call him that except me. Because I love him to death. He is my brother.”
The latest immature remark by Dave is just a glimpse into decades long, notorious, and feuding love-hate relationship between the rock star brothers. Seriously, to talk about your own brother like that, and then say you love him, through the press at the age of 64 is just plain childish and petty. Another way to look at it too may just be that Dave expects a reunion and is just drumming up publicity for an expected announcement.
And, Ray, who usually is the more passive-aggressive one in these squabbles that have gone on in public for 47 years now, at least appears to have opted for being adult about it by proclaiming that he is willing to do the long-awaited reunion (15 years in the making) if Dave is.
Apparently, the brothers have met, or will be meeting, at Dave’s residence outside of London. The exact date of the meeting seems to be a mystery. Ray told Rolling Stone, “I’m seeing Dave next week,” sometime before April 11th, so that would have put the meeting at sometime in the past week or two. Yet, from everything we’ve been able to gather, there is no news at the time of this posting (Friday 4/22) from the Kinks’ brothers’ recent summit, or if it has even taken place at all.
The North London home were the teenage Davies' brothers banged out the first two notes of "You Really Got Me," on a piano, a song that went on to have a profound impact on the history of guitar rock from 1964 to present day. The brothers lived at 6 Denmark Terrace in Muswell Hill with six sisters.
The volume of the Kinks’ reunion chatter has been growing in intensity from fans, press and bloggers worldwide for the past few years, especially, as the Kinks’ are regularly cited as a major influence by many of today’s popular indie rock bands.
One would have naturally expected that after all of these years, the two brothers would have patched things up and stopped the squabbling by now, especially Dave, who is usually the instigator.
And yet not even Ray getting shot (by a mugger in New Orleans in 2004), or Dave’s stroke just eight months later have seemed – at least from everything we can tell – to stop the non-sense. For 15 years, millions of Kinks’ fans around the world have had to suffer since these two brilliant, but combative brothers, have wasted their talents by not collaborating since 1997, when the band officially disbanded.
Since then, there’s plenty of evidence that recognition of the Kinks’ music has increased, as a younger generation has embraced the band, other bands started because of them, and their songs start are appearing everywhere you turn in the past 15 years, from popular movie soundtracks and commercials to high rated television series and radio play. The Kinks’ have one of the most extensive discographies of any band in the history of rock, spanning from 1964 to 1997. Another sign that demand for Kinks’ music is strong is the fact that their earlier albums from the 1960’s are being remastered and reissued throughout this spring and summer, with the reissues of the Kinks’ first three album having already dropped on March 22nd.
A Kinks’ Reunion Might Only Mean Two Out of Three
If there would be a Kinks’ reunion, it’s not clear if the reunion would go beyond just the Davies’ brothers. Sadly, the Kinks’ original bassist, Peter Quaife, passed away last year at the age of 66 in Demark. Quaife’s involvement in a reunion if he were still alive would have almost certainly been a definite no; he had said repeatedly over the years, he never would, and there was no reason to think otherwise.
The original Kinks: Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Peter Quaife and Mick Avory (circa 1965)
Quaife left the band in 1969, right before the Kinks’ were thrust back onto the world stage with the release of “Lola,” which went to #2 in the U.K. and #9 in the U.S. in June 1970.
The song also became a #1 hit in The Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand. “Lola” is also one of the top rock and roll songs of all time, with yet another
Kinks’ riff that is recognized around the world. The hit single paved the way for the Kinks return to America after a four-year ban from the States, the reason for which remains unclear, even to the band.
(More on “Lola” in volume two of what will be our permanent new series, called The Kinks’ Kronikles, which was the name of a special double LP compilation of Kinks’ music, including B-sides and previously unreleased songs, from the ‘Golden Era’ of 1966-1970.)
“Lola” – The Kinks, unreleased version (with words “coca-cola”)
Quaife did reunite with the original Kinks only once – for the band’s 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If a Kinks’ reunion were announced, there is the question of whether the band’s original, and long-time (20 years) drummer, Mick Avory, will take part. Avory has performed on and off again with the tribute band, Kast Off Kinks. Avory left the Kinks when their huge hit single, “Come Dancing,” was on the charts in 1986 in the U.S., U.K. and countless other countries around the world.
Avory said in an interview that he felt that was a great way to part from band, because the song made the band once again, hugely popular, but also reaching audiences that were not normally their usual fans.
“Come Dancing” – The Kinks from State of Confusion (1984)
Message to Ray & Dave: Please Listen to Your Own Songs While Pondering Kinks’ Reunion
We’re integrating into this post Kinks’ songs that follow a theme of getting along, turning a page, looking forward, being optimistic, and reaching for ‘better things’ (‘I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things..’) and songs in general that are optimistic and upbeat. Maybe, just maybe, the old bros will plug into what they loved about making so much memorable, iconic music together for over a 30 years, and will realize how many fans want to see them back together.
Ray and Dave, here are your own songs that we hope will allow you to put your differences aside, and reunite the Kinks. There’s an entire generation of young music lovers out there who are discovering your music like you’d never imagine. Every time we’ve put up a Kinks’ song on IRC over the past four years, it’s almost always been the top song of the week.
“Better Things” – The Kinks from Give The People What They Want (1981)
“This Time Tomorrow” – The Kinks from Lola vs. Powerman And The Money Go Round – vinyl (1970) *
“This Is Where I Belong” – The Kinks from Face to Face (1968)
Lola vs. Powerman, as it’s called for short, has 68 5-star reviews from Amazon customers. If you won’t have it in your collection, we strongly recommend it – the entire thing is a fabulous album, and of course contains the original master recording of the No. 1 hit record, “Lola”
As soon as we hear something about the possible Kinks’ reunion – most likely through the U.K. press – we’ll let you know through our Twitter, Facebook or RSS feed.
Note to Ray: Dude, we love you, man. Please hire the best people in the business to help you with planning and executing the reunion tour; we’re talking about the real top-of-the-line production folks, lighting and sound engineers, managers, booking agents, audio and visual tech geeks, and so on. A really amazing light and film show featuring a montage of live and studio footage of the Kinks through the years – there’s quite a bit of it just on YouTube alone – would be sahh-weet.
“Tired of Waiting For You” – The Kinks from Kinda Kinks (1966)
Unlike many week’s this year, this would have to be one of the most insignificant in comparison as far as new music releases. There are simply no “big” releases this week as we’ve seen for other weeks over the past few months – like Radiohead, The Strokes, Panda Bear, Foo Fighters, The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, R.E.M., and so many others, which you can view and listen to from the Best New Releases page.
That said, there still are some definitely note-worthy releases, including The Head and The Heart, I’m From Barcelona, The High Llamas, Tuneyards, Head and American Babies. There are also releases we’re liking from bands that are new-to-us, including Heavenly States, O’Death, The Unthanks, American Babies, and more.
Tuneyards gets things really moving with the uplifting African music inspired track, “Bizness,” that takes you to another place. The relatively new band, Futurebirds, definitely got our attention with the excellent single, “Dirty D” from their debut, self-titled EP. Plus, a marginally known indie band, I’m From Barcelona, that we’ve liked for years, has a new album, as does the electro swirly-pop band The High Llmas. And Dengue Fever has the silly titled “Cement Slippers” from their new LP, which you can stream here.
20 Gigs of Free Space on Amazon Cloud: Click the album titles for any release you want to buy from Amazon, and you’ll get 20 free gigs of space on the new Amazon Cloud, meaning you’ll be able to access up to 20 gigs of your music from anywhere and with any device that can connect to the web.
“Bizness” – Tuneyards from Whokill
“Dirty D” – Futurebirds from Futurebirds EP
“Get In Line” – I’m From Barcelona from Forever Today
“Fly Baby, Fly” – The High Llamas from Talahomi Way
Although Record Store Day (last Saturday) is over, there’s still plenty of buzz that came from it, and in some cases, there were releases that were dropped – but in limited edition vinyl, for the most part – three day earlier than standard Tuesday release date that traditionally most new albums are issued on.
One of those was from the sort of new Seattle band, The Head and The Heart, who released their self-titled debut album this week. We’ve only heard a few songs from the band so far, including the tracks below.
“Lost in My Mind” – The Head and the Heart from The Head and the Heart
“Chasing A Ghost” (Chapel Session) – The Head and the Heart from The Head and the Heart
Also get “Lost In The Valley” from the band’s website for free.
On first listen, we kind of like their sound kind of, but it’s one of those things where we’re not sure yet. It could turn out to be a good album, or one that we forget about, especially compared to all of the other releases that have come out, and those still yet to drop. Pitchfork panned The Head and The Heart’s debut, slapping it with a 3.5 (out of 10) rating.
It’s not usual that a band on the Sub Pop roster is creamed by PF, but there it is. Then again, we really think it’s up to everyone to make their own decision. We’ll know by the number of times the songs are played and downloaded what songs IRC readers like the most, as is evident on the Top Ten Songs page.
Also, on Record Store Day, French Horn Rebellion, which The New York Times recently called “the next big thing”, streamed their debut album on MySpace, although it was officially available this week. There is a free sampler of the album available on their MySpace page for your email, and currently on sale via Amazon for only $7.99, which also gives you free access to all of your music on the Amazon Cloud, with a total of 20 gigs of space.
“This Moment” – The French Horn Rebellion from The Infinite Music of The French Horn Rebellion
This week’s other interesting new releases come from talented artists and bands that we – and imagine many of you – never heard of before and some of which we can say are now, at the least, on our radars, including talented indie bands Heavenly States and The Unthanks, the alternative folk and country rock influences of bands like O’Death and American Babies, and the post rock sounds of Rain Over St. Ambrose. Of course, we’re always interested to see what you guys think. Plus, don’t miss Quiet Parade and Bombino.
Fans dance while listening to DJ HeavyGrinder at the Coachella. (Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times / April 17, 2011)
by Max Silver Indio, Calif. Filed: 4/16 8:00 p.m.
Finally, the desert of southern California is twisting away from the blazing sun, and a nice coolness is settling in. As night descends, everywhere you turn to look there cellphone lights on, like thousands of futuristic glowing jelly fish floating on the dark and calm sea. The colors of the sky, way off in the distance, fade from wisps of oranges and reds to shades of blue, purple and black.
Overhead, and seemingly closer than the night before, the magnificently bright full moon pours out its milky glow on every surface of the valley, along the edges of the sloping camel back mountains and against the towering palm trees, like ancient pillars to the gods.
Night time is falling on this the second day of the music mecca known as Coachella. Tens of thousands of people sleeping under the stars by night, and dancing, eating, drinking and listening to music by day. The majestic Ferris wheel off in the distance gets brighter as the long expanse of the heavens above turn darker, a much welcomed relief from the searing sun.
The sounds of electric, wood, and wind sail over this massive configuration of people, stages, vendors, skyward artworks, and palms. The air changes from odors of pizza and BBQ chicken to cannabis and incense.
The experience of being at a music festival in the middle of the desert, at the mercy of the sun by day, but under the Milky Way by night, is thankfully not a once-in-a-lifetime event. (continued at end of page)
On the main stage, Broken Social Scene were on earlier, and now Bright Eyes is rocking the masses. Coming up are Animal Collective, Mumford & Sons and Arcade Fire. That’s a pretty sweet chunk of time featuring an A-list of indie bands, gratefully, all from the same stage. So, in celebration of Coachella, this Sunday’s S-25 Mix is dedicated to the bands, fans, and crew that make Coachella a blast to last.
“Shell Games” – Bright Eyes from The People’s Key (2011)
“Taken For A Fool” – The Strokes from Angles (2011)
“My Girls” – Animal Collective from Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
“Black Gold” – Foals from Total Life Forever (2010)
“Tighten Up” – The Black Keys from Brothers (2010)
“A Place We Like”- Twin Shadow vs. Hooray for the Earth
“Four Score and Seven (Part One)” – Titus Andronicus from The Monitor (2010)
“Take Me Over” – Cut Copy from Zonoscope (2010)
“Undertow” – Warpaint from The Fool (2010)
“Helena Beat” – Foster The People from Torches – out May 24th
“Can’t Tell Me Nothing” – Francis and the Lights from Guilt By Association, Vol. 2 (2008)
“Great Pan Is Dead” – Cold Cave from Cherish the Light Years (Bonus Track)
The Coachella Experience
In a few hours, the last day of Coachella will have arrived. It’s always strange how fast it all goes by, but it’s always a blast. For so many people, there’s the sense of dread when late Sunday afternoon rolls around. It means the last few hours of Coachella for another year. We will all go back from sharing this amazing experience to our regular lives
Coachella is, for some people, the ultimate experience, even a religious experience, not simply for all of the great music, but also because is shows that, for the most part, tens of thousands of different people from different lives, places and backgrounds, can come together and celebrate a common love for music and good times, to get along and respect one another, way out in the middle of the desert, detached from the ‘real world’ for a few days. Sure, it sounds really cheesy, but I think it’s what a lot of people love about Coachella.
You’ve really got to give it to all the folks that make Coachella such an awesome experience each year. And year after year, it gets better as the organizers and crews, security and operations people learn, tweak, evolve, and improve. Just for a logistical stand-point, it’s an enormous undertaking.
The one thing that we hear the most is how great the music sounds. That’s for sure – the folks that set up and manage the sound systems at Coachella are the best in the outdoor sound arena. Sure there have been glitches and imperfections, but it’s amazing to see how far music festivals like Coachella have come in the area of sound quality over the past decade.
But ultimately, it’s the bands and the fans that make the whole thing possible. And if you think about it, live performances are really the one leg of the “music industry” that remains firmly intact. You just can’t enjoy a concert or a festival sitting on your ass streaming it on YouTube.
Record Store Day is here, and we’re presenting this comprehensive guide with recommended limited edition vinyls, including singles, split singles, compilations, reissues, covers, EPs, unreleased tracks, and much more. So, far, we’ve posted a massive volume one of IRC’s top RSD releases, followed by volume two, featuring recommended vinyl cover songs being released as singles, EPs and LPs on RSD only. You might also want to check out the video review of RSD releases from Chris Brown. And, at last, volume three here within.
According to the U.K. Telegraph, there are approximately 1,000 participating stores on four continents. Spencer Hickman, the founder of Rough Trade Records, and organizer of the U.K. RSD recognition, believes that the future for independent record stores is looking better.
“There’s lot of love out there for the old independent record shop,” he told the Telegraph. “People are waking up to the fact that all towns across the country are becoming identikit, and the small indie retailers are disappearing. They don’t want this anymore and are finally saying ‘No, enough is enough’.”
With the resurgence in the popularity of vinyl over the years, and events like Record Store Day, there are glimmers of hope for indie record stores, not just in the U.K., but also in the U.S. and Canada. There seems to be a growing number of young people realizing that the sound quality of vinyl and CDs can simply not be achieved digitally, even with 320 kps-ripped MP3s; not even FLAC files. Plus, the physical copy of music in vinyl – with it’s large cover artwork, track listing, notes and whatever else bands and labels add on – cannot be replicated digitally, as hard as it’s been tried.
Because of the number of releases on RSD, it’s impossible to cover everything we’d like to, but we’ve managed to write something about most of them. So, let’s get into it. But first, you may wish to check out volume one, which full of lots of interesting releases and rare songs.
RSD 2011 Singles Vinyl Releases
There are all kinds of goodies in the vinyl singles set for limited edition release on Saturday. Together with covers and split singles, the group easily makes up the largest collection of vinyl releases on RSD since it’s beginnings in 2008.
Radiohead will drop “Supercollider” and “The Butcher” on a seven-inch vinyl single with only 2,000 copies for the 1,000 stores on four continents participating in RSD. Both tracks are previously unreleased, which obviously generates a lot of anticipation among RH fans. Even though these tracks have been performed at Radiohead shows, thisis the first time we’ll hear the studio takes. Based on this live version of “Supercollider” in Amsterdam, the song sounds great; can’t wait to her the studio version. No word on if the two tracks will be released beyond the 2,000 copies. It would only make sense to, at least for download on Radiohead.com (which has recently had a site redesign).
The Kills will release a special dub version of of “Satellite” on a 10-inch vinyl, featuring a B-side a mix by Mad Professor. The track is from the band’s new album, Blood Pressures.
Fleet Foxes will release a vinyl single with “Helplessness Blues,” the title track of their forthcoming album.
Blitzen Trapper will release 1,000 copies of a vinyl double single featuring the tracks “Maybe Baby” and “I Don’t Know What.” Subpop is also releasing a vinyl sampler called Please to Enjoy, which includes the Blitzen Trapper track, “Maybe Baby.”
The sampler features an awesome collection of songs from Subpop artists, including Fleet Foxes, Lower Dens, Mogwai, J.Mascis, Papercuts and Low. Stream Please to Enjoy.
Jamie Woon offers fans a version of his single “Lady Luck” as a limited edition 500 copies seven-inch vinyl.
Cults drop seven-inch featuring “Abducted” and a RSD-only remix version of “Go Outside.”.
The Heartbreaks will release 300 seven-inch vinyl copies of “Jealous Don’t You Know” Produced by Edwyn Collins.
The Go! Team will drop a 12-inch vinyl will remixes of “Apollo Throwdown” and “Voice Yr Choice” from Star Slinger and the Ruby Suns, respectively.
Warpaint will issue 500 blue vinyl copies only of ‘Undertow’ backed with ‘Warpaint’.
“Undertow” – Warpaint
Foster the People will release a special 10-inch vinyl single of their awesome track, “Pumped Up Kicks.”
“Pumped Up Kicks” – Foster The People
Death Cab For Cutie are releasing a seven-inch vinyl called Death Cab For Cutie in Living Stereo with samples of the upcoming release Codes and Keys.
While the long-awaited release of Danger Mouse‘s special project of paying homage to Italian film scores, Rome, will be released next month, a few thousand lucky fans will have the chance to grab a seven-inch vinyl copy featuring two advance tracks from the album – one “Two Against One,” with Jack White on vocals, and Norah Jones performance of the track “Black.” Together with composer Danielle Luppi, Danger Mouse’s realization of his dream is coming to fruition on May 17th, the official release date of Rome.
“Two Against One” – Danger Mouse and Danielle Luppi (featuring Jack White) from Rome – out May 17th
My Chemical Romance will release the track “Na Na Na” with an unreleased b-side called “Zero Percent” on a seven-inch picture vinyl disc.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will make available a 10-inch vinyl single with the A-side, “Gotta Get That Feeling,” and “Racing in the Street” from last year’s Asbury Park, New Jersey concert ‘Songs From the Promise.’
The new supergroup, Wild Flag, consisting of Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney), Mary Timony (Helium), Rebecca Cole (The Minders), and Janet Weiss, are said to begin recording soon their debut album for release later in 2011. But on RSD, the band will give the world it’s first listen to their sound with Wild Flag’s first official single, “Future Crimes,” with the B-side “Glass Tambourine,” on seven-inch vinyl and a free download code.
Queen (yup, the remaining members are still going) will release a limited seven-inch of “Stormtroopers in Stilettos,” which includes a remastered version of “Stone Cold Crazy” and a never before released version of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ recorded in 1975.
RSD Previously Unreleased Vinyls
R.E.M. will release a special RSD-only vinyl set titled Three, featuring three seven-inch records with the first three singles from their latest (and one of their best) album, Collapse Into Now. But the reason we included this in the unreleased section is the more exciting news that R.E.M. are releasing three previously unreleased songs as B-sides.
It’s amazing after all of these years that 13th Floor Elevators, pioneers of psychedelic rock, are having possibly a bigger influence on music now than they did when they were together 40 years ago. On Saturday, they’ve release “Wait for My Love,” a never released song, on green seven-inch vinyl.
The Rolling Stones will release the almost previously unreleased cover of Chuck Berry‘s “Let It Rock” (see above for more details and sample from a Live Leeds show in 70s). The song definitely sounds similar to the classic “Johnny B. Good.”
“Let It Rock” (Chuck Berry) – The Rolling Stones from a live in Leeds U.K. recording (circa 1971)
Eric Clapton played in a numer of influential classic rock bands.
For a brief time in the history of classic rock, Derek and The Dominos were one of the top guitar rock bands of the late 60’s and early 70’s, largely thanks to the smooth, but riveting, guitar work of the legendary Eric Clapton (who was also in the Yardbirds and Blind Faith, also amazing bands).
Decades later, Clapton and the Dominos are releasing a double vinyl for RSD – “Got To Get Better In A Little While” and “Layla.”
While Clapton only recorded one album with the Dominos, it’s had a long-lasting effect, especially due to the huge hit single, “Layla” that often pops up on Top 100, 200, 500 rock song of all time listings. The exciting news for Clapton fans is that the B-side, “Got To Get Better In A Little While,” never before released, was recently discovered from a long-lost master Dominos recording session tape for a follow-up album that never happened. Original Dominos member Bobby Whitlock added the vocals, but Slow Hand is at the gears. The 7” vinyl is limited to 2,500 copies in the U.S., and likely to be a collector’s item.
“Layla” – Derek and The Dominos
RSD Single, EP and LP Reissues
Deerhoof will release a limited 1,000 copies of 2007’s Friend Opportunity. It’s been out of print on vinyl for years, but on Saturday, some 1,000 lucky folks will get the exclusive translucent green 180-gram vinyl RSD release. The vinyl also includes a track not previously on the original release, titled “Makko Shobu,” as well as a new mix for “Matchbook Seeks Maniac.”
NME called the album “unfathomable brilliance from start to finish,” and The New York Times tagged Friend Opportunity as “Miraculous…A defining statement…Deerhoof is one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade.”
“Plus 81” – Deerhoof from Friend Opportunity (2007)
Ryan Adams will drop 2,500 vinyl copies of a new EP called Class Mythology, will be available April 16th. The release will consist of a double seven-inch with Cardinology-era “unreleased outtakes”. Wax Poetic reported that the EP will come with a sticker and poster.
Fans of The Clash: Check this out: The Magnificent Seven re-issue comes out on RSD on seven-inch, heavyweight red vinyl, and includes a bonus 4-track CD.
Panda Bear, like Foo Fighters, continues his big week of releases with a 12 clear vinyl of Tomboy and an exclusive T-shirt.
The Beach Boys will release 2,000 78 RPM double disc vinyl sets featuring original and alternative take versions of the songs “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains”
“Good Vibrations” – The Beach Boys
Primal Scream are releasing a triple vinyl set with two red vinyls including a re-issue of the The Dixie Narco EP, which hasn’t been available for two decades on vinyl. The RSD release will include a 16-page, 12-inch booklet with rare photos, interviews and liner notes.
One of the greatest influential pop-rock bands of the 1970s, who inspired bands like R.E.M. and The Talking Heads, Alex Chilton and Big Star will re-issue their last album, Third, on 180 gram 12-inch vinyl. The album was released shortly before the band broke up in 1974. Most interesting to fans might be the fact that the reissue was recorded off the original studio master tapes.
The reissue of Third will also include new artwork comprised of notes and the like. Plus, one of every 300 pressing will include the authentic test tapes, signed by the band’s only surviving member, Jody Stephens. Sadly, the band’s frontman Alex Chilton died a few days before a Big Star reunion was to take place at Austin‘s 2010 South By Southwest festival.
The Rolling Stones will issue 5,000 seven-inch vinyls of “Brown Sugar” that includes a rare B-side of Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock,” which was only released once on an out-of-print compilation. On Tuesday, the Stones will release of their The Complete Singles (1971-2006) box-set.
“Let It Rock” (Chuck Berry) – The Rolling Stones
The Black Angels will release a limited edition red vinyl album – with download card – featuring the band’s first two EPs.
Among the 2,000 copies, 100 inserts signed by the band will be randomly packed through the pressing. This marks the first time the band’s two EPs have been collected together on one vinyl.
The special release will also include original artwork from guitarist Christian Bland. The disc will include previously unreleased tracks, including “Winter ’68” and a cover of Black Mountain‘s “No Satisfaction” (not the same as the Stones’ classic “Satisfaction”).
“Winter ’68” – The Black Angels
Daft Punk will issue a four song clear 10-inch vinyl that will feature three songs from the soundtrack of last year’s Tron Legacy. It also includes the rare single, “Castor.” What’s especially interesting is the fact that the clear vinyl discs will be available in various colors that will match the colors of the “identity discs” fashioned by the film’s main characters. We weren’t able to find out how many copies would be made for RSD.
“Castor” – Daft Punk from Tron Legacy (2010)
The New York City Rastafarian hardcore punk band, Bad Brains, will re-issue their 1980 debut, minute-and-half track, “Pay to Cum” on seven inch vinyl. Unlike the original, it will also contain a B-side of “Stay Close to Me.” The original release of “Pay To Cum” is on SPIN‘s ’20 Greatest Punk Songs Ever.
“Pay To Cum” – Bad Brains
Record Store Day Split Singles on Vinyl
Bear In Heaven & Lindstrøm are releasing a split 12-inch for Record Store Day. It includes a remix by Lindstrøm of Bear In Heaven’s “Lovesick Teenagers” and Bear In Heaven’s cover of Lindstrøm & Christabelle’s “Lovesick.”
“Lovesick Teenagers” – Bear In Heaven
Bibio and Clark (sounds like a law firm) will kick out a split 12-inch vinyl wrapped in “classic ‘Warp’ purple sleeve”
Jenny & Johnny, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris will release a split seven-inch
Altogether, Polyvinyl Records will drop 11 7-inch and 12-inch releases on Record Store Day – the largest single day set of single releases in the 15-year-old Champaigne, Illinois’ label’s history. One of our most anticipated is the Deerhoof/Xiu Xiu split 7-inch, featuring Jamie Stewart singing to Deerhoof’s “Almost Everyone, Almost Always,” and Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier singing the Xiu Xiu track, “Dear God, I Hate Myself.”
Toro Y Moi and Cloud Nothings will split a seven-inch
There also other one-time-only split singles of cover songs. Check out the RSD Cover Songs section below for full details.
RSD Cover Song Releases
See Vol. II of IRC’s Record Store Day 2011 Music Guide featuring a complete section of RSD Cover Songs on Vinyl.
Special Color Vinyl Album Releases
As picture above, Daft Punk will release a translucent blue vinyl on RSD (scroll up to read more about this release)
The Black Angels, as mentioned above, on heavy red vinyl!
Vivian Girls will release “I Heard You Say” on seven-inch colored vinyl, featuring exclusive B-side “I Won’t Be Long.”
Antony and The Johnsons will release a special 10-inch limited edition blue vinyl of their Swanlights EP, which officially drops on April 26th. The 10-inch vinyl edition will includes a remix of the title track by Oneohtrix Point Never as well as two exclusive B-sides. Here is the brand new video for Swanlights.
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin will offer a deluxe colored vinyl reissue of the awesome album, Broom, featuring three songs not found on the original CD, plus a download code that includes two digital bonus tracks.
RSD 2011 Vinyl Compilations
There are a bunch of compilations coming out on RSD, and record stores will also have free ones available as well, usually in the form of compact disc samplers, and usually from record labels.
The Kill Rock Stars label are reissuing 2,000 limited edition vinyl LPs of a 1991 compilation featuring Nirvana, The Melvins and Bikini Kill, among others.
Mute Records, newly indie again after cutting ties with EMI in October 2010, will release its first ever RSD vinyl, a compilation called, Vorwarts, featuring previously unreleased tracks from Depeche Mode, The Bad Seeds, Liars, Junip, and Moby, among others.
There are only 1,000 orange vinyl editions, each which include an additional bonus CD insert.
Apparently, the 1,000 copies will be distributed only in U.K. record stores. So, you can Stream and buy the LP via the Mute website.
Black Bell Records will release a free 12-inch compilation vinyl in addition to a free download from their website featuring tracks from ARMS, The Joy Formidable, Girlfriends, Dom (with Cults), Pretty & Nice, and many others. The compilation is streaming now via the label’s website.
When you purchase two items from the Black Bell store, you’ll get a free copy of the compilation in either white or yellow vinyl. The rising Massachusetts band Dom with Cults track, “Bowl Cut,” was produced by Passion Pit band member Ayad Al Adhamy.
Locate Participating RSD Stores Near You
Find a record store in your area. Some stores don’t participate in Record Store Day, so make sure to check first. You also want to get to your record store early on April 16th to make sure you get the vinyls you want. We don’t however recommend buying more than one copy just because they are so limited and it’s just right to give as many other people as possible the chance the own the same exclusive record you want. It’s the right thing to do.
We love the fact that indie record stores are hanging on, and even showing signs of expanding – individual shops, not outlets. The American landscape is already scared by chains and outlets and strip malls (just ask Arcade Fire), so the more individual businesses there are, the better for us all. We think the backlash against the mallification of America over the past 30 years is growing, especially among young people. That’s a good sign for independent record stores, and for the future in general. Community power!
Bull Moose Record Store Owner Chris Brown Reviews Nearly 100 RSD Releases
After producing a popular YouTube video last year highlighting top RSD releases, the owner of the Maine based Bull Moose record stores, Chris Brown, has made another nearly 15-minute video review of 2011’s Record Store Day releases. Plus, if you’re not in the Portland, Maine area, you can also stream online Brown’s appearance on local radio station WCLZ in which he’ll play exclusive RSD releases, including some of the live tracks from The Decemberists special live show at Bull Moose in January. Brown will appear on the morning show with Lara Seaver.
Recommended RSD Movie: I Need That Record!
In 2008, Brendon Toller‘s fantastic documentary titled I Need That Record, won a number of independent film awards. It’s really a spectacular documentary that, in part, pays homage to the independent record store. You can watch part one of the documentary below, and check out the INeedThatRecord YouTube page, where you can watch it in parts, or watch it in its entirety for $1.99 via YouTube Rentals. More preferable, the film is also available via Netflix on DVD or Instant Watch. Either way, if you’re a hard-core music fan or vinyl collector, or just someone interested in an well-made, in-depth documentary about the record industry, record stores, the MP3, and much more.
RSD 2011 In-Store Appearances
The ultimate psychedelic indie rock band, The Black Angels, will perform an already sold out in-store performance at Culture Clash Records in Toledo, Ohio.
My Chemical Romance will appear at Vertigo Music in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a record signing. No confirmation that they won’t perform at least one song; if they did, it would be a surprise for the MCR fans that we know will show up.
At Criminal Records in Atlanta, the band Fan Modine will be celebrating the vinyl release of Gratitude For The Shipper, with 100 copies on 150 gram double 12″ vinyl. There will be appearances all afternoon and into the late evening including Fan Modine, British Sea Power, Holly Golightly, The db’s, Turf War, Oryx & Crake, Emily Kempf & Akuyou.
“Julu Road” – Fan Modine
In Seattle, the rising band, The Head and the Heart, will perform at both Easy Street Records and Sonic Boom Records. They’ll also be issuing a vinyl version of the track “Rivers and Roads” – a deluxe gatefold, with gold foil printing and an MP3 download. Some versions will include tickets to the band’s sold out Seattle shows.
At Dave’s Records on N. Clark Street in Chicago, the band I Was Totally Destroying It will perform an acoustic set at 4 pm that will include new songs from their LP, Preludes, that dropped earlier this week.
“The Key & Rose” – I Was Totally Destroying It from Preludes
Tips for Scoring LE Vinyls on RSD
With so many limited editions coming out on Record Store Day, April 16th, it’s going to take some good timing and some luck to make you sure get the LEs you want the most. It’s almost a guarantee that many will sell out fast.
Get to the record store early on Saturday. Most record stores have a very limited number of the already limited editions
While many record stores limit one special release by a single artist to a quantity of one, there are still folks, especially in large metropolian areas like NYC or London where there are are two to four RSD participating outlets, who will try to buy as many copies of the most sough out limited editions with the goal, usually, of either selling them right away on sites like eBay and Craigslist, or holding on to them, for years with the hopes that the value for the records will increase over time.
It’s our personal opinion that everyone should limit themselves to one copy for each release, in order to give as many people as possible a chance to buy an original RSD vinyl.
If you haven’t already, you might want to check the first volume of IRC’s Record Store Day 2011 Music Guide, featuring a lot of great suggestions for limited editions vinyls that you want to get your hands on if at all possible this Saturday.
First things first, you might want to check out the official list of record stores participating in RSD, whether your in Nebraska or California, Texas or Minnesota. Make sure to check back late on Friday or early on Saturday for the final, and huge, volume three to our special RSD guide.
So, as work continues on Volume Three, we wanted to make this second volume all about the wonderful number of cover songs that are coming on especially for RSD 2011. Some were already featured in volume one, including the tribute album to Guided By Voices and Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing split single vinyl featuring two covers of The Wake.
First up, RSD will see the release of a special 12-inch vinyl EP compilation of Franz Ferdinand covers from artists like the soon-to-be-disbanded LCD Soundsystem, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields, and others who take a stab at covering FF songs, many of them from the Scottish band’s 2009 LP, Tonight.
We can only hope that there will be a MP3 (maybe FLAC as well?) rip of the compilation that we can eventually get. It just wouldn’t make sense if there wasn’t.
The Foo Fighers are having a big week; they release their exclusive covers EP, Medium Rare, on RSD
It’s a big week for hard-core Foo Fighters fans. In addition to the release of one of the band’s best album ever this week – Wasting Light – the Foo Fighters are also releasing a vinyl of cover songs called, Medium Rare. The 12-inch, 120-gram vinyl comes with covers of Husker Du‘s “Never Talking to You Again”; The Wings “Band on the Run”; Prince‘s “Darling Nikki,” plus previously unreleased covers of Thin Lizzy‘s “Bad Reputation” and the Zombies‘ “This Will Be Our Year.” If you can’t grab the vinyl release, you can buy the MP3 download version here.
“Band on the Run” (Paul McCartney & Wings) – Foo Fighters from Medium Rare
Note: You can watch, for a limited time, the Foo Fighters‘ Late Night special nearly two-hour live show with the band playing Wasting Light in entirety, as well as some of their new covers. Apologies to vegans and others who find the inclusion of the cover art to Medium Rare a bit disturbing – we do not intend to offend anyone, but at the same time, it would be a disservice for us to censor the cover image as well. Hope that makes sense :)
Special RSD Covers from Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, The Decemberists, Clinic, Dennis Coffey
In an interesting collaboration, Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu are releasing a 2,000 split seven-inch orange vinyls on RSD with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu singing Deerhoof’s “Almost Everyone, Almost Always.” Greg Saunier of Deerhoof takes on Xiu Xiu’s “Dear God, I Hate Myself.” Here’s the original Xiu Xiu track.
“Dear God, I Hate Myself” (Xiu Xiu) – Greg Saunier of Deerhoof
You can beat that special release on RSD by The Decemberists will sell out fast. The band are releasing a vinyl limited edition of the new Live At Bull Moose EP. In true RSD fashion, the EP was recorded in January at the Bull Moose record store in Scarborough, Maine. The EP contains six songs from The King Is Dead. The EP also includes a cover of the Louvin Brothers‘ “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” complete with a slide guitar. The track as also a hit for Emmylou Harris way back in 1975.
Clinic will drop an EP of cover songs, Ladies Night, featuring covers of songs by Cilla Black, Man Parrish and the Seeds and Audrey Hepburn.
The Deftones will release a 12-inch vinyl of cover songs, including tracks from B-sides or CD import singles. The band covers The Smiths, The Cure, Duran Duran, The Cars, The Caridgans, Drive Like Jehu and Sade.
Dennis Coffey, the widely regarded guitarist, is dropping a new album of heavy Motor City funk that features a number of cover songs featuring collaborations with a line-up of musicians, including Kings Go Forth, Mayer Hawthorne, Paulo Nutini, Mick Collins (The Dirtbombs). This is also a cover of Parliament‘s “All Your Goodies Are Gone” by Mayer Hawthorne is one of the album’s highlights. There will be a special limited seven-inch vinyl featuring a remix by Steinski.
Covers from Green Day, Manchester Orchestra, Toadies, Superchunk and Coliseum
Green Day will drop a seven-inch vinyl cover of Husker Du‘s “I Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely.” The B-side will include the original from Husker Du. Manchester Orchestra will drop a vinyl cover of Built to Spill’s “The Plan” on the B-side with the A-side featuring MO’s new single, “Simple Math.” While LCD Soundsystem may no longer be, Texas band Toadies will issue a cover of LCD’s “Someone Great” on seven-inch vinyl, and Superchunk and the hardcore rockers Coliseum will drop a split seven-inch vinyl featuring covers of The Misfits‘ “Horror Business” and “Bullet,” respectively.
Ty Segall Covers T. Rex; Of Montreal does Buffalo Springfield
The indie band Ty Segall will release a 12-inch clear vinyl featuring six raw retakes on Marc Bolan‘s (T. Rex) joyous shimmering symphonic dementia and cool-ass 70s glam pop rock, tapping into T. Rex‘s feral and lusty sing-along allure. The vinyl will also come with a download code.
The release will only be available at Goner Records stores, TS shows, while the MP3 version will be available for an indefinite amount of time.
Some of the covers include “Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart,” “The Slider” and “Salamanda Palaganda.”
The wacky Georgia musical collective, Of Montreal, will drop a seven-inch vinyl cover of Buffalo Springfield‘s “Expecting to Fly.” The band are admirers of Neil Young (who founded Buffalo) having covered “Harvest Moon” for the 2010 Haiti relief.
As they prepare for the release of their interesting concept album, the band Fu*ked Up will drop a compilation of fictional U.K. punk bands from the main character, David’s, hometown. Fictional band names include the silly British non-existent bands like Crown and Criers, Redstockings, Wonderer.
The RSD-only compilation, David’s Town, will unfortunately be limited to 500 pressings, so it’s going to be a hard one to get your hands on. As we’ve said with so many of the limited edition vinyls, we can only hope that many RSD releases will eventually be available in MP3 format, CD or another vinyl release, so that everyone has a chance to hear these great special releases.
You might want to refresh this page later as we add more material and songs as they’re discovered, as well as the video review of RSD 2011 releases, and the mega-mix guide to our top RSD releases.
This week marks one of the most significant week’s for Best New Releases so far this year. In addition to the regular Tuesday drops that we sift through each week of the year (so you don’t have to) to bring our readers what we think are the cream of the crop, there is an added benefit this week, and one which can overshadow, in different ways, the regular releases for this week
Saturday will mark the fourth annual Record Store Day, which is recognized around the world at hundreds of participating record stores. Yesterday, we put together a gigantic and comprehensive feature – IRC’s Record Store Day 2011 Music Guide to recommended releases – highlighting a dozen limited edition vinyls we hope to get our hands on Saturday. By the time it’s all completed, we will have recommended our top 50 RSD Vinyls, as well as provided information about many other releases.
In the meantime, there are plenty of worthy brand new regular full releases out this week that you don’t want to miss out on, including albums and EPs from Panda Bear, Crystal Stilts, Holy Ghost!, Mazes, Skull Tape, Agnes Obel, Hammer No More The Fingers, Elbow and many others.
Following a couple of changes to the release date of his long-anticipated follow-up to the 2007 classic Person Pitch, Animal Collective member, Panda Bear (aka, Noah Lennox), officially released Tomboy today via Paw Tracks. This is Panda Bear’s third solo album. In 2004, he released Young Prayer.
Of the three or four advanced singles released over the past six to eight months, we’ve liked them all, but the one that stands out the most is “Last Night At The Jetty. ” While listening to this track, we can imagine gently sailing over the beautiful California coastline on a gorgeous summer day. When an artist is able to invoke time, place, emotion and imagery through his music, then he/she is close to – if not already – a genius.
So far, in our opinion, Tomboy is pure ‘chillwave’ perfection in classic Panda Bear style, with layers of dreamy, soaring synthesizers and vocal harmonies, creating ‘that sound’ which has just about laid the foundation for the so-called lo-fi chillwave or haze pop sub-genres (although there are various names for this style of music) . In addition to his stellar work with one of the first big indie electro pop groups of the new millennium, Animal Collective, and his widely acclaimed solo work, Lennox is simply one of the most talented, prolific and influential musicians of modern times. And he brings it once again with Tomboy. Whether it is as good, or better, than his classic 2007 debut, Person Pitch, will take more time to parse.
Flashback Track: “Comfy in Nautica” – Panda Bear from Person Pitch (2007)
For comparison, and for recent Panda Bear converts not familiar with his earlier solo work, we’ve also included one of the best singles from Person Pitch (one of the best solo LPs of the 2000s) and Young Prayer. The latter was Lennox’s 2004 debut that has the unusual distinction of all every track being titled “Untitled.” Learn more about the album via Jason Nickey‘s All Music Guide review of Younger Prayer.
Actress do sweet and light remix of Panda Bear's "Surfer's Hymn"
Although we are not as much interested in remixes as we used to be (except for the occasional Feetz to Da Beatz mixtapes, which were even highlighted on NPR), mostly because, in our opinion, the whole remix craze has gotten way out-of-hand.
We have enough of a challenge just keeping up with all of the original new music coming out all of the time to stay up on the oodles of remixes that come out every month. But, every once in a while, a remix surfaces that we have to post. Such is the case with the electro band Actress‘s remix of Panda Bear’s new track, “Surfer’s Hymn” that dropped via Compakt Records in March.
Crystal Stilts Drop Anticipated, and Terrific, Sophomore LP
As so other CS fans, we hitched our wagon onto the Crystal Stilts train back in 2008 with the release (finally) of their debut album, Alight of Night. And since then, as they catapulted to indie – and beyond – star status, embarked on successful tours, and began working on new material for their follow-up to Alight of Night. This new single from In Love With Oblivion, “Through The Floor” is easily one of the best singles of the first half of 2011.
“Through The Floor” – Crystal Stilts from In Love With Oblivion
Digging Foo, Caught Up in Mazes, Feeling The Beat Connection, Meat Lollipops, Growing Ponytail
Not surprising, on of the most anticipated new albums out this week is the Foo Fighters‘ LP, Wasting Light, and what we can say from listening to the free Spinner stream is that it could be the Foo Fighters’ best album to date. Since they formed out of the ashes of the demise of Nirvana following the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, Foo Fighters, lead by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, have slowly cut out their own well-sized piece of the rock cherry pie in the past 15 years (yes, it’s been that long), starting with the hit release of their four-start, self-titled debut album in 1995.
In fact, writing for the fabulous music guide, AllMusic.com, rock critic Stephen Thomas Erlewinek, remembers Grohl’s demo tapes in 1994 and 1995 were receiving quite of bit praise from influential musician, composer and producer Greg Dulli (who played guitar on Foo Fighters debut). In recalling Dulli’s praise, and the general feeling at the time, Erlewinek wrote: “…few suspected that these homemade tapes would launch one of the biggest modern rock bands of the post-grunge era. As it turns out, that’s exactly what Grohl’s Foo Fighters became, perhaps the one band of the alt-rock revolution to enjoy continual success on the charts and on the road without a dip in popularity.”
“Back and Forth” – Foo Fighters from Wasting Light
All these years later, Erlewinek is hailing Wasting Light as “their best collection of songs since [1997’s] The Colour and the Shape, the kind of record they’ve always seemed on the verge of delivering but never have.” And it’s not just the critics, the band’s fans – the true fighters of foo – apparently agree. In fact, Wasting Light is the No. 1 album on Amazon and iTunes as of Wednesday evening.
“Everlong” – Foo Fighters from The Colour and the Shape If you like Wasting Light, and never owned The Colour and the Shape, it’s on sale right now on Amazon as a special edition.
Watch the nearly two-hour special concert (above) as the Foo Fighters belt it out on the stage at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in NYC April 12th. The band played the entirety of their new album, and also paid homage to The Beatles (by wearing similar suits The Beatles wore on the same stage in 1964, when they made their U.S. television debut). Only one of the songs from the 109 minute show – that is available for streaming above from start to finish – made it on the broadcast of Late Night with Letterman telecast.
Mazes is a Manchester-London band that have a sound that is hard to pin down, but it woud basically be considered indie rock and electro pop. They’ve made a name for themselves in their local cities, and have recently starting to get notice other than adoring blogs, with The Independent comparing them “to ‘the holy heights of The Clean, The Vaselines and Television Personalities’, whilst Marc Riley, on their recent BBC 6 music session called them a “sort of really garagey Kinks.”
“Vampire Jive” – Mazes from from A Thousand Heys
The new Seattle band Beat Connection released this week probably the first album that serves as a contender for the indie surf rock soundtrack of summer 2011. The album is awash in synthesizer-drenched pop majesty, complete with layers of soaring vocals and sing-along choruses, dance beats, plus Caribbean infusions and tropical pop on addictive songs like “In The Water,” “Sunburn,” Silver Screen” and others.
We predict that if you’re not the one playing it, you’re likely to hear others, especially enthusiasts of the surf rock/tropical pop, and fans of Animal Collective, spinning Surf Noir in the coming weeks and months. Beat Connection have been getting a lot of attention in Seattle over the past half year, and ten to attract fans of bands like The Drums, Vampire Weekend and Beach Fossils. But at the same time they do not copy these bands at all. Only by listening to Surf Noir a few times might you really understand that statement. Either way, we’re happy to say that Beat Connection are one of IRC’s Bands to Watch in 2011.
“In The Water” –Beat Connection from Surf Noir
The band also shows their talents in more than just dance-drive, blissful, synthed-out anthems, they also have a chillwave, laid back and soak up the sun kind of offerings as well, as demonstrated on the track, “Same Damn Time.”
Last month, before the release this week of Surf Noir, Beat Connection released a spacey, unreleased track called “Space Vacation” along with the terrific track, “Silver Screen,” and a number of remixes.
“Space Vacation” – Beat Connection from Silver Screen extended single
We didn’t even know that the Meat Puppets – who were basically made famous from Nirvana doing a cover of their track “Lake of Fire” back in 1993 during Nirvana’s famous MTV Unplugged show – were still together. But they are and they released their 15th album, Lollipop, this week. Since 1982, the Meat Puppets have been knocking out hard core rock mixed with punk.
Ponytail are one of those bands that have slowly grown on us over the past couple of months. In 2008, the Baltimore art-punk made it on the indie map with the spectacular debut LP, Ice Cream Spiritual. After a long hiatus from the band to work on side projects, band members dropped their follow-up LP, Do Whatever You Want All The Time, which you can stream in full here.
The first new single, “Easy Peasy,” starts out somewhat incomprehensible, and then bursts into a forward-driving, almost jubilant march characterized by splashes of pop mashed with punk – an almost fitting swirl of jubilation that beckons the approaching springtime transition.
“Easy Peasy” – Ponytail from Do Whatever You Want All The Time
Holy Cow, it’s Holy Ghost’s Debut
If you haven’t heard of the band Holy Ghost! yet, now is your chance. We’ve been one of who knows how many people waiting for the release of Holy Ghost’s self-titled debut album, after a series of singles that trickled out over the past four years, most especially late 2007’s “Hold On.” But the band didn’t really pop onto most people’s music radar until the release last April of the EP, Static On A Wire. We have yet to hear the entire album, but you can stream Holy Ghost! via Spinner.
“Do It Again” – Holy Ghost! from Holy Ghost!
Alan Sparhawk of the Duluth, Minnesota indie band, Low, said of the LP was “recorded in an old church in Duluth, MN and mixed in an apartment in Hollywood, CA.” Interesting mix of locales there. Their 2007 album, Drums and Guns, was a protest against the war in Iraq, but the band has shifted gears for C’mon, as Sparhawk explained: “With the last couple of records, we were grappling with something outside of ourselves. This one feels more like, ‘Well, forget that. I’m looking in your eyes right now, and we need to figure out how to get through the next moment, together, as human beings.'”
“Take Your Picture” – Gypsyblood from Cold In The Guestway
“Trans Anthro” – Skull Tape from The Invisible Hand and The Descent Of Man
Singer-Songwriters That Caught Our Ears
It seems like not since the 70’s have their better so many great new singer-songwriters as there have been over the past decade. Someone could really make a case for that, and as our regular readers who have been folllowing IRC for years know, we regularly spotlight established, emerging and relatively unknown singer and songwriters, especially in on-going feature series like Singer-Songwriter Spotlight and One Man Bands. The later is a bit different than the traditional definition of a singer-songwriter, but most of the indie one man bands that have risen up in recent years, are singer and songwriters by default, and yet are almost amazingly talented multi-instrumentalists.
This week, we are highlighting, more than spotlighting, singer-songwriters whose singles off of new album out this week were good enough to catch our ears. They include Agnes Obel, Alexander Tucker, and James Leg.
Double-shot: “Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl” – Elbow from Build a Rocket Boys!
“I Wanna Do It” – Sonny and the Sunsets from Hit After Hit
“Banged in the Heart” – Baby Teardrops from X is for Love
Note: Check back later on this post as we have a few other cool things that we’ll be adding to this post, including info on special Record Store Releases by some of the bands releasing regular full releases this week, especially Panda Bear and Foo Fighters.
While this time of year brings warmer temperatures and more hours of daylight, this week’s new releases are thematically more fitting for the dead of winter – with its unforgiving and bitter cold, asphalt grit and grime, absence of leaves, grass and flowers, and the long, harsh hours of darkness.
On that note, and leading the way for this week’s new releases, are The Kills. Their spectacular new album, Blood Pressures, capitalizes on the duo’s innate ability to craft harsh, gritty, bluesy, dark songs. They are just masters of their domain, and the new LP reaffirms the legitimacy of their reign.
It’s been three years since the release of the last Kills’ album, so it really wasn’t a surprise to the indie press and blogsophere that the official release of Blood Pressures was proceeded by weeks of chatter and buzz around a couple of killer advanced singles, the first being “Satellite.”
“Satellite” – The Kills from Blood Pressures
“Satellite” was The Kills throwing a beat-up, but still fresh bone to the junkyard dog. And they left plenty of flesh to chew. The average Kills’ fan appreciates this, and “Satellite” turned out to be the perfect tease for the release of Blood Pressures.
On the surface, “Satellite” sounds like the title of a song that is perhaps warm and fuzzy, an atmospheric tune filled with treble-heavy, spacey synthesizers and peppy surf-rock guitars.
But instead, The Kills’ “Satellite” is industrial-style rocker that swaggers and romps from the start, and grows even more dark and sinister as it stomps along. It’s a powerful track that sounds like it belongs on a mixtape for the younger biker generation, and, in some cases, the tie-at-work-only office dweller who likes to unravel and let it rip and rumble in the off hours.
“DNA” –The Kills from Blood Pressures
The Kills are easily one of the best kick-ass revivalist garage rock duos of the past decade. The duo is American singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and indie A-list celeb Alison Mosshart and British guitarist Jamie Hince. They formed The Kills in 2000 and have released four albums, including their latest. The prolific Mosshart is also a band member of the supergroup, The Dead Weather, with Jack White of The White Stripes, another bluesy garage rock boy/girl duo The Kills are often compared to. However, The White Stripes announced their official breakup a couple of months ago. Mosshart has also been a studio and tour member of The Raconteurs.
The Raveonettes Add More Noise and Synth Pop To The Rock
And as if a new album from The Kills is not enough for fans of indie rock male-female duos, the Danish noise pop and garage rock duo The Raveonettes, dropped their new, and more noise pop-oriented LP, Raven In The Grave, this week. In fact, The Raveonettes’ new album is not nearly as a consistent cut-throat garage rocker as The Kills’ Blood Pressures, but it definitely has its moments.
The first official single, “Forget That You’re Young” is a well-crafted noise pop track and one of the album’s highlights. But, it’s the track “Recharge and Revolt,” that is perhaps the album’s stand out track, yet that’s a bit difficult to say until we listen to the entire album more than a couple of times. “Recharge and Revolt” is an inspiring, uptempo gem mixed nicely with lo-fi guitar strumming, a blazing background, one note feedback riff nearly drowned out by glimmering new wave style synth pop, wonderful reverb vocals and a melodic bass line. It’s The Raveonettes at their finest, and one of 2011’s best tracks.
“Recharge and Revolt” – The Raveonettes from Raven In The Grave (Amazon Exclusive MP3 Version)
The new album is the duo’s fifth LP since their 2003 highly acclaimed debut, Chain Gang of Love. The release of Raven In The Grave marks The Raveonettes’ third LP release with Vice Records.
“Forget That You’re Young” – The Raveonettes from Raven In The Grave (Amazon Exclusive MP3 Version)
Sidebar – Close Lobsters: We couldn’t help but to think of the terrific 80’s post-punk band, Close Lobsters, while listening to “Recharge and Revolt” (above).
So, we’ve included a track from CL for the hell of it. In case you are interested in hearing more from CL, we recommend Foxheads Stalk This Land, (1986).
“Foxheads” – Close Lobsters from Foxheads Stalk This Land (1986)
The Close Lobsters were a Scottish band who were only together for four years (1985-1989). They were instrumental in the C86 movement. On the NME‘s free 22-track C86 compilation, which features some of key bands who profoundly influenced the emerging indie rock genre, especially in the U.K., the Close Lobsters are included among many other great bands like The Soup Dragons, The Pastels, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Primal Scream, and The Wedding Present, among others.
OK, so back to the new stuff. In addition to The Kills and The Raveonettes, the third album out this week that we strongly recommend is the sophomore LP from the experimental new wave/darkwave band Cold Cave. The lead single, “Great Pan Is Dead” is a towering wall of rushing sounds, exploding with immediacy and fueled by high octane synth pop and driving percussion.
Overwhelmingly melodic and metallic at the same time (a feat very difficult to pull off, even by seasoned pros), “The Great Pan is Dead” has already made its way on to our Best Songs of 2011 (So Far) draft mix, which we hope to have completed and posted sometime in the next seven to ten days. Cold Cave is the musical project of New York musician and Matador artist Wesley Eisold. In live shows, Eisold is accompanied by Dominick Fernow and Jennifer Clavin. Also recommend catching them live when they come around to your city.
“Great Pan Is Dead” – Cold Cave from Cherish the Light Years (Bonus Track)
As we were putting together this weeks’ recommended best releases, we quickly realized that all of the official singles from new albums in and of themselves make for a fantastic mix of superb 2011 tracks. The next two singles from Chicago band Scattered Trees, and the Milwaukee band, Maritime, are easily at the top of this list for good reason.
Scattered Trees’ lead single, “A Conversation About Death on New Year’s Eve” is a mellow and shimmering indie electropop tune thick with synthesizers, mastered vocals, and subdued percussion that builds as the song progresses. Interestingly, the band self-describes their genre on their MySpace page as “glam,” which is sort of close, but an unusual proclamation.
Unlike the other albums mentioned above, we’ve not yet had a chance to listen to all of Sympathy, but would love to hear comments from those of you who have. We were a bit surprised to see that Scattered Trees does not yet have a Wikipedia entry. We can’t imagine that being the case for much longer. Hello Chicago?
“A Conversation About Death on New Year’s Eve” – Scattered Trees from Sympathy
The single, “Paraphernalia,” from Maritime‘s new LP, Human Hearts, is a catchy pop rocker that is not quite the stoner track the song title may imply to some people. In fact, singer and guitarist, Davey Von Bohlen, told Spinner about the single: “This is one of those songs that arrives by almost accident where it becomes a finished song and we all realize it together at some point in the middle of playing it.”
The string of great singles continues with fresh tracks from new releases by a trio of bands we never heard of (but are glad we did) until receiving the official singles recently from their new albums, out this week.
Although the new-to-us Montreal band Code Pie have been around since 2002, we only heard of them for the first time after they sent the official first single, “North Side City View,” from their third album, and their first LP since 2007.
Originally founded in 1999 as Love Vigilantes after the New Order song of the same name, yet another duo, this time from San Francisco, have a new album out this week. Amores Vigilantes eventually changed their band name by simply translating it into Spanish. Little over a year ago, in December of 2009, the band released the album, West Coast Kingdom, from which many of the songs received heavy rotation on college radio, the web and music blogs, and even in Starbucks store playlist. Amores Vigilantes include among their influences – and often sound like – The Stone Roses, New Order, and even Velvet Underground.
“You Can’t Live Forever in Paradise on Earth (Without Me)”– Amores Vigilantes from You Can’t Live Forever In Paradise On Earth (Without Me)
One of the themes running through this week’s Best New Releases is that of grit, darkness and saber-cutting rock.
They solidified their case for being included among our recommended releases by supplying two tracks from their album Betrayal of Hearts via Sovereign States Records.
“Humming Doves” – Wolf Ram Heart from Betrayal of Hearts
“Viewgirls” – Wolf Ram Heart from Betrayal of Hearts
Husband-and-Wife Garage Rock Duo, Curse Arrows
And now, we’d like to introduce yet another rock duo from Canada. Just in this post alone, we have like four duos, and over the past few years, there has been a virtual deluge of rock duos. Cursed Arrows is one of the latest. The husband-and-wife band hail from Halifax–
via-Ontario, and belt out scuzzy, noise rock, on their new album, The Madness of Crowds, while on other tracks of the LP, they present more poetic lyrics and passionate keys. We’re stoked to be able to present two tracks from The Madness of Crowds, plus a convincing cover of the PJ Harvey track, “Rid of Me,” which is not available on the new album.
Apparently, the album is only available for a name-your-price checkout on Cursed Arrows Bandcamp page. We’ll definitely be keeping an ear out for their head-crushing, kick-ass bluesy garage rock.
Also, check out these fresh singles from new releases by Glasvegas, Jeff Beam, as well as from solo albums by Bill Callahan of Smog, and singer/songwriter and musician Alela Diane.
“The World Is Yours” – Glasvegas from Euphoric/Heartbreak
“People Places” – Jeff Beam from Venus Flying Trapeze
The following singles require that you click on the single to either listen via Soundcloud or download the single on another page, including Timber Timbre, Blueprint, and Erza Furman & The Harpoons
“Black Water” – Timber Timbre from Creep On Creepin’ On
“My Culture” – Blueprint from Adventures in Counter-Culture
“Hard Time in a Terrible Land” – Ezra Furman & The Harpoons from Mysterious Power
Other New Tracks That Some Folks Might Like
This section includes new singles from new releases that are not part of our recommendation for new albums to purchase, but some of our readers might enjoy these tracks, so we include them for that reason only.
“Time Forgot (To Change My Heart)”– Daniel Romano from Sleep Beneath the Willow
“Steam” – Hammer No More The Fingers from Black Shark
“Usual Suspects” – Ha Ha Tonka from Death of a Decade
We have an obsession with creating playlist mixes that feature great songs about a specific subject, theme or other categorization. Over many years, we’ve amassed hundreds of these playlists, and update them regularly. Sunday is the day we take off from putting out new music in order to bring you all another one of our special.
But the original, and still existing, name for this series – The Sunday 25 Mix (aka, S-25), is admittedly not one of our best names we’ve come up with, so we are taking suggestions. The name for this weekly mix series needs to somehow convey the Sunday aspect as well as the fact that it’s a special series with a particular focus and not restricted to one genre or one era of music.
This week we chose 25 tracks from our huge “Time Travel” playlist, including tracks from Phoenix, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Submarines, The Radio Dept., The Clash, The Smashing Pumpkins, and many others. This mix is the first volume of what will be a re-occuring playlist mix series over the next year or so. Currently, we have more than 300 ‘time travel’ songs, so it’ll take time to whittle them down into 25 tracks per volume.
We are sure that there are plenty of great ‘time travel’ themed songs that are not included in this volume. In that case, it means they’ll be published in subsequent volumes in this series, or that we don’t have such and such a song (but probably did at one time). Somehow believing that Apple hard drives were indestructible, we failed to back up hundreds of playlists that had been in on-going development over the years.
One day last fall, we turned on the Mac to just a blue screen. Slowly but surely we were convinced that the hard drive was indeed fried. That broken hard drive is sitting in a box as we try to figure out if it’s worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars to try and do data recovery just to see what playlists can be salvaged.
So, in many ways, we had to start from scratch. It was a traumatic loss but we only have ourselves to blame for not backing them all up to an independent external hard drive. A loss like that you never really get over, especially when you know that you had so many amazing playlists that constituted probably hundreds of hours of organizing, updating, and reviewing songs and their appropriate playlist home. Lesson learned the VERY hard way.
That said, we hope you dig this first volume of the Time Travel Playlists series. Don’t forget to make your own lists in the Comments section because it’s very possible they’ll be included in subsequent future volumes of the Time Travel Playlists series.
“1901” – Phoenix from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009)
“1999” – Shout Out Louds from Work (2010)
“1999” – Prince from 1999 (1982)
“1977” – The Clash from Super Black Market Crash (1977)
“We’ve Been Friends Since 1989” – Boat from Setting The Paces (2009)
The Strokes performed a live, free outdoor night concert in Austin during SXSW 2011. Photo by Austin360.com
The music month of March 2011 was dominated by the build-up, and release, of The Strokes‘ first album in four year, Angels. The band appeared on Saturday Night Live and for South By Southwest, where thousands of concert goers converged at Lady Bird Lake in Austin for a free night show on the Auditorium Shores Stage across the river from downtown.
While not every critic was fully on board the love train of praise for the new Strokes’ album, the majority of bloggers, music writers, and fans, have welcomed the new release with great enthusiasm and reverence.
“Under Cover of Darkness” – The Strokes from Angles
Even though the buzz around the mid-February release of Radiohead‘s new LP, The King of Limbs, was still on-going well into March, there seems lately to be much more of a s0-so, even ho-hum, reaction to the new RH album. It’s still a superb record, but just maybe not a masterpiece.
Our initial review of King was that it was good, but not great – certainly not on the level of brilliance as 2007’s In Rainbows. Then, we kind of backed off from our initial impression, realizing that it takes many, many listens to get a fair view of a Radiohead album. And yet, since then, we’re just not jumping up and down on King, and we’re not alone. In recent weeks, the take-a-step-back view of King is more revealing, and less enthusiastic. Pitchfork‘s 7.9 review of King proclaims: “the band’s signature game-changing ambition is missed.” New York Magazine‘s music critic Nitsuh Abebe wrote: “The whole album’s very, very understated…Either you find it gorgeous or you don’t much notice it at all.” We’re sympathetic to both views.
Another big comeback in March was R.E.M. and their latest album, Collapse Into Now, with critics and fans alike calling it one of their best albums ever, and a welcomed return to the pop-rock formula that made R.E.M. an ‘underground’ college radio sensation in the early 1980’s, and before they garnered international acclaim for the 1987 hit song, “The One I Love,” from the top-selling album, Automatic For The People.
On Collapse Into Now, one song after another testifies to the fact that the band has not run out of energy or ideas. If you haven’t heard the latest R.E.M. album, we strongly recommend buying a copy – it’s brilliant.
“Discoverer” – R.E.M. from Collapse Into Now
As part of the new Music Month in Review series, we’re highlighting Best New Releases, Top Ten Songs, Fresh Tracks, Bands to Watch, SXSW 2011 Coverage, Top Tweets, your comments, and much more. Basically, this is a compendium of everything we published during March whether on the site or via social media.
Best New Releases, Vol. II – Wolf People, Kurt Vile, Starf*cker, One in a Googolplex, Jamaica, Buffalo Tom, The Sound of Growing Up
Week Three: Best New Releases – The Dodos, Lovett, The Idle Hands, J. Mascis, Joy Formidable, Mathew Sawyer & The Ghosts, Alex Turner
Week Four: Best New Releases – The Strokes, Boat, Belong, Soundtrack of Our Lives, Dangerous Ponies, Algodon Egipico, Parenthetical Girls
Week Five*: Best New Releases – Broken Bells, Generationals, Peter Bjorn & John, Mountain Goats, Obits, Funeral Party, AFM, Secret Cities
* In March, there were five Tuesdays, the day most new releases officially drop.
Top Ten Songs of The Week for March 2011
Week One: No. 1 Song of the Week – “Queer Eyed Boy” – Rumspringa from Sway
Other top tracks in order were songs from David Lowery, The Notes, In These Woods, Generationals and more. Listen to all ten now.
Week Two: No. 1 Song of the Week – “Calyer” – Beach Fossils from What A Pleasure
Other top songs of the week came from Starf*cker, Jamaica, R.E.M., Wye Oak, and more. Listen to all top ten songs now.
Week Three: No. 1 Song of the Week – “Black Night” – The Dodos fromNo Color (Bonus Version)
The Dodos also scored the No. 2 spot, and The Strokes took No. 3 and No. 4. Get them all here.
Week Four: No. 1 Song of the Week –“Ego” – Thom Yorke + Burial + Four Tet
Taking the No. 2 spot for the week was The Strokes, followed by another Yorke/Burial/Four Tet track, Cults and many others – play/download all ten.
San Francisco indie trio The Dodos scored the top two songs for March on IRC. Photo via Spinner.
Top 20 Songs for March 2011
While we’ve been doing the weekly Top Ten Songs listings for 19 months now (and admittedly sometimes late; sorry), we thought it would be interesting to start providing the top twenty songs of the month, based on the number of times you and hundreds of thousands of others stream and download the songs that we publish in various posts and playlists for the month in question.*
However, unlike the Top Ten Songs of the week list, this particular list will include singles that are regularly posted on IRC, mostly via the regular Fresh Tracks (aka, advanced singles) playlist series , aka Advanced Singles. However, songs from other regular playlist mixes – like The S-25, Bands to Watch, Recent Releases We Almost Missed, to name a few – will not be included in the Top 20 Songs of the Month in order to keep the list focused on new releases.
“Black Night” – The Dodos fromNo Color (Bonus Version)
“Don’t Stop” (with Neko Case) – The Dodos from No Color
“Four Letter Word” – Beady Eye from Different Gear, Still Speeding
“L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.” – Noah and the Whale from The Last Night on Earth
“The Roller” – Beady Eye from Different Gear, Still Speeding
“Under Cover of Darkness” – The Strokes from Angles
“Jericho” – Jamaica from No Problem
“Are We Lovers Or Are We Friends?” – Acid House Kings from Music Sounds Better with You
Fresh Tracks Mixes for March 2011
Each month, we try to run a couple to a few Fresh Tracks editions. The purpose of this particular playlist series is to highlight new songs just released. Most of the time, they are advance singles for upcoming releases, and therefore not the same as the weekly Best New Releases.
Other times, the Fresh Tracks mixes include songs that are not from an upcoming release, like ‘unreleased’ singles, demos, cover songs, sessions and live tracks, plus songs from special collaborations. But the majority are advanced singles from future releases. The three editions published in March include nearly 100 MP3s from bands like Ponytail, Wild Beasts, Generationals, The Strokes, Yuck, The Dodos, Fleet Foxes, Vivian Girls, Secret Cities, The Strange Boys, Thom Yorke with Burial and Four Tet, Natural Child, Thurston Moore, Cults and many others.
3/15/11: Fresh Tracks from Ponytail, Ken Seeno, Wild Beasts, Matthew Friedberger, Edward Sharpe, Let’s Say We Did, Vivian Girls & 1, 2, 3
Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes performing during SXSW 2011. Photo via Lastfm
SXSW Showcases and Bands – March 2011
With the goal of providing SXSW attendees and visitors who weren’t sure of which showcases to go with a mega-guide of recommended shows, as well as tons of MP3s for people who weren’t at SXSW, but wanted to hear music from some of the popular, and more obscure, bands and artists at SXSW 2011, we put together an exhaustive string of posts with band photos, profiles, songs, free samplers, and location and time of shows. We were happy to see a combined total of over 150,000 page views for IRC’s coverage of SXSW 2011. Altogether, there are something like 800MP3s for free in these four posts.
IRC’s Album Buyer’s Guide – Recommended March Album and EP Releases for Your Collection
Also you probably know, we recommend dozens and dozens of albums each month, most through the Best New Releases, In Dee Mail and Fresh Tracks series. At the end of each month, we’ll going to put together an Album Buyers’ Guide for all of you busy people that highlight our top picks for albums that you really want to have as part of your record collection or your MP3 collection.
Most of our recommendations have album title links that will take you right to Amazon where you can purchase a physical or digital copy (or both) in just a couple of minutes (or faster if you’re already signed in as an Amazon customer). We prefer Amazon because their album prices are cheaper than iTunes. Plus, with the free (up to five gigabytes) and brand new Amazon Cloud service, you can put the albums you purchase on Amazon to your cloud location easily so that you can access your music anywhere, anytime you want. Amazon is currently the only major music service offer cloud streaming for your Amazon music.
We’re including the lead single from each recommended release to help you decide which you want to purchase. You might also want to follow IRC on Twitter or Facebook as we send out recommended releases on a regular basis. That way, you won’t miss a thing, plus we include special, limited time sales frequently.
Unless otherwise noted, all prices listed below are for the MP3 download version; simply click on the album title to purchase.
“Greenleaf” – Generationals from Actor-Caster – $7.99
“Bloom” – Radiohead from The King of Limbs – Limited Time Offer: $5.99
“Under Cover of Darkness” – The Strokes from Angles – $9.99
“Black Night” – The Dodos fromNo Color (Bonus Version)
“Discoverer” – R.E.M. from Collapse Into Now (Deluxe Edition) – $11.99
“Windows” – Broken Bells from Meyrin Fields EP – $4.99
“Song for Bob” – Raised By Tigers from Reunion Parts – $8.99
“Esa Nena Nunca Regreso” – Davila 666 from Tan Bajo – $9.99
“Running With Insanity” – Alcoholic Faith Mission from And The Running With Insanity
“Proud” – Easter Island from Better Things EP – $4.95
“Bon Koum” – Sidi Toure from Sahel Folk – Jan. 25th
“Socialite Death Squad” – The Idle Hands from Life Is Beautiful
“Not Enough” – J Mascis from Several Shades of Why
“Giant” – Funeral Party from The Golden Age of Knowhere
“Lord Knows Best” – Dirty Beaches from Badlands
“Too Young to Be in Love” – Hunx and his Punx from Too Young To Be In Love
Also, browse around Amazon’s 100 Albums for $5.00 section. All choices were s as selected by the music staff. Trust us, there is a stunning amount of terrific albums crossing all genres and eras of music. That means you can get four MP3 320kbs albums for the price of one new CD.
Watch more of IRC’s favorite new music videos and subscribe to IRC’s new YouTube channel, IndieRockTV, which we are planning on giving some juice boosts to soon to offer more and exciting new video content, including band performances, interviews, IRC guest videos, animations and cartoons, indie film trailers, viral videos, festival sets and more. In the meantime, check out the various channels for some of our favorite music videos, including the just-ramping up 2011 music video playlist.
Every couple of months, our file holding free albums for download, starts to overflow, and so, we gather them up, check if the links are still working – and the music is still free – and publish them for our regular readers and new visitors to download. These are in addition to the hundreds of free and legal MP3s we post each month.
If you dig warm, floating synthesizer keys and dreamy soundscapes, check out the three-track EP, Empty House by FIRS. The EP was recorded in two days using an Ensoniq ESQ-1, a vintage, rack-mount Ibanez analog delay, and a floor tom on an 8-track. Also recommend checking out the debut LP, Man In Space.
The R&B and folk inspired music of Nijae Draine is interesting to say the least. Download her LPSpring Cleaning for free. The album’s title track is particularly good. The LP was released on March 9th.
Free 2011 Lujo Records sampler featuring new songs from Yourself & the Air, Bluebrain, A Lull, Pomegranates, Firs, John Lamonica, and more.
Check out Baby Teeth‘s free MP3 EP Boss – Originally released Jan. 21 – RIYL: R&B, Luther Vandross.
Note: check back in this section as we have a few more to add soon. April’s Music Month in Review will have a particularly large selection for this section.
IRC’s Most Popular Twitter Messages for March 2011
For those of you who follow us on Twitter, you know that we don’t use it to tell you what we had for lunch or other annoying, useless information. We send out Tweets to inform you of new posts and playlists mixes we published on the main IRC.com site, but we also send out many things via our Twitter account that you will only hear about on our Twitter feed, with frequent cross-posting to Facebook, which is a more preferred format by some segments of our audience.
Our philosophy for using Twitter is to try and make every Tweet we send out something worthy and relevant to most “music people,” if you will. As some of you may know – especially if you follow a lot of active Tweeters – you can easily miss Tweets that get inadvertently ‘buried’ but contain information or links that you would otherwise be really interested in. With that in mind, and for those of you haven’t joined on us Twitter, we’ve decided to add a section to the monthly review highlighting the Top Ten Music Tweets of the Month. We determine this by viewing our Bit.ly statistics and retweets. Maybe in the future, we’ll do more than ten, just depends on how this experiment goes.
March 6th (168) – Today’s mixtape: 25 Red Songs – http://bit.ly/red-songs
March 10th (113) – Best New Releases Part II: Wolf People, Kurt Vile, Buffalo Tom, One in a Googolplex, Starfuc*er, &more
March 11th (188) – @SpinMagazine offers free 33-song sampler of bands playing at next week’s #SXSW 2011 – http://on.fb.me/sxsw-sampler
March 14th (178) – Songs About Cars with Arcade Fire, Built to Spill, Iron & Wine, The Kinks, The Beatles, Snow Patrol
March 16th (705) – Get the free Tunecore SXSW 2011 Sampler
March 19th (220) – SXSW 2011 Bands Playlist Mix and Reviews for Days 2 to 5; Get over 75 stellar tracks #sxsw
March 20th (187) – Get 17 free new indie tracks from iTunes via this link from Spin magazine –
March 20th (127) – The Top 50 Dance Tracks – http://bit.ly/top-50-dance-tracks #dance
March 22nd (302) – Do you have room on your MP3 player for 500+ free songs from SXSW bands?
March 30th (110) – Hear Ye, Hear Ye – View Radiohead’s newspaper, The Universal, on your computer screen,
This week’s new releases is like a never-ending gravy train of terrific music from a spectacular line-up of artists. But first up, Broken Bells.
This dynamic super duo blasted onto the scene in late 2009 with a couple of sick singles, followed up by their early 2010 self-titled, debut LP, which found its way on to many folks ‘best albums of the year’ lists for last year. And no wonder. It’s amazing.
Broken Bells follows that up with a four-song EP, Meyrin Fields, out now. It has a deeper, more drab feel than their debut LP, but shows once again why James Mercer (The Shins) and artist-producer Brian Burton (aka, Danger Mouse) are so highly regarded in the indie-alternative music space. What do you think of this single, “Windows”? You can buy the EP by clicking on the title below.
What can we say about the Generationals that hasn’t already been said? The New Orleans indie rock trio have really busted out in the past year, and their latest album, out this week, proves why. They are an IRC Band to Watch in 2011(in upcoming edition of that series). Get this album.
“Greenleaf” – Generationals from Actor-Caster
“Trust” – Generationals from TrustEP – released Dec. 9th, 2010
After taking a break to pursue other interests, the Stockholm trio Peter Bjorn And John are back with a new LP, Gimme Some. We haven’t had a chance to listen to the entire album as of yet, but the few songs we have heard, it sounds like the band have returned to the indie pop sound that made them famous after experimenting with hard beats and overly layered vocals on 2009’s Living Thing.
One of our Bands to Watch in 2011, Alcoholic Faith Mission, released a new EP this week that we are listening to right now, and loving. Now it makes even more sense to us that we selected AFM as one of the bands to watch. The five-track EP, And The Running With Insanity, distinguishes the five-member band as a magnificently talented collective of musicians.
“Running With Insanity” – Alcoholic Faith Mission from And The Running With Insanity
The ridiculously melodic song “Dancing Fools” has a cool, steady beat accompanied by an additional snare, tambourines, piano, electric guitar and bass – along with the band’s rising choruses (a common element in AFM’s music) which all come together in a perfectly enjoyable track.
“Dancing Fools” – Alcoholic Faith Mission from And The Running With Insanity
You can tell by listening to AFM that there is a great deal of conceptualization that goes into each track; the compositions are not simple constructs, rather, they are intricate and complex, comprised of many deliberate pieces that are carefully arranged. And yet their songs are so accessible. Alcoholic Faith Mission are likely to be most appreciated by folks who like Freelance Whales, Sufjan Stevens, even a bit of Arcade Fire.
The band’s 2010 album, Let This Be the Last Night We Care, is what really put AFM on the indie map, so to speak. After hearing that album, some bloggers and music lovers like ourselves and friends, went back to their other releases, including the magnificent album 421 Wythe Avenue. You can go back to IRC’s profile of AFM in a recent edition of Bands to Watch in 2011 to listen to tracks from both of these albums.
Indie solo artist known as Dirty Beaches has been getting plenty of blogger love lately. Photo courtesy of Pitchfork
This week also marks the official drop of Dirty Beaches‘ debut album, Badlands. Not to over play the subject matter, but Dirty Beaches is yet another ‘band’ to watch in 2011, or at the very least, a bright blip on the indie music radar.
Alex Zhang Hungtai is the Taiwanese born one-man band behind Dirty Beaches. He has lived in a number of places over the years, including Toronto, Honolulu, Montreal, and Vancouver. His musical influences include Depeche Mode, Roy Orbison, Lou Reed and Misfits, among others. Talk about an eclectic mix of musical styles.
Badlands is deliberately low fidelity, packed with assorted organic snack tracks that somehow sound pretty good despite the lo-fi quality. One of the best examples of this is the song “Lords Knows Best.”
“Lord Knows Best” – Dirty Beaches from Badlands
“Sweet 17” – Dirty Beaches from Badlands
If we had to compare Dirty Beaches to another indie solo artist, we’d probably have to go with Lord Huron. If you’re not familiar with him, we included a Lord Huron track for comparison. However, Lord Huron’s sound is way more hi-fi.
“Mighty” – Lord Huron from Mighty EP (2010)
Thankfully, you can listen to the entire LP thanks to Spinner for hosting it as a stream. Also, for a really in-depth analysis of Badlands, check out the review at passionweiss.com
Still teasing fans for his upcoming April release of Tomboy, Panda Bear officially released yet another 7″ single this week, the sunny pop chillwave track, “Surfer’s Hymn.” Earlier this year we decided to put an end to our part of the remix craze because one, it’s gotten out of hand, and two, there is just way too much excellent original music.
However, every once in a truly hot, stand out remix will come along that we’ll post for that reason alone. Today, is one of those times. The band Actress spun up a nug of remix of “Surfer’s Hymn” in short order, and did it so well that it’s almost as good (some say better) than the original.
All the while, fans of Animal Collective founding member Panda Bear (aka, Noah Lennox) have been waiting for the follow-up to his 2008 solo debut masterpiece, Person Pitch. That album is easily one of the best solo albums of the past two decades. And it’s not simply our position – the consensus among bloggers, mainstream press and music lovers has been in for some time. That is, Person Pitch is a classic album for all time.
With that in mind, one can only imagine the pressure on Lennox to live up to the huge expectations with the release of his follow-up sophomore LP, Tomboy. Since last summer, bits and pieces of Tomboy have been released here and there. But finally, the wait for the official, full release ends on April 2nd. You can pre-order a CD or vinyl copy of Tomboy. Plus, click on the single title below to order the seven-inch vinyl.
The release this week of All Eternals Deck marks the Mountain Goats 13th studio release since their 1994 debut, Zopilote Machine. For All Eternals Deck, Darnielle hired ex-Morbid Angel guitarist, and producer, Erik Rutan, who has produced death metal artists like Cannibal Corpse. That’s quite an interesting collaboration, but don’t worry, the ‘Goats haven’t gone death metal. This is the ‘Goats first release on Merge Records, who supplied the first single from All Eternals Deck titled “Birth of Serpents.”
“Birth of Serpents” – The Mountain Goats from All Eternals Deck (limited time offer: $5 via Amazon)
The band was founded by Claremont, California singer-songwriter John Darnielle two decades ago. Slowly, but surely, Mountain Goats have acquired a huge following internationally, but mainly in the U.S. and Canada. Darnielle is considered one of the most influential indie folk rock songwriters. In fact, New Yorker music critics Sasha Frere-Jones hailed Darnielle as “America’s best non-hip hop lyricist.”
The New York City indie pop band, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, have dropped their sophomore album, Belong, the follow up to their widely praised 2009 self-titled debut LP. While we’ve not heard all of Belong yet, we are encouraged by what we’ve heard so far, which is a richer, fuller sound.
KEXP‘s music director Don Yates said of the band’s new sound – boosted by veteran sound wizards Flood and Alan Moulder – is “a more massive, muscular and aggressive take on their fuzzy noise-pop sound, with the band’s beautifully crafted songs blending trebly, distorted guitars, celestial keyboards, tight rhythms, soft, hazy vocals and an abundance of bright, melodic hooks.” We agree, The Pains have really stepped it up in a short period of time. So, it’s no surprise that they are one of the most popular indie pop bands of the past couple of years.
“Belong” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart from Belong
It doesn’t end there. Ideally, this maybe should be broken into two parts, but the reason we’re not doing that is for readers who like to stream the entire playlist mix to help them decide which albums they want to buy.
All Tiny Creatures‘ track “Glass Bubbles” is a sweet, uptempo, shimmering instrumental with some vocals; almost sounds like glass bubbles are being formed as you listen. And in a similar theme to All Tiny Creatures, the band, Erland and the Carnival, put synthesizers at the core of their music, but with more vocals and percussions than ATC. Plus, check out the impressive new single, “Nothing Can Tear It Apart,” from the artist L’Altra.
“Glass Bubbles” – All Tiny Creatures from Harbors
Double-shot:“An Iris” (with Justin Vernon) – All Tiny Creatures from Harbors
“Nightingale” – Erland and the Carnival from Nightingale
“Nothing Can Tear It Apart” – L’Altra from Telepathic
Discovered firsthand by Luaka Bop A & R man Wills Glasspiegel in the parking lot of a Newton, N.J., strip mall, Delicate Steve was already signed to Luaka Bop before anyone there even heard the band’s music. We guess that says either they’re really stupid or Delicate Steve is really that good.
Delicate Steve weaves majestic instrumental guitar pop tracks that can hardly be called delicate. His overall style is influenced by Afro-pop riffs, psychedelic experimentation, synthesizer intricacies and flourishes of acoustic slide-guitar as demonstrated on the lead single “Butterfly.” Knoxville indie rock band, Royal Bangs, dropped their new album, Flux Outside, this week, fronted by the single, “Grass Helmet.” Athens, Georgia punk pop group, Five Eight, have a new album out this week, led by the possibly controversial single, “Your God is Dead to Me Now.”
“Butterfly” – Delicate Steve from Wondervisions
“Grass Helmet” – Royal Bangs from Flux Outside
“Your God is Dead to Me Now” – Five Eight from Your God Is Dead To Me Now
Does it feel like you already have too many new releases to buy and/or listen to? Well, there’s more. In fact, the Brooklyn garage punk indie band, Obits, dropped their follow-up LP to 2009’s debut album, I Blame You. For Obits’ fans, or first time listeners of their sweet sounds, the band is sharing two free singles from the new LP.
Plus, the Oakland based band, Hunx and His Punx, released their debut LP, Too Young To Be In Love, this week. In 2009, they toured with Jay Reatard and Nobunny, and last year, officially released their debut singles compilation, Gay Singles, which features songs they’ve drop over the years, but never had an official release on an album. Combining power pop and punk music, Hunx and His Punx are showing up on more music radars in recent months, thanks in large part, to the release of the two advanced singles below.
“Too Young to Be in Love” – Hunx and his Punx from Too Young To Be In Love
We were surprised that Fargo, North Dakota indie band Secret Cities do not currently have an entry in Wikipedia. Afterall, they are not as obscure as other artists who have a Wiki profile, and they’ve been around for almost a decade. Helloooo. That said, for those unfamiliar with the band, Secret Cities came to fruition in 2002 after former teenage band camp buddies MJ Parker and Charlie Gokey began recording together. They began to manipulate and add to one anothers’ work.
“Love Crime” – Secret Cities ‒ from Strange Hearts
Over the years, the pair had amassed a collection of original songs and added drummer Alex Abnos. As their music evolved into an electro pop Spector-esque style, critics began to take note. Last year, Stereogum adopted Secret Cities as a band to watch, calling their eclectic sound “The Antlers in a blender” or a “chillier Grizzly Bear brought up on The Unites States of America (the band)”.
In fact, Secret Cities’ debut album, Pink Graffiti, was one of our favorite debuts of 2010. In less than nine months, the trio have followed up their debut with the new LP, Strange Hearts – a definite must-have for anyone who really enjoyed the debut. Also, check out these new-to-us bands, My Cousin The Emperor, Moon Duo, and Those Darlins.
Even though Funeral Party they’ve been together since 2004, they only really emerged on to the indie scene during the past two years. Alas, they signed to Sony for the release of their debut album, The Golden Age of Knowhere.
While there are three to four ‘keeper tracks’ on the album, unfortunately, it lacks the personality and originality that the band may have been able to convey if they had signed with an indie label, like Subpop, or just remained a DIY brand. As with so many rock bands that sign to major labels, their songs have a tendency to mesh together, and often fall victim to the over-production of the label appointed producer, mixer and engineer – most of whom default to “safe” format – a common approach, the same chords, and close-to-cookie-cutter compositions. We think the band is great, but obviously really feel they’d be even better on an indie label. Think about it guys.
“Giant” – Funeral Party from The Golden Age of Knowhere
That said, NME listed the band in its top bands of 2010, and we know that some our of readers like their music. This was evident when 448 folks on our Hypem roll hearted the track, “Car Wars.” All in all, it’s a good album, not great. It could have been much better if it was more lo-fi and less over-produced. Other stand-out tracks for us include “Finale,” “City of Silhouttes,” and their first official single, “New York City Moves To The Sound Of LA.”
“Car Wars” – Funeral Party from The Golden Age of Knowhere
And so, the list of new releases goes on and on this week. Therefore, we’re going to bundle a few more tracks from fresh albums to close out this week’s best new releases.
Did You Know? You can find out which songs you like the most just by clicking the first song. That will fire up the built-in Yahoo player which will automatically stream through all 25 tracks in today’s mix so that you can do other things while you listen – kind of like the radio without any commercials or annoying deejays who talk over the music. When you dig a certain song or band, you can click on the album title to purchase it through Amazon in just a couple of easy steps.
While Parellels is not our kind of dig, we’ve included this single from their new track for the folks out there that do like this kind of music. Plus, check out these song links for The Sandwitches and Sarandon.
“Salomé” – Parallels from Visionaries (self-released)
“Joe Says” – The Sandwitches from Mrs. Jones’ Cookies
“Piglet” – Sarandon from Age of Reason
The Japanese band, Zoobombs, newest LP is gaining traction, so it is only fitting to include them in Best New Releases post since they dropped their fresh album, La Vie En Jupon (interestingly, means ‘life in Japan’ in French), this week in the U.S. The thumbs up reviews have been coming in rapid fire.
Wired magazine wrote: “Since 1994, Tokyo’s veteran garage thrasher Zoobombs has mashed unhinged ’60s psych-rock with postmodern snarl.” The Toronto Sun offered this critique: “The supersonic Tokyo band somehow morphed from Stonesy punk-rock maniacs to freaky jazz-rock jammers without losing a beat, or losing a tad of their record-breaking intensity.” – Toronto Sun. We agree, check out Zoobombs.
Plus, The New York Times called their album, Let it Bomb, a masterpiece of “the Japanese next wave” rock movement.
Okkervil River formed when former high school friends from New Hampshire, vocalist Will Robison Sheff and drummer Seth Warren decided to meet in Austin after college to work on some music they had been discussing. The duo added bassist Zachary Thomas soon after and recorded several EPs, including Stars Too Small to Use, in early 2000. About the same time, multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg joined the band just in time for the band’s SXSW debut in March 2000.
** This is a rare Paul McCartney demo tape – which seems additionally fitting since he’ll be attending the wedding – and of course the song is about love. Afterall, this is the king of silly love songs; he said so himself. “Really Love You” is a real jam if there ever was one, and as McCartney explains in the intro, he just started out with a simple one-two bass line and became something bigger. 
Sidebar – Close Lobsters: We couldn’t help but to think of the terrific 80’s post-punk band, Close Lobsters, while listening to “Recharge and Revolt” (above).
OK, so back to the new stuff. In addition to The Kills and The Raveonettes, the third album out this week that we strongly recommend is the sophomore LP from the experimental new wave/darkwave band 
As we were putting together this weeks’ recommended best releases, we quickly realized that all of the official singles from new albums in and of themselves make for a fantastic mix of superb 2011 tracks. The next two singles from Chicago band Scattered Trees, and the Milwaukee band, Maritime, are easily at the top of this list for good reason.
One of the themes running through this week’s Best New Releases is that of grit, darkness and saber-cutting rock.
Another big comeback in March was R.E.M. and their latest album, Collapse Into Now, with critics and fans alike calling it one of their best albums ever, and a welcomed return to the pop-rock formula that made R.E.M. an ‘underground’ college radio sensation in the early 1980’s, and before they garnered international acclaim for the 1987 hit song, “The One I Love,” from the top-selling album, Automatic For The People.
This week’s new releases is like a never-ending gravy train of terrific music from a spectacular line-up of artists. But first up, Broken Bells.
“Nightingale”
