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.
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
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.
File Under: Great Albums with Crappy Album Covers. Tell us others in Comments please.
This is definitely The Strokes’ week, and they deserve it. With the release of their first album in four years, the general conscience of Angles is a thumbs up.
But first, let’s look at the dynamics of the past month.
In the world of rock music, the past four weeks have been golden. It started of course with the release of a new album by one of the greatest rock and roll bands ever, and plenty believe they are the best ever, or nothing less than second to The Beatles. On February 18th, Radiohead quietly released The King of Limbs, the band’s latest masterpiece in a long string of classic, game-changing albums dating back to 1995’s The Bends. That album changed rock music forever, and in a number of ways, so did the band’s 2007 release of the brilliant In Rainbows, which went even further by snubbing the out-dated album distribution model that the big record labels still cling to by distributing In Rainbows themselves, and for a while, at a name-your-price offer. With the fresh release of The King of Limbs, Radiohead has upped the ante for every other band, once again. Radiohead not only keep bringing it, they are it. Keep in mind that we’re on like our 20th full spin of ‘Limbs.’
While the initial buzz of The King of Limbs was still fresh, another legendary rock band from the other side of the Atlantic, Athens, Georgia’s R.E.M., released their newest album, Collapse Into Now. For some rock fans, R.E.M. seemed like their best days were behind them. And yet that contention was blasted into oblivion as the raves for Collapse Into Now spread like rapid fire in the music press, and among die-hard fans who never gave up hope. Not only did R.E.M. deliver their best album in years, they returned to their roots to do it, and the results are nothing short of remarkable. Collapse Into Now is one fantastic song after another – and there’s not a filler track to be found anywhere on the entire album. All we can say, is thank you R.E.M. and welcome home.
But this is the week of The Strokes official release of their much anticipated new album, Angles. The album is overall a true Strokes record, even if Julian Casablancas apparently didn’t really collaborate with the band, as the rumors have supposed. The most die-hard fans can probably tell if this is true by listening to the album; we can’t. So, it might be best to just let the music speak for itself, since it does that wonderfully from start to finish.
“Taken For A Fool” – The Strokes from Angles
“Machu Picchu”– The Strokes from Angles
“Under Cover of Darkness” – The Strokes from Angles
Acid House Kings are a Swedish indie pop band on the Labrador Records label
Aside from the joy of finally being able to get our hands on the actual Strokes’ CD and vinyl, we also got a hold of another anticipated album, the new LP from Sweden’s Acid House Kings. In fact, AHK are amongst one of the top Swedish pop bands on the appropriately Swedish indie label, Labrador Records. The Stockholm-based label, which obviously has a knack for signing excellent pop bands, is also home to bands like Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Club 8, The Radio Dept., and The Legends.
Although the Acid House Kings’ name could understandably suggest some kind of psychedelic trip-hop outfit, that couldn’t be further from the truth. AHK’s music is 100% pop perfection, and obviously take their admiration for upbeat, well-crafted music seriously, which is apparent all over Music Sounds Better With You. “Are We Lovers Or Are We Friends?” is the first official single from the album. Can you imagine how many times that question has been asked over the centuries of human civilization? It has to be at least millions.
“Are We Lovers Or Are We Friends?” – Acid House Kings from Music Sounds Better with You
There is definitely a formula to their songs – upbeat, melodic percussion, airy, shimmering guitars, bouncy, bright keyboard and piano, and the textured, airy male and female vocals. Of course a formula for song writing and recording does run the risk of being criticized as predictable and playing it safe, so to speak. And while that is true to some extent, if you dig “happy shiny” (thanks Mr. Stipe) pop music, Acid House Kings brings it, and oozes it.
As far as stand-out tracks on the album, it’s pretty much a situation of ‘take your pick’ – always, depending on the listener, a good sign. There are so many good songs, and different people will have different favorites, so we’d say songs like “I Just Called To Say Jag Älskar Dig”, “(I’m In) A Chorus Line,” “Under Water,” and “There Is Something Beautiful.”
Attention Indie Music Radars: Watch Flight Path of Seattle Band Boat
Another release that we have been waiting for is the new album from lo-fi indie Seattle band Boat. After the band’s widely-praised 2009 album, Setting The Paces, the pressure was on to at the least match the brilliance of that album. Based on just a few spins, we are happy to say that Dress Like Your Idols is just as good – maybe better – than Paces. In 2006, Sean Tollefson of Tullycraft saw Boat play a show and sent a copy of the first, and unreleased, record, Comic Book Rock to the folks at Magic Marker. The execs there liked it so much that they signed the band and quickly released it debut LP, Songs That You Might Not Like, in July 2006. Nowadays, Boat has been on a rise and made its mark on the lo-fi indie scene, especially in Seattle and the Northwest. Chances are, given the right amount of promotion, that Dress Like Your Idols could be the band’s break-out LP. In that case, we are including the first single from the LP, plus another one of our own favorites from the new album.
Also, you might want to listen to the new single from the band, Belong; definitely has an ’80s new wave mixed with shoegaze feel to it. Swedish psychedelic rockers’ The Soundtrack of Our Lives, follow-up their appearance at SXSW last week with a remastered albums of their greatest hits. This is definitely an album that fans of TSOOL want to have in their record collection – the tracks sound so much better remastered.
“Forever in Armitron” – Boat from Dress Like Your Idols
“Perfect Life” – Belong from Common Era
“Karmageddon” – The Soundtrack of Our Lives from Golden Greats No. 1 Golden Greats No. 1 is also available in CD (deluxe version) and vinyl
Voxhaul Broadcast – Timing Is Everything
Last October, we featured the band Voxhual Broadcast in one of our In Dee Mail featured playlist mixes. Not surprisingly to us, IRC readers responded very positively. The song that we featured, “Leaving on the 5th” was an advanced single from their new, self-released DIY album, Timing is Everything, officially out this week.
“Leaving on the 5th” – Voxhaul Broadcast from Timing is Everything (self-released)
Edwyn Collins was the founder of the 1980’s Scottish band, Orange Juice, before he went on to a successful solo career in the 1990’s, when his 1994 single (and one of our top “cool songs” of all time), “A Girl Like You,” became a huge hit in the U.K. and U.S. It was also featured in films like Empire Records, Charlie’s Angel and The Secretary. This week, Collins released his first album in the U.S. since suffering a double brain hemorrhage in 2005. While the new album, Losing Sleep, was originally released in the U.K. last year, it has finally dropped in the U.S. Here’s the title track.
“Losing Sleep” – Edwyn Collins from Losing Sleep
Musician Algodon Egipico Does ‘Chillwave’ Venezuelan Style
Totally new to us, is the Lefse recording artist, and Venezuelan musician, Algodon Egipico. Taking hold of the popularity of the ‘chillwave’ sound – complete with lo-fi keyboards and guitar, reverb love, and empty auditorium-sounding vocals – Algodon Egipico gives the popular sub-genre of indie music a new name to consider thanks to the sweet lead single “El Dia Previo,” off Egipico’s debut solo album, La Lucha Constante. He is also a member of the band Jóvenes y Sexys. We’ve also included another song from the album, and a cover of a Male Bonding track.
“El Dia Previo” – Algodon Egipcio from La Lucha Constante
“Weird Feelings” (Male Bonding) – Algodon Egipico, unreleased single (2010)
The Lonely Forest Release New Album, Arrows
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but we first featured the band The Lonely Forest in 2008 after the band sent us some of their tracks. We were surprised at the time to find very few mentions of the band online, and knew that it would only be a matter of time before they ‘broke out’ in their own way. And since 2008, The Lonely Forest has broken out. The band members were even thoughtful enough to thank us for all the interest our profile of them generated. This week they dropped their newest album, Arrows, via Trans Records. Although we have yet to hear the LP, the lead track, “Coyote” is a goo place to start. We’ll definitely let you know about other sweet tracks on the album when we get around to listening to it.
”Coyote”– The Lonely Forest from Arrows
New Wave Trailblazers Duran Duran in 1984
Dangerous Ponies, Duran Duran, Micachu and the Shapes, Parenthetical Girls
This is the first time we’ve heard of the group, Dangerous Ponies, and we think they sound promising, but it’s hard to base that off of one song. So, at some point, we’ll listen to the rest of the album, and if there are gems on there, we’ll be sure to let you know either in a follow-up post, or via our Twitter or Facebook page. The ’80s new wave sensation, Duran Duran, return to the game with their 14th studio album, All You Need Is Now. Although they seemed to fade into the background after an initial break-through in 2009, the British outfit, Micachu and the Shapes, released their sophomore LP, Chopped & Screwed, this week in the U.S. And, Parenthetical Girls‘ new album Privilege, Pt. 3, is out now, fronted by the dark, swaggering single, “The Pornographer.”
“I Only Wear My Favorite Clothes at Home” – Dangerous Ponies from Dangerous Ponies
Other Singles from This Week’s Releases You Might Like
We include this section for readers and visitors who may like to hear other singles from new releases that we don’t necessarily consider adding to our music collection. Ed Askew is a folk singer/songwriter who released his new album, Imperfiction this week, followed by the “new age” piano instrumental from Baby Dee, which doesn’t sound at all like the same of a pianist, but instead a hip hop artist. Next, musician Bing Ji Ling delivers some R&B and funk, complete with sound effects, on the track, “Everybody”; another folk singer and songwriter, Gary Higgins, has a new album out via Drag City – check out the melancholy, and ironic, lead single, “Laugh A Little”; Leverage Models does a bit of a Bowie mixed with Prince sound, just not sure we like it – what do you think?
“Deep Water” – Ed Askew from Imperfiction
“Yapapipi” – Baby Dee from Regifted Light
“Everybody” – Bing Ji Ling from Shadow to Shine
“Laugh A Little” – Gary Higgins from A Dream a While Back
“Tonight When I Burn” – Leverage Models from Interim Deliverable
Radiohead Release Details of The King of Limbs Physical Release
While there have been plenty of reviews written in the past few weeks about Radiohead’s eighth studio album in 18 years, every Radiohead fan spanning the continents of earth knows you just can’t listen to a Radiohead album a few times and write a realistic review. Like the finest bottles of aging wine, Radiohead albums get better with time – how they sounded, and what they meant to the listener one year, will eventually evolve and reveal another level of exquisiteness and majesty in another year.
The band are calling the upcoming physical release “the world’s ‘first’ Newspaper Album.” Unless you ordered early (before Feb. 21st), all orders placed in the next couple of months will be shipped on June 1st from the U.K. However, all orders for this special edition of The King of Limbs will receive an immediate download code for the included digital version of the album. There are two choices for the whole package outlined below – MP3 ($48 U.S. Dollars) and WAV ($53). Would be great if they made a FLAC download available too.
When you purchase the ‘Newspaper Album’ here are the goodies you will get:
– Two clear 10″ vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve.
– A compact disc.
– Many large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold it all together.
– The digital download as described above.
– One lucky owner of the digital version of The King Of Limbs, purchased from this website, will receive a signed 2-track 12″ vinyl. Competition closing date is March 28th.
The Dodos prove once again on 'No Color' why they're a hit with fans and critics
With the exception of The Dodo‘s awesome new album – No Color ($2.99 on Amazon for limited time with bonus track) – there really isn’t any big release this week in terms of music that is mainly identified as “indie” – depending on what indie really means to you. Releases that are in the running for the next most notable new album of the week is among a number of artists, including former Dinosaur Jr. founding member and current Sweet Apple member J. Mascis‘ Several Shades of Why; Lovett’s Highway Collection; The Idle Hands’ Life Is Beautiful; The Fleshtones’Brooklyn Sound Solution.
“Don’t Stop” (with Neko Case) – The Dodos from No Color
Bonus:“Black Night” – The Dodos fromNo Color (Bonus Version)
Also available in CD and vinyl
“Socialite Death Squad” – The Idle Hands from Life Is Beautiful
“The Fear” – Lovett from Highway Collection
“Mynah Birds Call” – Mathew Sawyer and The Ghosts from How Snakes Eat
“Not Enough” – J Mascis from Several Shades of Why
Yesterday, we dropped the first volumeof a two-part playlist mix highlighting our favorite new releases of the week. In that post, we debated whether R.E.M. are a mainstream rock band, or an alternative rock band. We unveiled a new track from the band’s latest album – Collapse Into Now – which critics and fans alike are calling R.E.M.’s return to their roots, a resurrection of the “original sound” that made them popular on college campuses before breaking into mainstream radio with the 1987 hit single, “The One I Love.”
The first volume of this week’s Best New Releases also includes lead singles from new recommended releases by Beach Fossils, Dinosaur Bones, Alexi Murdoch, Parts & Labor, Wye Oak, The Megaphonic Thrift.
Wolf People’s New Single Blazes a Line in the Sand
If anyone thought that solid psychedelic/blues rock was a thing of the past, the new lead single from Wolf People, “Silbury Sand,” proves otherwise. The London band that spans many genres from blues and folk to psychedelia and progressive rock, conjure up memories of 1960’s bands like Traffic, Blind Faith and The Yardbirds on “Silbury Sand,” complete with kick-ass guitar riffs, punchy percussion and the Stevie Winwood-style vocals of front man Wesley Eisold. We’re also including a track from their 2010 LP, Steeple; the track is definitely recommended for Jethro Tull fans.
Kurt Vile has been one of our favorite singer/songwriter’s of recent years. His 2010 EP, Square Shells, received a good amount of blogger buzz, and so is his follow up album, Smoke Ring for My Halo. There is a decidedly more upbeat feel to this album, with bright acoustic guitar-playing and clever use of reverb on vocal tracks, as demonstrated on these two tracks.
“Jesus Fever” – Kurt Vile from Smoke Ring for My Halo
“In My Time” – Kurt Vile from Smoke Ring for My Halo
Starf*cker’s New LP, Reptilians; Plus, Name-Calling
It’s interesting how different blog’s treat band names with swear words in them. Here’s an example of how two of our favorite blogs deal with one band’s name. The blog for Large Hearted Boy publishes this band’s name as ‘Starf**ker,’ while the blog for the popular Seattle indie radio station KEXP, uses a radically different treatment, opting for ‘STRFKR,’ which is not easily deciphered without some frame of reference. We use just ‘Starf*cker‘.
Some of you may wonder why there is avoidance of just spelling out the whole name. The answer varies, and even has multiple reasons, but the main one, at least for us, is not to get into trouble with Google. KEXP, because it has a radio license, is probably keeping the FCC in mind more than the web audience in how it handles such cases. LHB, on the other hand, is being extra careful with the use of two ‘stars’ in place of the ‘offending’ word, but at least it’s making the name understandable. It’s all kind of stupid in the final analysis; we all know what it should say. It’s also the title to a popular Rolling Stones‘ song. Anyways, here is the newest single from Starf*cker’s new album, Reptilians, which can be streamed in full via Spinner.
Sebastian Zimmer is the one-man band behind the music ofOne in a Googolplex. While that is also the name of Google’s headquarters in Mt. View, California, but spelled “Googleplex,” the term “googolplex,” as defined by the late Carl Sagan, is “precisely as far from infinity as is the number one.” That said, Zimmer sent us his latest single, “Lilly,” out this week. At first we weren’t sure if we liked it, but the more we listened to it, the more it grew on us. As part of a double-shot, check out the dynamic track, “Monolith,” from Zimmer’s October 2010 release, The Dropout Cats.
“Lilly” – One In A Googolplex from Lilly/My Sister’s Poem Double-shot: “Monolith” – One In A Googolplex from The Dropout Cats
Plenty of Notable Songs from Relatively Unknown Bands
This week, there are also many terrific new singles from artists and bands that are virtually unknown to most music lovers, including a good number of bands that we’d admittedly never heard of until this week. , but who will definitely be on our radar.
The jangly indie pop track, “Bells Ring,” from the band Empress Hotel‘s self-titled debut EP, is another surprise song that sounds so much like another band that we can’t quite put our finger on. Do you know who we might be thinking of? If so, please tell us in the comments. The band will be performing a number of shows at next week’s SXSW fest. Next, the single “Jericho” from the band Jamaica sounds nothing like reggae, but instead has the makings of a summertime hit with its catchy rhythm and 1970’s style pop radio appeal. Plus, long-time indie rockers Buffalo Tom return with a new album, Skins, and the lead track, “Arise, Watch.”
“Bells Ring” – Empress Hotel fromEmpress Hotel EP
“Jericho” – Jamaica from No Problem
“Arise, Watch” – Buffalo Tom from Skins
G00d-to-Hear Singles from Artists We’ve Never Heard Of…Until Now
It’s probably becoming evident at this point just why we split up this week’s Best New Releases into two parts. While many of you are probably familiar with our long posts – more is better, right? – we are making efforts to keep them shorter without shorting you on music we think you should hear. It’s a difficult task because the truth of the matter is that there is so much terrific music that we’re hearing on a weekly basis that we feel like we have to share as much of it as possible. Believe it or not, there are plenty of songs that we don’t post.
So, we’ll skip writing anything about these additional songs in the interest of simply letting the music speak for itself. Each of these bands are completely new to us. Don’t hesitate to let the world know what you think of any of the songs in this mix by leaving a Comment below.
“Already In Love” – Exene Cervenka from The Excitement of Maybe
“Geisha Means Open Minded” – Carol Bui from Red Sea
“I Led Three Lives”– Grails from Deep Politics
“The Kite” – The Sound Of Growing Up from Drifting EP
“The Wake” – The Albertans from New Age“Dog Years” – Luke Rathborne from Dog Years EP
“So High” – Ringo Deathstarr from Colour Trip
“Worldwide” – Ancient Astronauts from Into Bass and Time
Don’t miss R.E.M., Beach Fossils, Wye Oak, and many others in part oneof this week’s Best New Releases. You might also want to browse through all the playlist mixes for the Best New Releases of 2011 (so far). This year is already going fast.
Is R.E.M. an alternative rock band, or a mainstream rock band? The argument could be made either way, but R.E.M. are definitely not an indie band, despite their significant influence on many indie artists during the past three decades.
Clearly, R.E.M. was one of the most important bands of the early alternative rock movement that was in large part spurred by the popularity of college rock. R.E.M. was a refreshing sound in the early to mid 1980’s when there wasn’t much of an alternative to the hair metal bands, commercial rock and the new wave music craze.
Back then, we found out about up and coming bands from college radio stations, friends, hanging out at the record shop, and reading rock publications like Rolling Stone, not to mention a bunch of other ‘underground’ mags and college newspapers that were covering bands like R.E.M., The Replacement, The Smiths, and before they hit it big in the mid to late 1980s, Talking Heads.
Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) have fantastic new albums out now with their legendary bands.
Even though R.E.M. rocketed from underground music fame to the music charts and mainstream rock radio in 1987 with “The One I Love,” and the following year, disappointed many fans by signing with Warner Bros., we still like to think of them as an alternative rock band, and one of the greatest American rock bands of the past three decades. We have to say that we’re excited by the new release, Collapse Into Now, from the band that put Athens, Georgia on the rock and roll map. Since we’ve only spun it once as of this posting, it’s impossible to give a legitimate assessment, but based on a ‘first listen’ impression, it really does sound great, and is what so many have been saying – R.E.M. has returned to their roots.
“Discoverer” – R.E.M. from Collapse Into Now
Moving on, there are other releases that we are excited about this week, most notably Alex Murdoch, Wye Oak, Beach Fossils, Dinosaur Bones and Parts & Labor‘s fifth album, Constant Future. We are still surprised that a lot of people who are really up on their indie are not familiar with Parts & Labor. The three-piece band from Brooklyn have quietly – for the most part – been one of the best trios in the crowded indie scene of NYC over the past few years.
Beach Fossils were unquestionably one of the biggest breakout bands of 2010, as our own band poll showed. So far, what we’ve heard of the album, is very promising. We’re also glad to see Dinosaur Bones back again with the release of My Divider. The band The Megaphonic Thrift are popping up more and more in the past year, and we can understand why. At SXSW 2010, the band were voted best show; that’s a pretty big deal when you think about how many shows are at SXSW each year – easily thousands.
This week’s Best New Releases is interesting in that there is no release from an A-list ‘indie’ artist, if you will, but instead an eclectic gaggle of mostly new and relatively unknown artists, like That Ghost, Davila 666, Papercuts, Dum Dum Girls, DeVotchka, Raised by Tigers, and many others.
Perhaps the biggest new release is the debut album from Beady Eye. We were surprised to learn how many people don’t know who they are. Well, all band members of Beady are former-members of the super popular Brit pop band Oasis, including Liam Gallahger, plus Ride frontman Andy Bell, and guitarist Gem Archer, and tour drummer, Chris Sharrock. We haven’t heard the whole album yet, but we like what we’ve heard so far, including songs like “The Beat Goes On” and “The Roller,” to name a couple tracks right off the bat. What do you think? There have got to be some, admittedly aging, Oasis fans out there.
“The Roller” – Beady Eye from Different Gear, Still Speeding
“Four Letter Word” – Beady Eye from Different Gear, Still Speeding
That Ghost – Sonoma County, California
Over the past few months, we’ve listened to the sounds of artist Ryan Thomas Schmale aka That Ghost. Over the past year, there’s been a good amount of blogger buzz about That Ghost, and the more we listened to his songs, the more we agreed with the blogger buzz. This week, That Ghost releases his Twosyllable debut, Songs Out Here, an album of intrigue and dark optimism. We absolutely love the track, “To Like You,” and also like very much the other single from the album, “The Red Bow.”
“To Like You” – That Ghost from Songs Out Here
“The Red Bow” – That Ghost from Songs Out Here
Papercuts – San Francisco, California
In addition to That Ghost, there are also a number of other one-man bands and solo artists with new releases this week, including San Francisco Bay Area songwriter, and Subpop artist, Jason Quever, who goes by the moniker, Papercuts. If you like hazy bedroom pop, this is definitely a band that you want to keep an eye and ear on. Papercuts has expanded into a full band, adding Graham Hill (drums), David Enos (keys), and Frankie Koeller (Bass). In 2008, Michael Partington, the former frontman and guitarist of Head of Femur, left behind most of his belongings in the U.S. and moved to Taiwan, which he says influenced much of the content on the album.
Also this week: Alex Ebert, lead singer for the band, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, drops his debut solo album; the acclaimed Swedish singer/songwriter, Lykke Li releases her new album, and Jad Fair, founder of one of the earliest, and best, indie bands, Half Japanese, and a prolific musician, has a new album, His Name Itself is Music.
“The Best Ever” – Jad Fair from His Name Itself Is Music
Raised By Tigers – Denton, Texas
Raised By Tigers is an indie rock band hailing from the musically vibrant college town of Denton, Texas. Mike Canzano, Jason McMullen, Rob Peters, and Tyler Walker comprise the group. Their sound ranges from post-punk leanings with swooping guitar textures to ambient acoustic/electronic pops and buzzes.
Aside from a few compilation inclusions, the band’s first proper album, LED, was released in 2007. Now they are back with their follow-up sophomore album, Reunion Parts, drops this week. RBT has shared with bands like Karate, Dismemberment Plan, Les Savy Fav, The Paper Chase, Deerhoof, and many others.
“Song for Bob” – Raised By Tigers from Reunion Parts
Here’s a relatively new indie rock band from Puerto Rico that we think are In 2010, Davila 666 released an EP on Rob’s House Records, singles on Vice Records (split with Detroit’s Dirtbombs), and Norton Records covering “She’s a Rainbow” by The Rolling Stones in Spanish with other Latin bands (Buenos Aires’ Los Peyotes and Fellow P. R. band Los Vigilantes).
Now managed by Vice Music, Davila 666 continues to release music and tour around the world, rapidly gaining notoriety as “The World’s Greatest Party Band.” Keep your eyes and ears open to when DAVILA 666 comes to your neck of the woods, full U.S. tour in support of Tan Bajo, including SXSW!
“Esa Nena Nunca Regreso” – Davila 666 from Tan Bajo
DeVotchKa, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Dum Dum Girls and More
Listen to even more songs from Gypsy punk rockers, DeVotchKa, Toronto’s folk pop band, The Rural Alberta Advantage, the popular indie punk girl band, Dum Dum Girls; and an absolutely amazing post-punk style instrumental track from the band Codes in the Clouds.
“100 Other Lovers” – DeVotchKa from 100 Other Lovers
“Look Back, Look Up” – Codes in the Clouds from As The Spirit Wanes
Two Super Groups Release New Albums
Super groups, as they are called, is a theme in this week’s best releases. The first, The Baseball Project, features Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Scott McCaughey (The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5), Linda Pitmon, and Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), whose release Volume 2: High and Inside is something we hope to get to listen to soon in its entirety. The next release is the self-titled debut from Middle Brother, which joins John McCauley (Deer Tick), Matt Vasquez (Delta Spirit), and Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) in effort to capture the magic of their 2010 SXSW debut performance.
“Don’t Call Them The Twinkies” (with Craig Finn) – The Baseball Project from Vol. 2: High and Inside
“Me Me Me” – Middle Brother from Middle Brother (full album stream)
Easter Island is a progressive rock band re-forging middle-class angst pop of the mid 90s and early 2000s. The band’s balance of calculated chaos, yuppie adulthood and love gone awry, creates an addictive sound reminiscent of 1990’s pop, as evidenced on the lead single, “Proud,” from their new album, Better Things.
“Proud” – Easter Island from Better Things
Also, we recommend at least listening to new singles from bands like Siriusmo, Acrylics, Buried Beds, C0lumboid, and others. We wish there was more time to dig deeper into some of these bands, but we’re sure you guys can figure out for yourselves which of these following tracks you like, and which you don’t. In fact, if you want to do a mini-review of any song, album, or band (or a combo of), please do so in the Comment space below. If your review is fitting, we might even re-publish it to this post and give you credit.
“Mosaik” – Siriusmo from Mosaik
“Sparrow Song” – Acrylics from Lives & Treasure
“Nightwatch” – Acrylics from Lives & Treasure
“Breadcrumb Trail” – Buried Beds from Tremble The Sails
It wasn’t hard to pick the lead single for this week’s Best New Releases feature. It is a great track, and our song of the day, “Love and Leave,” from Chicago indie band Scattered Trees. The dreamy, lush track is a near instant MP3 hit, and contains an ironic anthemic quality, not to mention sounding amazingly like 1970’s pop rock band ELO. That said, we tag Scattered Trees as a band to watch in 2011.
As we were putting together this post playlist, it became apparent that there are a good number of impressive tracks from relatively unknown bands. While Scattered Trees have been around for about five years now, there are still a lot people who have not heard of them. They have been compared to Radiohead and Coldplay. They combine elements of electro-pop, rock, and grunge, so it’s difficult to put them into a genre. Their new album, Sympathy, dropped this week.
“Love and Leave” – Scattered Trees from Sympathy
Bonus: “Four Days Straight” – Scattered Trees from Sympathy
Edwyn Collins’ Praised LP Finally Drops in U.S.
Scottish-born musician and producer Edwyn Collins‘ influence on indie rock is unquestionable. As the founding member of Nu-Sonics in 1976 – which was later renamed to Orange Juice – his remarkable electric guitar pop riffs had a significant impact on scores of young bands in the U.K. during the late 1970’s and most of the 1980’s. Orange Juice disbanded in 1985. They only had one hit single, “Rip It Up,” but their importance in the U.K. indie and alternative rock remains intact.
During his long career, he has produced The Proclaimers, A House, Space, Robert Forster, The Cribs, and Little Barrie. In the 1990’s, Collins had two big hit singles – 1994’s “A Girl Like You,” became a huge hit in the U.K. and U.S. When the song first came out, some people understandably thought it was a new Bowie track; either way, it’s one of the best rock songs of the 1990’s. “A Girl Like You” has been featured in films like Empire Records, Charlie’s Angel and The Secretary.
“A Girl Like You” – Edwyn Collins from Gorgeous George
Collins suffered a double brain hemorrhage in 2005, and has made a remarkable recovery since then. Last year, he released a new album, Losing Sleep, to huge critical acclaim from mainstream media critics, bloggers and fans throughout the U.K. Check out this awesome video “Do It Again,” featuring Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand.
The album features tracks co-written by members of Franz Ferdinand, plus Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers, and Ryan Jarman of The Cribs and The Drums.
“In Your Eyes” (featuring The Drums) – Edwyn Collins from Losing Sleep
Datarock Release Techie USB Filled with Everything Datarock
Datarock calls the release of their up-coming single, “Catcher in the Rye,” the “most extravagant single in history.” The single’s toy designed USB stick will feature 110 tracks, 20 music videos, and an one-long concert film, Never Say Die, a five-track EP, the latest album, Music For Synchronization, the remix album Mixed Up, two other previous albums with bonus tracks, new Lost and Found B-sides and rarities, 1,500 photos taken at their shows in 33 countries, and 15 instrumentals.
Cotton Jones is an indie folk-pop band from Cumberland, Maryland. Cotton Jones began as a project band for Michael Nau, lead singer and founder of the now defunct Page France, and has since become a full-time project. The single’s title alone will getting you thinking.
“Egg on a Sea” – Cotton Jones from Sit Beside You Vegetables
As with all the choices for the weekly Best New Releases, we listened a number of times to dozens and dozens of singles. Obviously, we don’t have the time to listen to all of the albums these songs come from, but we do our best to keep up.
Puro Instinct floored us with this dreamy and melodic track, “Stilyagi,” that will definitely be on our year end list for best song of 2011; we’ve already spun it like ten times. Puro Instinct and Phineas & The Lonely Leaves are bands to watch in 2011, and you should be hearing more about them in one of the upcoming editions of Bands to Watch in 2011.
“Stilyagi” – Puro Instinct from Headbangers In Ecstasy
“The Kids We Used To Be” – Phineas & the Lonely Leaves from The Kids We Used To Be
The following bands have appeared as fairly lit to bright blips on our music radar for 2011: Puro Instinct, Phineas & the Lonely Leaves, PT Walkley, Make Out, Powerdove, Marcellus Hall, The Caribbean, Six Organs of Admittance, and Hotels.
In keeping with tradition, please write any comments or reviews of songs in this playlist mix in the Comments section. We love reading them, and you guys leave a lot of great observations of posts and playlists, as well as engaging one another in conversation about a song, album or artist. Plus, we love when you Tweet, Like on our Facebook page, and share music from Indie Rock Cafe with others because we love spreading great, rarely heard music.
“Outskirts” – The Caribbean from Discontinued Perfume
“Mr. Let’s Find Out”– The Caribbean from Discontinued Perfume
“Hold But Let Go” – Six Organs of Admittance from Asleep on the Floodplain
How Do We Determine if a Band is ‘Relatively Unknown?’One way that we measure a “relatively unknown band” is to search their name in Google and see how many music sites and blogs have written about them. We also check Wikipedia to see if they have a page in Wikipedia. If they don’t, we think that is a pretty good additional clue of a new and under-the-radar artist. Another measure we use is to check the number of views and friends on MySpace, followers on Twitter and Friends and ‘Likes’ in Facebook.
“Laughing With You” – Marcellus Hall from The First Line
“Speed of Light” – Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion from Bright Examples
“Ma Do Nar” – Los Chicharrons from Roots of Life
“In Manila” – Eagle and Talon from In Manila
More well known indie bands like The Cave Singers, Floating Action, Danielson, and The Builders and the Butchers also have new releases this week. We wish we could do a write up on every artist featured in this mix, but we simply don’t have the many, many hours available that would be required to do so.
However, if IRC’s regular readers/listeners (not comfortable saying “followers”) audience keeps growing as it has been over the past year (and nearly one million visitors a month), it may be possible some day to do so much more of what we want to do. For now, we hope that IRC becomes your one-stop place for indie music.
“Lullaby” – The Builders and the Butchers from Dead Reckoning
“People’s Partay” – Danielson from Best of Gloucester County
Bonus: “Grow Up” – Danielson from Best of Gloucester County
Make sure to check back tomorrow for a special edition of In Dee Mail, a playlist series that focuses on the best music we receive in the mail. You can’t miss this special edition – it has some of the most amazing artists you’ve probably never heard of, but will likely be glad you did.
Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes hits a grand slam with The People's Key
This week’s Best New Releases include some big time albums, including the newest LP from one of our favorite bands, Bright Eyes. After having listened to The People’s Key a number of times, not only is it Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes in true form, The People’s Key may be their best album of all.
You can click on the album title below to order and download the album now, or you can stream The People’s Key entirely before deciding if you want to purchase it.
In addition to Bright Eyes, we’re also super stoked about the self-titled debut album from the rising indie band Yuck. On Tuesday, we published 5 Bands to Watch in 2011, with Yuck leading the way. Over the past couple of days there have been hundreds of streams of Yuck’s songs.
There’s plenty of more new singles from fresh releases included below. But first, we want to introduce you to Brooklyn band Old Monk, who are making their web debut exclusively on IRC with two new songs from their latest album, Birds of Belize. The track “Butter and Toast” is one of those pop tunes that gets in your head and stays there all day, but not in a bad way. The band describes its sound as garage rock mixed with art prog. They include among their influences The Kinks, Frank Zappa, Pavement and Deerhoof. Surprisingly, they’ve never opened for another band, so we can only hope the band get some of the love we think they deserve.
Also, check out fresh tracks from the latest albums by The Dears, Drive-By Truckers, East River Pipe, Moving Units, Asobi Seksu, Mogwai, Lifeguards, La Sera, The Babies, La Sera, and many others.
Among this week’s best new releases is the new Cut Copy album, Zonoscope. Right around Thanksgiving time of last year, Cut Copy released the first single from the new LP, “Take Me Over.”
The song was a huge hit with IRC readers and visitors, taking the No. 1 spot on the Top Ten Songs page for that week, and continuing to be one of the most popular songs on IRC for weeks afterwards.
So, it’s probably no surprise that Zonoscope is the featured pick of the week. And it’s no surprise that the album is also No. 1 on Amazon as we write this. Listen for yourself with a full album stream via Spinner or grab your MP3 album download with the album title link below.
“Take Me Over” – Cut Copy from Zonoscope – (#1 on Amazon – get it for only $5.99 – limited time offer)
Bonus Track:“Take Me Over” (Loving Hand Remix by Tim_Goldsworthy) – Cut Copy
We’re really excited by Akron/Family‘s new LP, the oddly titled, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT. So far, we’ve heard enough of Shinju to suggest that it might be already a 2011 best album. The lead track, “Silly Beans” is a wildly upbeat and romping pop song injected with waves of synth-oozing keys and punctured by blistering ’70s prog rock guitar jams. Play and repeat.
“Silly Beans” – Akron/Family from S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT (with Digital booklet)
So, we’re a little late to, and not fully on, the James Blake happy train of bloggers, media and fans who have been praising the British dubstep producer and musician’s debut, self-titled LP. His music is OK, but not comparable to the hype. That said, we know of so many other artists that are equally, or more, talented and yet get very little notice. One is ironically a near namesake. We’re talking about the music of Blake Mills. His 2010 album was picked as the best album of the year on the blog, Everybody Taste.
For us, Cut Copy, Akron/Family, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) are the big releases for the week of February 8th, followed by impressive singles, EPs and LPs from indie bands who are not as popular as those two big acts, but who are definitely worth listening to, including Lull Water, Young Galaxy, Over The Rhine, OK Campfire, Creeping Weeds, The District Attorneys, La Resistance.
“Weight of The Sun” – …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead from Tao Of The Dead
“One More Time” – Lull Water from Silhouette
“Peripheral Visionaries” – Young Galaxy from Shapeshifting
J Mascis – Not Enough
“Outsiders” – Creeping Weeds from See Through (self-released)
“Understanding” – La Resistance from Philosophy
“Splitsville” – The District Attorneys from Orders From… (self-released via MOKB
“Strange Like We Are” – OK Campfire from Strange Like We Are
“The King Knows How” – Over the Rhine from The Long Surrender
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.
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”
“Dog Years” – Luke Rathborne from 
Is R.E.M. an alternative rock band, or a mainstream rock band? The argument could be made either way, but R.E.M. are definitely not an indie band, despite their significant influence on many indie artists during the past three decades.
