collectors

dungen - satt att se

from dungen's new album "4": satt att se

benoit pioulard - brown bess

benoit pioulard has a new album, temper, out and unlike so many much awaited albums (tv on the radio anyone?), it doesn't suck. temper doesn't stray to far away from precis in terms of sound - i'll make no attempt to describe it - but his singing is a bit more audible than before, which makes his songs, well, more song-like.

brown bess

max tundra - will get fooled again

Max Tundra - Will Get Fooled Again

benoit pioulard and praveen sharma

embers

rndm

deerhoof - offend maggie
horse feathers - curs in weeds
crooked fingers - phony revolution
black taj - fresh air traverse (one half of the legendary polvo)
black taj - cold comfort
paramount styles - come to new york (one of the guys from girls against boys)
mother mother - body of years
brightblack morning light - oppressions each
chad vangaalen - willow tree
calexico - two silver trees
jay reatard - see/saw
walkmen - in the new year
the dutchess and the duke - reservoir park
earlimart - song for
31 knots - compass commands
love is all - big bangs, black holes meteorites

some icelandic stuff:
benni hemm hemm - snjor ljos snjor
seabear - i sing i swim
borko - dingdong kingdom

Prefuse 73 w. School of Seven Bells - The Class of 73 Bells

of montreal

of montreal - id engager

the faint

The Geeks Were Right from Fasciinatiion

ten kens

your kids will know

rndm trx frm lfm

Jason Forrest - 2006: Good Riddance
pg.lost - yes i am
Castanets - As You Do
Ester Drang - Come Back Alive
Archers of Loaf - Audiowhore
Thee More Shallows - At the Knight School
Frog Eyes - Bushels
Bracken - Heathens
Seabear - Sindri Mix

zach hill

from zach hill's (hella) forthcoming solo album, astrological straits. i don't know about the video but i kinda like the (relative) poppiness of the song. not so sure about the video.

jaguar love

subsets of the blood brothers and pretty girls make graves join hands

jaguar love - highway of love

feral children

Spy/Glass House
Jaundice Giraffe

boat

(I'm a) donkey for your love
last cans of paint

wolf parade live

i had kinda mixed feelings about seeing wolf parade but it didn't have much to do with the band. with the show being at the house of blues (chicago) it was, in my mind, at the upper limit of the size of venue that offers any possibility of being fun. plus i resented having to buy tickets through ticketmaster. but it being a nice day and all (albeit kinda long since for some reason i woke up at 4am) i was still a bit excited about going to the show. in short, it was ok. nothing more than that really. it could have been a lot louder for one thing and a lot of the songs come of a little bruce springsteen-y. or maybe it was just the checkered shirts? at any rate, i wasn't a big of fan. the only song that i really got into was the, to quote the pitchfork, 'stubbornly unmelodic finale marked by a mush of throbbing guitars and histrionic vocals' (i.e., kissing the beehive). but again, i don't think it was wolf parade's problem - i do like their albums a lot and their performance was just fine. it was just the wrong surroundings. or just me. at any rate, i don't think i'll go to another show at a venue where i can't get i chance to kick a bandmember in the pants if i should feel like it.

call it a ritual

since posts here have become increasingly rarer i might as well mention alaska in summer that i also so live but in the right circumstances - and on paper alaska in winter wouldn't really seem to have a lot going for them when it comes to live performances. what are your expectations for a 'band' that consists of guy singing along to tracks on his laptop? right? but the show was damn close to brilliant - at least i left with a smile on my face and saw no reason to celebrate the evening by getting royally drunk. the brilliance of the show was in the video projections which consisted of the guy in the role of his own backing band complete with costume changes. it doesn't sound like much and it probably has been done before but it was done cleverly and worked beautifully. so, i guess, 2-0 for my kick in the pants theory.

close your eyes

mogwai

The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mriando

duke spirit

relay - context

starts of like just another band that has discovered shoegazing but somewhere circa halfway through the song the get things just right. nice noisy bits.

......

titus andronicus takes us back to the days before bright eyes turned into bob dylan light (and yes, john, that is meant as an insult in two ways). i guess i'm a sucker for singers that can bother to scream b/c i can barely bother to speak most days. the gutter twins are mark lanegan and greg dulli - don't know what else to say. don't know if i need to say anything else. i've always had a soft spot for jucifer. partly because they have stuck to their guns and they have played pretty much the same song from the start of their career (ok, that's not completely fair). Partly because they are loud. i guess their new album is a little different - so far i have decided i like the loud songs. thankfully, wolf parade aren't changing things up too much on their new one. pretty solid stuff but perhaps not on par with their debut. human bell - a couple of thrill jockeys. islands' new album is, well, strange. it seems too produces but, then again, it took me a while to get into their first one. mae shi. long blondes are sound slightly less annoying although i think they are probably a whole lot more annoying in person. that's just what they sound like. notwist. plants and animals. santogold lifts a bassline from the pixies. nice. people compare santogold to m.i.a. ok, there are a couple of songs where that makes a little bit of sense but, well, there are songs here. i'm not sure they are great but, at least, they are not offensive. windsor for the derby. uffie - just because i stumbled upon this song and it seemed strangely appropriately b/c i was thinking that it was hard to think much of uffie's music. for one thing it is silly. and then there is the gap between uffie as she appears in interviews and her music - it makes me think of people playing guitar hero. don't really know what my point is. but i guess uffie is right here, silly is not necessarily bad and her songs are strangely fun. and then some more of the same stuff.

oh, les savy fav and the kills are officially on my shit list for canceling their shows in oxford. so is oxford. and especially carling academy.