Sholi – All That We Can See

Myspace.

Pavement – Carrott Rope

A friend of mine from school, Tom has been buying one Pavement album a year for the last 5 years. He finally picked up Terror Twilight, to celebrate here’s the final track off the album.

Tis the Giving Season #5

To: You
From: Letter from Belgium

“I wanted to set myself a challenge of writing and recording a song in a day. So I started writing this at around 3 o’ clock today [Christmas eve] and just finished it.”

Letter From Belgium – Christmas Eve mp3

Letter From Belgium is the ambient post rocky side project of Alan Healy of Indie popsters Hooray For Humans. To be honest, H4H isn’t really up my alley but Alan’s side project is something I could really get into. He first posted a track on the Letter From Belgium myspace at the start of November. The first song he put up is called ‘Worried Breath’ and it blew me away when I first heard it. Ambient… check. Simple but effective buildups… check. Samples from obscure movies… check!

Letter From Belgium – Worried Breath mp3

Alan also writes a blog about music he likes and his two musical endeavors. From time to time, when I’m slightly less than sober I rant. One of the things I frequently rant about is how I think that there’s an incredibly strong bunch of musicians in Ireland who are creating music in their bedrooms. I really respect that because for the most part they’re just trying to make songs which they really care about, they’re not looking to get rich, get hipster kudos or get famous. They just want to make music and they’ll do just that regardless of whether anyone is listening or even if there isn’t the slightest chance of getting some sort of financial dividend. I guess what I’m trying to get to here is that Letter From Belgium is one of these bedroom projects and it’s great to see Alan writing about it on his blog, hopefully showing other musicians that DIY recording is often just as good if not better than a lot of low end studio recordings. I think I’m rambling here a bit so I’ll follow up on this again when I structure my thoughts a bit more. In the meantime, download both those tracks and enjoy flaking out over Christmas!

Tis the Giving Season #4

To: You
From: Porn On Vinyl

“Merry Christmas to all.
I hope you enjoy this.
Tracks 1 and 3 are written by me.
The rest are used without permission, but hey, it’s Christmas!

All songs recorded between December 22nd and December 23rd.
Tracks 1 and 3 written 3:47+ am on December 23rd.”

Download.

Porn On Vinyl is 17 year old Dubliner Aidan Wall, he records great lofi folk songs in his bedroom. Porn On Vinyl reminds me of both Elliott Smith and Neutral Milk Hotel. About 2 weeks ago, I invited him out to RTE to record a live session for The Analogue Hour. It went swimmingly, I haven’t heard the final mix of it yet but it sounded deadly in the studio at the time. It’s slightly less lofi than before, you can blame that on RTE’s semi analogue semi digital supercomputer sound desk. That will go out sometime mid January, I’ll post a reminder about it closer to the time.

Anyway, enjoy this free Christmas Ep and if you like what you hear download his latest full length for free, it’s called ‘I spent the night thinking with short periods of sleep interrupted by visions‘ and I highly recommend it!

Nollaig Shona!
(for the non irish speakers – Happy Christmas!)

What next?!

It’s Christmas Eve! So you really should have all of your Christmas shopping done. If not, what are you going to get for the clubber or clubbette in your life? Why not get them Ministry of Sound’s Annual 2009? It’s got some top tunes you know! Like Pjanoo, and Wearing My Rolex, and, eh, something by Basshunter… Or else, if you want to go all out, why not treat them to a super-fancy box set type thingy which features the marvelous compilation AND the Ministry of Sound Nightlife aftershave/perfume? It’s musky/clean/fresh (guys) or sensual/musky (again!)/fruity (gals), but either way, the bottle is sleek and stylish! Sold!

And it’s not just MoS who are venturing into the fruity world of perfume tie-ins – Hed Kandi, purveyors of funky sexy house and delicious downtempo grooves (I’m sorry) have released a perfume, appropriately called Eivissa. Quite. Apparently this scent will “evoke memories of those hazy summer days long throughout the winter months.” They’ve even outdone MoS on the description front – Eivissa is magical, sexy, seductive, uplifting and effervescent, it SPARKLES, it’s relaxed, easy to wear and “will take you from sunrise to sunset.”

I can only imagine how these things smell – if they really do smell like clubbing then they’ll hopefully contain enough sweat, dirt, alcohol, narcotics and nicotine to put off even the most hardened of partiers. Seriously though, if this is what it takes to sell CDs nowadays, I’m not suprised Zavvi has gone into administration. That said, queues in HMV are ridiculous this week, as is customary at this manic time of year. You never can tell? Enjoy the sales people! You might just get Nightlife or Eivissa for cheap!

Crystal Stilts – Converging in the Quiet

There are obvious comparisons that can be made here but what’s the point. Haunting dead pan vocals, a killer washed out riff, an unforgettable bassline and beats that wouldn’t be terribly out of place on a Neu! track – yes these guys are good. Crystal Stilts released their self titled Ep back in May on Woodsist and a full length called ‘Alight of Night’ on Slumberland in October. Both are deadly but I think I prefer the original cuts of the songs that appear on the Ep.

Art Rockin’ promoters Skinny Wolves have them over to play upstairs in Whelans on the 19th of February.

Tis the Giving Season #3

To: You
From: Domino

1. The Devil’s Crayon – Wild Beasts

2. Moscow State Circus – Eugene McGuinness

3. Un Dia – Juana Molina

4. Playboy – Max Tundra

5. Free Not Free – Clinic

6. U.R.A. Fever – The Kills

7. Stinging Nettle – The Count & Sinden

8. Night Riders – Yo Majesty

9. Midnight Surprise – Lightspeed Champion

10. That’s That – Cass McComb

To collect this, join as a member on the Domino Website (it takes 2 mins) and then add the free album to your cart, within no time at all you’ll have a nice zip file of domino’s 2008 musical gems to unwrap.

Tis the Giving Season #2

To: You
From: 4AD

“Here be a festive treat for you all in the form of a 4AD label sampler, totally free for you to download and keep forever.”

the Decemberists announce new album

“We Decemberists are pleased to announce that our forthcoming LP, The Hazards of Love, is, in the parlance of the industry, “in the can[2]“. Four tumultuous months passed in the creation of the record, during which a new president was selected[3], 3 people associated with the band were married[4], birthdays too numerous to recount were celebrated and many tasty asada tacos from two of the vast array of taco trucks in the greater Portland east-side were consumed. And what do we have to show for it? Or at least that we can now reveal to you? A release date and a tracklist! As follows:

Release Date: March 24th[5] in the U.S. and March 23th[6] in the UK.[7]

Tracklist:

1. Prelude
2. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
3. A Bower Scene
4. Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
5. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
6. The Queen’s Approach
7. Isn’t it a Lovely Night?
8. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
9. An Interlude
10. The Rake’s Song
11. The Abduction of Margaret
12. The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing
13. Annan Water
14. Margaret in Captivity
15. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)”

I’m a big fan of the Decemberists‘ last album, ‘the Crane Wife’ so I hope this one is as good. They released a series of singles recently under the title ‘Always The Bridesmaid’ which was ok but didn’t exactly blow me away.

[Via Pop Culture will Eat itself.]

Tis the giving season #1

Ok so over the next two or three days, I’m going to round up a selection of free Mp3s and mixtapes that labels/bands have released in the spirit of the xmas season and to round off another great year of music.

I’m going to start with a recap mixtape from the Social Registry, the label home to the stellar Gang Gang Dance in the States. It’s not really advertised on the SR website so I have to the credit to Gorilla Vs. Bear for the tip off about this. The Recap mixtape includes tracks by Blood On the Wall, Growing, Sian Alice Group, Gang Gang Dance and Douglas Armour. I wasn’t familiar with Sian Alice Group before hearing this mixtape but I’m definitely going to check out more of them. The Social Registry were also kind enough to release a “Leaked Tape” featuring live versions of Blood On the Wall songs from SXSW and Koko, London. There’s also a great Hot Chip remix of House Jam by Gang Gang Dance. It’d be worth downloading the mixtape just for that, it’s a nice sombre electro remix that slowly builds into a tune that would be quite complimentary to a good auld boogie.

mp3:
house jam (hot chip remix) – gang gang dance

Social registry 2008 mixtape.zip
Social registry 2008 leaked tape.zip

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