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DOWNLOAD: Golden Boots - Love Is In The Air
Golden Boots is Dimitri Manos and Ryen Eggleston, two vagabonds from eastern PA that found themselves and one another under the heavy suns of Tuscon, Arizona. Specializing in tumbleweed pop that's been painstakingly filtered through miles and miles of American highway and tape, the two are preparing this month to release Winter of Our Discoteque, a forthcoming full-length celebration of their own weirdo Americana imaginings. "Love Is In The Air" is a real spicy meatball of a cut from that new album. Find it and hold it below.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Alexandra Hope - Whatever You Want
Alexandra Hope is a one of the brightest things to heat up the sub-zero New year....Minnesota-born but raised in Paris, she reminds me of a coy, guitar-totting Charlotte Gainsbourg infused with nonchalant sexy rock attitude. This song is a blissed-out folk ode to surviving the cold, luring us to huddle under the covers for another hour with the song on repeat as snow gracefully falls outside. She's cracking into the NY music scene with a debut album, Invisible Sunday, produced by David Muller (Fiery Furnaces) and released on Manimal (Rainbow Arabia, Hecuba, Bat For Lashes). Watch out!
Sounds Like: PJ Harvey, Duke Spirit, Liz Phair
Alexandra Hope - Whatever You Want
Alexandra Hope's RCRD LBL Page
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Old Ceremony - Til My Voice Is Gone
Amidst some aqueous organ and a few prophetic lines from leadsinger Django Haskins (yes, dude's name is actually Django,) "Til My Voice Is Gone" begins like it's actually being played from the "seawall" Haskins sings about, a place where we imagine you can see orcas and sea lions and the water isn't overly salty. Then the drums kick in, and this tune turns into something like Whiskeytown on anti-depressants, super-optimistic Americana for the weekend warrior crowd. The Old Ceremony's third album Walk In Thin Air drops on February 9, so make sure to pick that up if this is your speed, it's solid.
Sounds like: Limbeck, Illinois, The Low Anthem
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Illinois - Are You Coming With Me?
Apparently, when asked to turn in a debut album to their label, Bucks County, PA band Illinois (yes, the second band-not-from-the-locale-they're-named-after in two days) handed over a hard drive crammed with 114 home recordings. Impressed by the productivity, the band's label +1 Music decided to do something special and announced a six-month-long release schedule for a series of EPs and films that would, as a whole, serve as the band's full-length debut. That project is called The Adventures Of Kid Catastrophe, a tale based around a pseudo-alter-ego of frontman Chris Archibald. We've been given an exclusive track from the third chapter of the series (watch it on YouTube here, the music will hit iTunes next week,) a tightly-arranged Americana jam called "Are You Coming With Me?". There's piano, three or so chords, and Archibald's lyrics about getting someone out of a bad situation, so make sure grab the tune and find out more about Kid Catastrophe at the band's website.
Sounds like: The Low Anthem, Motel Motel, Deer Tick
DOWNLOAD: The Pica Beats - Poor Old Ra
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When I read about a band being described as "chamber-pop," it always make me a little bit nervous, since either end of the contraction seems like enough for one group to tackle. But on "Poor Old Ra", the Pica Beats have done a bang-up job of working in touches of florid instrumentation while holding the melodic center. It would be easy for a tune this light and bouncy to get bogged down with too many bells, whistles and voices, but it manages to perk along unencumbered. Another choice release from Sub Pop's Hardly Art imprint, brightening the corners of your Monday.
Sounds Like: The Uglysuit, The Decembrists, Broken Social Scene
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Sara Lov - My Body Is My Cage (Arcade Fire Cover)
Just like her last name that is close to cute but sublimely imperfect, so is Sara Lov's parred-down, heart-on-my-sleeve acoustic version of Arcade Fire's love ballad, "My Body Is My Cage." Former Devic member, LA-based singer songwriter Sara Lov's voice drips of a bittersweet melancholy that one can't simulate just cause. It delicately channels a pathos that was probably birthed somewhere between her traumatic childhood (kidnapped by her father at a young age and taken to Israel for a decade) and assumed late night coffee house open mics years later, where sadness cathartically burst through in song. Imagine Silverlake's subtly coquettish solution to Mazzy Star or Aimee Mann; Lov's currently doing a residency at Spaceland- playing each Tuesday until the end of January.
Sounds like: Aimee Mann, Mazzy Star, Laura Marling
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Angus And Julia Stone - Mango Tree
While Angus and Julia Stone's mellow acoustic folk cajoled me into a state of nirvana upon first listen, I was surprised to learn they weren't from the American South (I coulda sworn I heard tumbleweeds and dust blowing in the background?) but instead from the very very far south, the land of beaches and eucalyptus, Sydney, Australia. Well no worries, they are prepping to make their North American debut with "A Book Like This" in the near future. Till then, we snagged a stellar sneak peak for you to nibble upon. (Pssst, this track has a two-week time stamp starting NOW, so I'd recommend to download sooner than later....)
Sounds like: Fire on Fire, She & Him, Golden Animals
DOWNLOAD: Mike Bones - What I Have Left + Brian Degraw Remix
Guitarist and songwriter Mike Strallow has played around with New York's downtown music cognoscenti for years, but it wasn't until 2007's The Sky Behind The Sea that dude actually assumed a pseudonym--taking the name Mike Bones from a childhood nickname--and put out a record of his own. A year later he's prepping his second long-player for The Social Registry, an album called A Fool For Everyone he recorded earlier this year at Brooklyn's Seaside Lounge studios with an assortment of musicians, among them fellow axeman-to-everyone-cool Matt Sweeney. "What I Have Left" is the record's first single, a song about trying to give everything you have to someone without it ever being enough (sounds like a Mickey Rourke movie). The opening steady guitar tugs and Strallow's briny voice build comfortably under some piano and violin, making lines like "So I'll deal with what I have left," sound oddly confident. The digital release of the track also features a remix from Brian Degraw of Gang Gang Dance, who throws out everything but Strallow's vocal take and then layers some frenetic IDM programming, synths that sound like kazoos, and a hell of a lot of cymbal washes underneath. It's out there and percussive and thus totally Gang Gang, so get into that next to the original below. A Fool For Everyone hits stores on February, 3, 2009.
Sounds like: TK Webb & The Visions, Gang Gang Dance, Merz
DOWNLOAD: The Low Anthem - To Ohio + The Horizon Is A Beltway
The Low Anthem are from Providence, which is neither Boston, Philly, or New York and thus often gets remembered for weird things like the Load scene and Lightning Bolt and big bands that met there but eventually moved elsewhere like the Talking Heads. But The Low Anthem aren't very weird, they play bi-polar Americana that was clearly boiled down from copious spins of Tom Waits and Gram Parsons and they're just as memorable for it. Split over their new record Oh My God, Charlie Darwin are two distinct halves: the fervent midnight jug music of songs like "The Horizon Is A Beltway" and the gentler pre-dawn lullabies that almost feel apologetic sandwiched next to such tomfoolery. "To Ohio" is one of those songs and its harmonies offer some of the glassy-eyed optimism I always felt was missing from Iron & Wine. Dig into the music below, and if you live around New England or eastern Canada you can catch the band are slugging it out on stages with Rachael Yamagata, including a sold-out stop tonight at New York's Bowery Ballroom. Full dates are after the tunes.
Sounds like: Motel Motel, Iron & Wine, Man Man, Deer Tick
The Low Anthem - The Horizon Is A Beltway
The Low Anthem's RCRD LBL Page
The Low Anthem's Tour Dates:
12/10 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom* (SOLD OUT)
12/12 - Toronto, ON - The Mod Club*
12/13 - Montreal, QC - Cabaret Du Juste Musee Pour Rire*
12/14 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse Music Hall*
12/17 - New York, NY - Fontana's ("Stranded In Stereo Presents")
*w/ Rachael Yamagata
DOWNLOAD: Little Joy - No One's Better Sake
(Photo: Autumn De Wilde)
By now you've probably heard of Little Joy, the sunkissed band of merry pranksters that includes Los Hermanos singer Rodrigo Amarante, multi-instrumentalist Binki Shapiro, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti and occasionally a one Devendra Banhart and his musical mate Noah Georgeson. Their self-titled record of relaxed California beachmusic has been burning a proverbial hole in our iPod since it came out in November, and now Rough Trade has let go an MP3 of "No One's Better Sake." The song's ragged backbeat and bright organ nod pretty heavily to the roots reggae of Jimmy Cliff or Billy Boyo, but Little Joy's melodies and vibes are straight Laurel Canyon; a rural, toasted style that's having us re-think our decision to stick around for the brutal New York winter. At least we'll have this record to listen to.
Sounds like: The Strokes, Devendra Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
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