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Book The Grizzly Owls
We are both teachers and next week is our last week of work. We are ready for summer break and anxious to get out on the road and play some shows.
If you are interested in booking The Grizzly Owls contact either:
or on Myspace:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Bears - Since I Met You + All I
Bears in nature seem cuddly and cute and playful but are actually ferocious, remorseless eating machines. Bears on record sound cuddly and cute and playful but beneath the sweetly subdued harmonies and swaying guitars are gorgeously smart and meaty pop songs. Bears on record is the work of Craig Ramsey and Charlie McArthur and listening to the quiet sunny intimacy of the songs on their September release Simple Machinery you can picture the two in a well lit room, huddled around a microphone with bells, tambourines, guitars and simple drum kits, clapping hands and leaning into harmonies all the live long day. Bears have a slew of releases, "Since I Met You," is from the September release and "All I" is from an EP they released this summer, all of which you can find out about at their MySpace. Grab these 2 tunes and relish the final days of summer.
Sounds like: Vadoinmessico, the Legends, Computer Perfection, Johnny Boy
DOWNLOAD: High Places - From Stardust to Sentience
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"I don't listen to anything on the headphones. Never. I don't get on with headphones." When I read those lines in a recent interview with Jason Pierce of narco-gospel gods Spiritualized, I remember thinking, "Yeah, me neither, Spaceman. Let's start a club." But after listening to this track from High Places' self-titled album on Thrill Jockey, I'm going to hold off for now on drawing up the charter and finishing the secret handshake. I'm always hesitant to throw around loaded terms like "soundscape" and "ambient," but I think that these guys get pretty damn close. Listen as the claustrophobic typewriter-snares phase from left to right and fight for sonic space, and try to pick out each instrument before it drowns in the Great Sea of Reverb. Extra points for no headphones.
Sounds Like: Panda Bear, Atlas Sound, El Guincho
DOWNLOAD AND VIDEO: Thomas Tantrum - Why the English Are Rubbish + Work It (Video)
I don't throw the "next big thing" label around a lot because 1. I am not the NME and 2. I am usually wrong. But what the hell, it's Thursday and I am feeling crazy. Thomas Tantrum has all the ingredients to be the Next Big Thing. A self-effacing tune of pop perfection with some French phrases thrown in about being British? Check. A clever first music video with an undeniably foxy and born to be on a magazine cover blond front lady? You bet. Irreverent 3 minute bursts of too-fun-not-to dance-to songs about being young, having fun and raging "against the tantrum"? It's too perfect to not be true. Thomas Tantrum has 4 singles out (cause they're British) and their full length s/t album hit the UK on Monday. It's only a matter of time before some US label grabs em and cocks it up, so grab this tune and marvel at this video and God save the Queen.
Sounds Like: Art Brut, the Okmoniks, Be Your Own Pet, the Ting Tings, Duke Spirit
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Ólöf Arnalds - Klara
Whatever Ólöf Arnalds is plucking away at here doesn’t sound like a guitar and its mysterious existence is bugging me. It’s dry and sour, kind of like a lyre and a banjo and a harp spliced together. A lyjarp. I want one. I bet Kjarri from Sigur Ros (the guy who produced this song) has one lying around. Those guys have a ton of instruments. They also probably have that breathy half organ/half accordion that creeps in about halfway through. A little subtlety goes a long way. This song from the former múm member is seducing and quaint, two words I never thought I would use in the same sentence. Maybe that’s because she’s singing in Icelandic, which always manages to sound like the narration to a Narnia novel whenever sung. Download away and for New Yorkers, check some upcoming dates at her MySpace.
Sounds like: Joanna Newsom, Silje Nes, múm
DOWNLOADS: Windsor For The Derby - Maladies + Hold On
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Why sing over the chorus? It's really overkill. Just pack enough melody and hooks into the A-part that you can let the B ride without all those unnecessary words. Maybe some "ba-ba-badas" and tambourine if you really think you need them - everything else is gravy. Then follow that up with those blissed-out organs and multi-tracked vocals over a motorik beat. There you go. That wasn't so hard, was it?
Sounds Like: Stereolab, My Bloody Valentine, Bedhead
Download: Windsor For The Derby - Maladies
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Speck Mountain - Backsliding (Demo) + Girl Out West
Last night in Chicago in one direction the sky looked like the roof of some long-ago cathedral with gloriously lit clouds from the setting sun, while in the other direction you could see a storm rolling in across the city. We were right in the middle on a roof top wondering if the ominously whipping wind would push the clouds over to our side or if the brilliant sunset would explode instead. That moment in the middle is where Speck Mountain seems designed to operate. In the almost 9 minutes of "Girl Out West," the sonic build glides along, with no pesky insistence on grandeur, the song hits the sublime seemingly without trying. RCRD LBL exclusive demo "Backsliding" is a song that will be featured on the upcoming Some Sweet Relief. According to Karl Briedrick, one half of the Speck Mountain song writing team (along with Marie-Claire Balabanian), "this version was an accident. We think it has a certain intimacy because we didn't know anyone was listening or would ever hear it." Grab both tunes and get ready for the storm.
Sounds Like: The Morning After Girls, Moon High, Orouni, My Best Fiend
Exclusive Download: Speck Mountain - Backsliding (Demo)
Download: Speck Mountain - Girl Out West
Previous Downloads:
Download: Speck Mountain - Blood Is Clean
Download: Speck Mountain - Backslide
Speck Mountain's RCRD LBL page
FEATURED: Fleet Foxes And The Dodos Play La Blogotheque's Soiree
La Blogotheque’s Take Away Shows (Concerts A Emporter, really) are time and again some of the most tasteful and visually compelling online videos of bands playing in strange places (of which there are a lot). From Vampire Weekend slowing down “Walcott” by the Seine or a private Bon Iver show in a Montmarte loft, Vincent Moon and his crew never fail to make us yearn for that Parisian casualness; growing our beards, drinking cheap red and hand-rolling cigarettes on the back of acoustic guitars with our friends and great songs. The boho tip. No surprise, then, that the clips for the site’s “Soiree A Emporter” featuring our good friends The Dodos and Fleet Foxes are nothing short of excellent. Head over to the Frenchies’ Blogotheque to watch full sets from everyone involved, but grab some free tracks from both bands beforehand. We bid you adieu.
Videos from Soiree A Emporter #2 featuring Fleet Foxes and The Dodos
DOWNLOAD: Bird Names - Referents + Masters of Enjoyment
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The Daily Herald said of Chicago's Bird Names, "this band makes the Fiery Furnaces sound like Phil Collins," which I thought might be one of the best compliments written about a band in the last 5 years. It's true though, there is something so delightfully odd about Bird Names' newest release Open Relationship, it's hard to even come up with genres to explain what they're doing. Like other animal named bands (Panda Bear, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear) these 4 kids sound like they're throwing noises and sounds into the air and it's only when those ideas are floating around that they come together in cohesive songs. Like a vocal oom-pa band or an a capella fugue, "Referents" and "Masters of Enjoyment" are less records and more part of a sonic landscape it takes a whole album to create.
Sounds Like: Animal Collective, Fiery Furnaces, Panda Bear, Au
Download: Bird Names - Referents
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Motel Motel - Coffee + River
Just as you would count “Motel, motel, motel…” along the interstate, the band Motel Motel would have you rambling and moving past the storefronts and pit stops of America, traversing some great plain of the country’s heartland or history, extending your journey beyond its initial plan, stretching the rubber treads of your tires. The band writes Americana epics about liquids, lights and leaving shit behind, their songs usually pushing over five minutes and busting their flannel seams with sighing organs and sharp steel strings. There’s a wiry, almost cackling way that Motel Motel sing about their stories and their poisons, soaking their chamber-porch jams in preacher fire.
Below you’ll find two exclusive downloads from the band’s newly-released album New Denver. “Coffee” shuffles, skids and breaks open into a slamming ballad of chasing off inebriation, while “River” sets itself comfortably into surrounding mountaintops like a less drunk Whiskeytown. Download them both below, and make sure to grab the full-length over at iTunes if you dig.
Sounds like: Whiskeytown, The Felice Brothers, Flying Burrito Brothers
Exclusive Download: Motel Motel - Coffee
Exclusive Download: Motel Motel - River
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