As it was played on the radio this morning, I wanted to post the
video for
Zookeeper’s Boy by
Mew, but all I got was the “
embedding disabled by request” message! I’m tempted to post multiple question marks here, because what exactly is the motivation behind this decision? I’m truly sorry that I wanted to promote one of your songs. Sorry, sorry, sorry and I promise that I’ll never do it again! My big problem is that I absolutely adore
Mew, so hopefully it’s just some label jerk showing his complete lack of judgment.
The lovely
Someone You Replaced by
Kind of girl was played on the radio as well. The debut album
Lonely in a modern way will (finally) be digitally released August 11. What a long, long journey this has been.
Also on the radio this morning was the annoying
Don’t Get Me Wrong by
The Pretenders (
video) and I seriously believe it must be one of the worst songs ever written.
Swedish male/female duo
New Found Land has just finished recording their first release (?) and the track
Leave It All Behind once again leaves me in complete awe how the stream of charming and catchy pop tunes by Swedish bands never seems to dry out.
Hits In The Car favorites
Ether Aura are giving away an unreleased version of the album track
Our Favorite Song. These guys deserve a major breakthrough, so they can go on a world tour, as I believe this will be my only chance to ever see them in concert.
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Our Favorite SongAnother favorite act
The Papertiger Sound will soon be releasing/publishing a new EP. It's to be called
This Is How It Ends and hopefully there's no deeper meaning to the title? Every single track recorded by this amazing band is available as a
free download.
I love small indie labels like
Shelflife,
matinée etc., but at the same time I do find it a bit frustrating when the “coming soon” signs are up for months. When will
Shelflife release that
Paris and I EP by
Champagne Riot and it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I cannot sleep at night, because I’m impatiently awaiting the
Napoleon Sweetheart EP by
Northern Portrait (hopefully out on
matinée very, very soon)?
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Champagne Riot – Heroes Of Our Time
Re-post - Promo track added! The Blueflowers debut album Watercolor Ghost Town was released this Saturday (buy), and even though I received my copy a while back, I hadn’t really listened to it. But today I pulled my act together and showed more initiative than almost ever before, when I ripped the album onto my computer at work, so I can give more thorough listens. Don’t expect this sudden energy level to sustain, but nice for at change to actually getting something done and feeling that things are progressing. As some of you probably know already, The Blueflowers is a fairly new constellation featuring Kate and Tony of now split up Detroit shoegazers Ether Aura. And when you listen to the album it makes perfect sense that the duo decided that a change was needed, at they are heading in a new musical direction. The songwriting skills remain intact, so nothing to fear on this front, but the dreamy shoegazing sounds have been put to rest for now, and alt-country/americana influences seem to be the new black. I know I really shouldn’t complain about this switch, as my first impression of Watercolor Ghost Town is that we’re dealing with an excellent album, but I know parts of me will forever hope that Ether Aura (or as a minimum, their sound in whatever band constellation possible) will return some day. No promo MP3’s are (yet?) available, but I will soon start lobbying for permission to post a sample of the album.
Sometimes I cannot help thinking that life just isn't fair. I just read the great news that Ether Aura will be playing a free show on August 24th at The Berkley Front. The only, but quite significant problem is that the venue is located in Michigan, which is (at least) a 12 hours journey away from Denmark. But if you happen to be in the Detroit area next Friday don't miss the opportunity to see this fantastic band live. Below two tracks from this year's excellent album, Before We Could Sing.
The first time I listened to Twist from the new Ether Aura album Before We Could Sing (officially released tomorrow), it felt just like a bomb went off in my head. This fantastic track, in all its energetic intensity, runs for 2 minutes and 39 seconds and has those lovely roaring drums, them noisy shoegaze guitars and a chorus to die for. On top of that you have the angel like and absolutely wonderful voice of Kate Hinote, who so demonically declares “I WILL hurt you”, which makes this track so darn close to being perfect.
Thanks to Falk/Darkerradio (don't know what he prefers) for recommending Canadian indie pop/rock band Red Orkestra. This Ontario based band is definitely inspired by the British music scene listing bands like The Manics, The Smiths, Suede etc. among the influences, though I do hear a lot of Budapest, Embrace, Haven and even Coldplay inspiration in the music. A total of 7 tracks are generously available from either the band's webpage or Last.fm, and all of the songs are pretty nice and catchy. Even though some might claim that this is not the most groundbreaking/innovative band you'll ever listen to, the songs are certainly worth a spin (or two).
Myspace has (rightfully) been critized for reducing the bit rate of the songs to 96 kbps, but as long as bands/artists insist on using the service (despite all its flaws), it regularly ends up being the only place where you can download certain songs. Below are posted a few songs I've found tonight that I'd love to get in a better quality, but for now I (reluctantly) have to live with these poorer sounding versions.
Download Waiting from the album Crash by brilliant shoegaze/dreampop band Ether Aura. And while you're listening remember to download the band's fab. version of Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.
Who is Groovyjim you might ask? Well he is one of my "friends" at Myspace, but more importantly he runs an online radio station called Vertigo. The radio station plays shoegaze, dreampop etc. and the monthly top 25 listener-rated tracks list is always an interesting read. Here are some really nice/cool songs I found, when checking out some of the bands on the recent list.
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