Lizzyville

Mp3 | White Hinterland - "Lucky Cloud" (Arthur Russell Cover)

Mp3 | Pierre de Gaillande - "The Princess and the Troubadour"

Mp3 | Tycho - "Coastal Brake"

Mp3 | Holly Miranda - "Forest Green Oh Forest Green"

Mp3 | Aa - "Glow Wreath"

Mp3 | Via Audio - "Babies"

Mp3 | Miike Snow - "Burial"

Mp3 | IO Echo - "Stalemate"

Mp3 | The Big Pink - "Sweet Dreams" (Beyoncé Cover)

Hear, Here | Mp3s from Edward Sharpe, Mr. Dream, Voice On Tape, BOAT, Katie The Pest, Robot Koch & More

Mp3 | Lights - "Heavy Drops"

Mp3 | Solange Knowles - "Stillness Is The Move" (Dirty Projectors Cover)

Mp3 | Mount Kimbie - "Fifty Mile View"

Mp3 | Telephant - "5th Ace Of Anchors"

Hear, Here | 5 Awesome Mixtapes of the Week

Mp3 | Fuckpony - "You Can't Touch But Feel Free to Look"

Mp3 | Robot Koch - "While" ft. Manya

Mp3 | Dishwasher - "Beautiful Samurai Girlfriend"

Martin Cesar

Dishwasher is Martin Cesar, the lead singer of Montreal's Think About Life, a band I can't shut up about. This side project has been around about as long as Think About Life (four years?). It's a beautiful little fairy-dust sprinkling of flute samples, vertiginous tropical plucks, aquatic beats and Cesar's vocals at their featheriest. It could be a Veckatimest tribute or B-side. Dishwasher has a split EP out with Cottonmouth, as well as his own very lengthy release, Whre Are Tu?, which only costs $5 and is available as a digital release. Both are available at Villa Villa Nola. This track is taken from the split EP.

Dishwasher - "Beautiful Samurai Girlfriend"   

Dishwasher on MySpace

Mp3 | BOAT - "100 Calorie Man"

Seattle's BOAT, photographed by Paul Israel, evidently

It's been four years since BOAT's strangely titled but very touching "The Ferocious Sounds of Lobsters and Snakes" drifted on to my iTunes library, and another two since their promising, potential-laden second album Let's Drag Our Feet (which I reviewed on Pitchfork) came out. It's too early for me to capture the sense of their latest for Magic Marker, Setting the Paces, but if this little quickly-passing gem is any indication...

BOAT - "100 Calorie Man"

Mp3 | Lupe Fiasco - "Fire"

"My mind was a sponge, but now it's ShamWow."

Mp3 | Basia Bulat - "Gold Rush"

The Canadian folk-pop singer is coming to Brooklyn's Bell House tomorrow, October 7. The show has been canceled due to visa issues, according to Beggars Group. Listen to "Gold Rush" from her forthcoming second album, Heart of My Own, out Jan 26, 2010.

Mp3 | Vampire Weekend - "Horchata"

If Panda Bear's daughter wrote a song and he produced it and Ezra Koenig guest-sang.

Vampire Weekend - "Horchata"

Download Vampire Weekend - "Horchata"

Hear, Here | Songs from Memory Tapes, Islands, Washed Out, Kurt Vile, Shannon Stephens + More

Stream 10 songs from 10 promising new or upcoming releases after the jump.

Hear, Here | Mp3s from Girls, Choir of Young Believers & DM Stith

Here's my new free mp3 feature. Don't ask how often it'll run. It was inspired by reading Greg Kot's Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music, subsequently writing "The (Indie) Music Industry Is All Right" for my PopMatters column, Backslash (top article on the site for two weeks!), and subsequently reading Nick Hornby's "The thrill of it all," about mp3 blogs, in The Guardian (read it now!)

Choir of Young Believers - "Action/Reaction"

DM Stith - "Pigs" feat. Jefferson Street Band

Girls - "Hellhole Ratrace"

On Your Shopping List:

Choir of Young Believers - This Is For The White In Your Eyes (Ghostly, 8.18.09)

DM Stith - Thanksgiving Moon EP (Asthmatic Kitty, 11.3.09)

Girls - Album (True Panther Sounds/Matador, 9.22.09)

Photo courtesy of Girls

Slaraffenland - "Postcard"

I gushed over Slaraffenland's debut, Private Cinema, over at Pitchfork two years ago, and I've been mulling and gushing over the Danish group's energetic, more tightly-knit follow-up, We're On Your Side, in preparation for a review for Baeble. "Long Gone," the opener, immediately struck me as far more of an anthem, more immediately satisfying than any of the tracks on Private Cinema. Turns out, it's not alone. The debut had whispers and brushes of percussion, but on this album, the drums are leading. It's a welcome progression because the band's signature isn't smudged in the process. The opener is a tame, pleasant introduction to the power that awaits on subsequent tracks, like the awesome door-knocker-ish percussion on "Postcard":


Slaraffenland - "Postcard"

Buy We're On Your Side from Hometapes

Song of the Day | MNDR - "Fade to Black"

Sorry dudes, you can only stream it, but MNDR's "Fade to Black" is a pretty stunning IDM track that I had the pleasure of hearing at Littlefield on Saturday during the Girls' Guide to Rocking event. She's like Annie but, dare I say it, better, though she has fewer notches on her belt.

MNDR - "Fade to Black"

Song of the Day | Flying Lotus - "Auntie's Lock"

Couldn't think of a better way to wake up on a cloudy city Sunday morning. This song is a free giveaway from Warp to mark the release of the third installment of his L.A. EP.

Flying Lotus - "Auntie's Lock"

[Via RA]

New Song - "Reunion"

The view from my "recording studio."

Percussion! Plus: crickets and cars whizzing by. Not intentional.

Lizzyville - "Reunion"

More on MySpace

Bat for Lashes - "Daniel" (AnalogSuicide Mix) by Tara Busch

Tara Busch is a Californian-based analog synth aficionado, blogger and musician who just released an album, Pilfershire Lane, and for the cake icing, did this remix of Bat for Lashes' "Daniel" that feels like a perfect little opener to season we call fall and the English call autumn. The remix, named for Busch's blog, Analog Suicide, creates feathery and haunting backdrops for a pared down, relaxed version of Natasha Khan's hopping first single from Two Suns.

Download "Daniel (AnalogSuicide Mix)"

By the by, Bat for Lashes recently launched a remix competition for "Sleep Alone."

Historics: A Supergroup Worth Listening To?

So the snarkwits over at New York's Vulture have written up "The Ten Least Impressive 'Supergroups,'" which, yes, is a pretty impressive list of unimpressive bands. But I just got wind of a group called Historics that is making some pretty-boy pop that tilts the dial just slightly into the derivative zone and not nearly enough to warrant rejection.

The band features members of Maroon 5 (?), Amazing Baby (Wesleyan!), Favourite Sons, VietNam and Fast Fourier. Their debut features a cameo by Kool Keith (!) So by 'super' I mean a nice indie collaboration between five musical dudes with a lot else going on. But I'm liking what I'm hearing, particularly the track "Skin Orders." The band released its debut, Strategies for Apprehension, July 28th on Metropolitan Indian Records. Now here's that track:

Historics - "Skin Orders"

New Lizzyville Song - "Maybe"

This is sort of a weird combination of two songs, so it's not totally "new," but the other version of "Maybe" was shite. This an ungodly six minutes long. Highlights include me forgetting a lyric and some seemingly 10-mile-away reverbed backing vocals. Anyway, that said, I'm really digging it. What is it about? It's about unsuccessful love, success in love, and wanderlust in life. Thanks for listening.

Lizzyville - "Maybe"

RIYL/inspired by: This stunning live Grizzly Bear performance of "Ready, Able" on the Spinner Interface. GOD THESE GUYS.

Listen to more Lizzyville on MySpace.

Lizzyville Has a New Song

Yes, it's true, some new songs are going to see the light of day with the help of MySpace.

"48 Hour Mystery" was rattled off after watching some terrible episode of the show of the same name and having a bad dream about it: an intruder, a weapon, a strange conversation. So it's a little raw but you'll get the idea.

Me - "48 Hour Mystery"

Lizzyville on MySpace!

Ellie Goulding

London's Ellie Goulding makes highly remixable electro-pop songs, including "Starry-Eyed" and "Wish I Stayed" feat. Frankmusik, her male compatriot. Videos of Goulding's performances are so far sorely lacking, but MySpace features some surprisingly high quality streams. Check out the Stina Nordenstam-like sweet vocals and guitar on "Guns And Horses" or the original "Starry-Eyed" via Disco Dust.

Foreign Born - "Winter Games"

At turns, Foreign Born's LP Person to Person reminds me of The Constantines, James, DeVotchKa - a mainstay of Park Slope's Tea Lounge during my tenure - the Arctic Monkeys, the Shout Out Louds, even the Verve. In other words, they remind me of years gone by, and that's not a bad thing. The band hails from L.A. and has previously released an album called On the Wing Now and two EPs. They are allegedly a favorite of Edward Droste of Grizzly Bear. Here is my fave track (so far) from their new album, which is out June 23 on Secretly Canadian:

Foreign Born - "Winter Games"

Find out more via their MySpace page.

John Vanderslice - "Too Much Time"

John Vanderslice in the bathroom of Union Hall, Brooklyn

What did I do when I was living an a sweltering hot city in a room the size of an ironing board in an apartment that had a (working) washer and dryer in the garden but no window in the kitchen? I got a job at Ralph Lauren and wore uncomfortable heels to the encouraging delight of my much older, more monied co-workers. I also listened to John Vanderslice every day for weeks, including during the off hours in Ozzie's Cafe on 5th Avenue in Park Slope where I wrote a novel inspired by the beautiful places of my childhood.

What is this, a diary? John Vanderslice is being featured as one of five summer artists to listen to obsessively in a feature I'm writing for findingDulcinea (read this summer reads article in the meantime). In my research I found myself on Largehearted Boy, who I think was one of the first people to ever link to Lizzyville who wasn't my friend or relative or place of work ("Top Albums of 2006," I believe it was). I found his A to Z Guide to Music Downloads, which in the "V" slot features none other than John Vanderslice, who features a hefty amount of his back catalog as free downloads on his website.

I first heard about John Vanderslice in Jane magazine, another reason why that magazine never should have folded. Below is "Too Much Time," which might be the most straight-forwardly pretty song he's ever written. It's available FREE on his site, which is where I got it from. Enjoi!

John Vanderslice - "Too Much Time"

[via JohnVanderslice.com]

John is stopping by the MHOW tomorrow night 6/12 and Bowery Ballroom on Saturday 6/13. Tickets.

Micachu's Second Mixtape, this time with XL Artist Kwes - "Kwesachu"

The busy Micachu of Micachu & the Shapes has a new mixtape out with the young producer and recording artist Kwes. Titled "Kwesachu," which sounds like a sneeze, this is another free gift from Micachu following last year's "Filthy Friends."

Discovery - "Orange Shirt"

I have gone there. Partly because this cover is so pretty and partly because I find this man (Wes Miles) to be a great inspiration in how to use the voice you've got as I go about recording some special little ditties that I will share with you one day soon.

Discovery - "Orange Shirt"

For all you betes out there, this band is Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend plus Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot plus contributions from Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend.

Discovery on MySpace

Album coming out on XL on July 7.

"Idiot Heart" Is Neither Here (Sunset Rubdown) Nor There (Wolf Parade), Just Amazing

Photo: Anna Bauer for Fader

Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer will be released on Jagjaguwar on June 23, about a year after Wolf Parade's inconsistent but primarily addictive At Mount Zoomer. Zoomer felt far more Dan Boeckner than Spencer Krug, and Boeckner just released one of 2009's best albums with Handsome Furs' Face Control, the most Boecknery of all. Sunset Rubdown's music is often quieter, its structures more organic and fluid, and its lyrics more poetic and cryptic. But on "Idiot Heart," the first single off Dragonslayer, something stunningly different is happening.

As the second track on the album, "Idiot Heart" suggests the rest of the album will be similar: bold, energetic, adventurously rocking (guitar-heavy), with sharp but sparse vocals and maybe more of the tinselly keyboard that appears in this song's chorus. The guitar's melody is the centerpiece here. It's melodically innovative, with curling little phrase-end accents and a sturdy, powerful rhythm that holds the experiments in line. The lyrics are straightforward, if metaphorical, with standouts like "I've never been much of a dancer / but I know enough to know you gotta move / your idiot body around" and the kicker:

I hope that you die
in a decent pair of shoes
you got a lot more walking to do
where you're going to

Sunset Rubdown - "Idiot Heart" (via Pitchfork)

They only gave it a 6/10 but this is a rare, rare occasion when I don't agree.

Song of the Day | So Cow - "Halcyon Days"

So Cow hails from Ireland. He is cute, witty, and plays the guitar. RIYL Billy Bragg or the Arctic Monkeys. I love the first and I liked the second's first album and Mr. Cow is really growing on me. His album, "So Cow," was recommended to me by the band Mr. Dream, whose sound is a little more raging but in the same general realm. Today I give you "Halcyon Days," full of the modesty and nostalgia and candor that Bragg brings to simple, pared down punk.

So Cow - "Halcyon Days"

His album is available on Tic Tac Totally.

Check out his very minimal but useful website or this video:

Song of the Day | Maxïmo Park - "Let's Get Clinical"

Pretty much the only good song on the Mercury-nominated old post-punk fellows' new album, "Quicken The Heart." (Read my review of it on TMT.)

Maximo Park - "Let's Get Clinical"

Song of the Day | Metric - "Twilight Galaxy" plus special bonus from Matthew Good

Emily Haines at SXSW 2007.

I heard this song in Club Monaco (?) the other day and thought I must have passed off "Fantasies," the band's upcoming LP, too quickly, because it's quite lovely, and reminded me of the Matthew Good song "Pledge of Allegiance," which I've also posted below. Hey, they're both Canadian. Emily Haines also released a solo album with her band, The Soft Skeleton, in 2006 (I reviewed it on Stylus). Her father had just died and the songs are quite personal and depressing, but beautifully composed. Metric are louder and shinier, and I prefer "Twilight Galaxy" because it's...not.

Metric - "Twilight Galaxy"

Matthew Good - "Pledge of Allegiance"

Song of the Day | Meek - "SPRNG09"

Meek and friends performing in Tunisia in 2007 (Photo: Meek via Flickr)

This electronic artist from Montreal has been putting out stuff independently for nine years. He unfortunately shares his name with a really bad French twee band and his wonderful track "Who's On Drugs?" is seemingly only available on a Six Records compilation that's ... no longer available. But on MySpace you can check out a few of his (very minimalist) recent works and on his website he's given away a few really righteous tracks he's done over the years.

On his MySpace, I'm really fond of the quietly evolving and subtly melodic "SPRNG09," which he's just put up. It makes me want to go back and listen to "Drukqs" ... or continue to hunt around for Meek records that I can actually have and hold.

Meek - "SPRNG09" (via MySpace)

"Song" of the Day | Sound and Safe Playlist - WFMU - 05.04.09

Trent, who DJs for WFMU, created a wonderful playlist last night, one of his weekly "Sound and Safe" series, which runs Mondays from 8-11 pm. It featured a killer remix of "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base, some Little Boots (above), a new song by A Camp (Cardigans singer), Pet Shop Boys' SICK track "All Over The World" from their new album "Yes," a great ABBA track, and so much more!

Listen to it here!

Video of the Day | Jump, Little Children - "Say Goodnight"

You are permitted to display your shock. But I am very fond of this song and I found it while sifting through my archives this week. The video is from a concert DVD. Last night I was testing out my new/old headphones remembering how great they are and I just quietly listened to this song, enthralled and mesmerized, staring at my cat or a spot on the wall. It's a punchy, verging-on-recruiting-fans-of-Dave-Matthews pop song, but I looooooove it. Here's the track too. I fear these guys have also broken up and won't mind if I put this up:

Jump, Little Children - "Say Goodnight"

Song of the Day | Can Joann - "Indecision's Way"

This is an oldie-but-goodie, and by that I mean it's from 2006. These guys, who are from Chapel Hill, NC, have since broken up.

Can Joann -  "Indecision's Way"

Dead Prez + Grizzly Bear = "Two Weeks of Hip Hop"

The Hood Internet has put up a mashup by DJ ABX of Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks," from the forthcoming Veckatimest, and Dead Prez's "Hip Hop." The results sounds a little like Jay Z's "Hard Knock Life," but then so does the original "Two Weeks." It's wonderful, in other words.

ABX - "Two Weeks of Hip Hop" (via The Hood Internet)

There are plenty more mashups where that came from.

*Perhaps more incredible than the actual mashups are the (purposefully) badly photoshopped pictures that try to place two disparate musicians in one photo. e.g. this one of Kaki King and Tupac:

Mp3 | New Villager - "Rich Doors"

This was actually debuted on Spinner and various other spots in January, but fuck, let's give it another go. It might be one of my favorite singles of 2009 thus far. It appeared on Moongadget Records' two-disc compilation The Nocturnal Suite, released on Ghostly in October, appropriately the first song on disc one, because it is thoroughly triumphant and welcoming. The percussive mélange, from a powerful tympany thump to submerged, gurgly bass is alone noteworthy, but the way the song snowballs from straight-up electro to pretty, then Prince-y, then flangey, then sparkly vocal layering is rather brilliant. Sounds like a mess, but what it really is, is a colorful concoction saved by a lovely melody.

New Villager - "Rich Doors"

Song of the Day: Nosaj Thing - "Coat of Arms"

The Fader is currently featuring one of L.A.-based Nosaj Thing's new tracks, "Coat of Arms," which will be on his album "Drift," coming out June 9 on Alpha Pup. He's a pal of Flying Lotus. Listen:

Nosaj Thing - "Coat of Arms"

Check out Nosaj Thing on MySpace.

Photo credit: Buddhabong.com

D.M. Stith

Is there ever going to be anyone like Thom Yorke again? We're okay for now because Thom Yorke still exists and works. But I've always yearned for his virtuosic, sad, shy vocal rivulets and cryptic little poems in someone else. Could his shtick exist in someone else, somewhere else, and be owned by that person? Or would it be derivative, subject to endless comparison and bashing? I suppose I just want someone to have that drive and courage, new yet familiar, promising and stunning.

D.M. Stith, a visual artist otherwise known as David Stith, is a worthy candidate. (So is Grizzly Bear--see previous post.) According to an interview on WNYC, Stith, who has worked with My Brightest Diamond, apparently promised Asthmatic Kitty a record. I don't know how many artists can say their musical career began in such a way. In any case, he made it, spending a year trying to figure out what the hell he was doing while probably knowing deep down he was capable of doing well at whatever it was, or at least, enjoying the project. Stith describes the album as a reflection of this search process. He would sit down at his computer every day and have no idea what was going to come out. Like his "bad poetry" from high school, which he started with a single word, "one foot in front of the other, one word in front of the other," the album came through a series of little tinkerings and utterances. It is wonderful that such tentativeness yielded such a brilliant work.

Stith likes creating cacophonic vocal lines that swirl like an angry pack of ghouls around your ear. He employs piano, acoustic guitar and small orchestra to lend weight and fear to this already powerful mixture. Crackling percussion fed semingly by nature does fine work decorating more readable vocal lines like on the much-discussed "Pity Dance." I see witches dancing in front of a cauldron, a Greek chorus of wolves baying in the background. On "Creekmouth" he uses a powdery artillary of drums to roll the rhythm forward, wild vocals egging them on. This is the kind of stuff Mystery Jets has tried to do. And of course, there are some sleepy moments, like "BMB," but even those are carefully woven, instrumentally varied and ultimately just as memorable. Another standout track is the Jolie Holland-like "Thanksgiving Moon" and the Andrew Bird-like "Fire of Birds." Andrew Bird is definitely Stith's kindred spirit.

The album is out now. Check D.M. Stith out on MySpace, and prepare to suddenly have a fondness for the end of winter.

D.M. Stith - "Fire of Birds"

Some Legal and Free Ways to Download mp3s

"The best things in life are free." In the case of mp3s, this is not always true. Even if it were, finding free and legal mp3s is not the de rigeur method of retrieving new music. That honor goes to torrents, random blogs, message boards, forums, manila mailers from PR firms and record labels, iTunes gift cards, eMusic giveaways ... and so on.

But there is another way. In fact, there are several.

RCRD LBL | This is the obvious choice, but I want to just say my piece about this site, which is that it was created by Peter Rojas of Engadget and Gizmodo fame. It is a simply designed site (its color scheme black and white...of course I'm going to love it) that features more new artists than one can reasonably digest in a given (work) day. It's hard for me to treat music as ambient background noise, which is why I rarely listen to a new album while I'm at work. One of them, work or the album, needs my undivided attention, and at work, it's work. This is another reason why I don't frequent RCRD LBL as much as I ought to. When I do, I read Faith-Ann Young's posts. She is a hot and fashionable woman (gasp!) music critic and photographer, based in NY, but of many different origins, whom I will be featuring in my upcoming post on women music critics. She has great taste and can quickly tell us what's good about a band/artist and who/what they sound like.

Fingertips Music | This site has all the things I love in a website: great (adorable) design, free goodies, quality and metered offerings. Fingertips has been around since 2003 and instead of bombarding you with allthedozensofamazingnewbandsyoujusthavetolistenrightthissecond, Fingertips distills everything by week. A radical notion on the Internet.

SongShooter | The enjoyably minimalist SongShooter gives you one song a day. You can "keep it," "chuck it" or (coming soon) get it as a widget on your blog or site. A cool part of it is that you have to get the song on the day before it disappears forever - a good incentive to come back every day and a good way of putting value on up-and-coming artists' work. I like the purist philosophy of this site. As I said about RCRD LBL, it can feel overwhelming being confronted with a ton of new bands and their free mp3s.

iLike | iLike has a lot to offer (read: overwhelming). Its philosophy is tied up with social networking, as the iLike platform works on sites like Facebook and iGoogle. It showcases artists you've heard of, artists you haven't, and artists you don't want to ever (GarageBand). But if you're into social networking, song charts and recommendations, this is worth signing up for.

Amie Street | Amie Street tells us that it is the "best place to discover new music." Well, I don't know about that, but it may be one of. I found out about it last year when I got a press e-mail about The Walkmen's new album, which was temporarily available for $5 on the site. Mp3s are cheaper on this site and some of them are free. There is a nice mix of the type of indie artists you'd find on eMusic--and then some.

Internet Archive | The Internet Archive's live collection is just a list of hyperlinks, so it's not really worth screen-shotting. But it's an impressive collection of live recorded performances from a lot of bands you've heard of, including the Grateful Dead.

Spiral Frog | Download songs from popular artists like U2 and Lil Wayne. The only catch: you have to watch some ads in order to get access. In their words: "We do NOT ask you for a credit card. But we do ask for your time and attention. And, for that, we thank you …"