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OUR EARDRUMS POP RELEASES:

Free+digital only. Made with the artists' approval.
BIRDSONGS,BEESONGS
- April/May-2009
A GOOD CROP
-September - 2008
SUMMER'S HERE!
-June 2008
Cover by Alex Noriega Cover art for Volume 2, by Helena Garcia

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eardrums: My Top 3 Weekly #lastfm artists: Summer Camp (14), Mountain Man (13) and Teenage Fanclub (12) http://bit.ly/b6Kj3k
4 hours ago
44315: 聴いてるなう♪ RT @eardrums: Let me introduce Smilelove, wonderful Japanese indiepop with attitude! eardrumsmusic.com/2010/09/02/let…
8 hours ago
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11 hours ago
eardrums: @seasonglabel would love to be there, but... :-( Good luck! Some videos would be nice...
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eardrums: @jwojwo Yes it is. My favs are Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops, but they haven't released any bad albums in my opinion.
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A post about Heimdalsgate and the other references to Norway in Of Montreal’s recent songs…

December 31st, 2006 by Knut


all songs mentioned in this post can be downloaded below)

Of Montreal has become one of the bands that I started to like a little and have begun to love a lot. Their new album “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?” will be out on polyvinyl records on the 23rd of january, and what I have heard so far sounds absolutely brilliant.

I am not going to say much about the album now, but focus on a thing that’s a bit interesting for a norwegian like me, and maybe for others too. The theme of this post may seem a bit nerdy, and it probably is:
this is a post about the references to Norway in Of Montreal’s recent songs.

Kevin Barnes
of Of Montreal has a norwegian wife named Nina, who used to play bass and sing for the norwegian band Ethnobabes (another Eardrums-favorite). Their daughter Alabee was born in Norway, and several songs for the Of Montreal-album The Sunlandic twins were written during Kevin’s stay in the country. Their new album is recorded partly in a tiny norwegian bedroom and in an attic in Athens, GA.

Norway has definitely made his mark on Kevin Barnes, and several of his titles and lyrics are referencing to his wife and child’s country of birth. It is clear that the meeting with Norway has not been entirely positive for Barnes, and that cultureshock and depression has been a part of his norwegian experience.

On the Sunlandic twins-album, there is a track called “Oslo in the summertime”(lyrics here), where he sings about his first meeting with Oslo. He tells about sunshine at night, no sleep and the empty city of Oslo (all the people are on holiday…). In this song, he also mentions Heimdalsgate, – the name of the street where he and Nina stays when they are in Oslo (“gate” = street in norwegian). If you click here, you will see a photo of Heimdalsgate (from the air).

“Heimdalsgate is like a Promethean Curse” is the opening track on Of Montreal’s new album, and it captures the crisis and depression he went through during his first time in Norway. “I’m in a crisis, I need help”, he says in the very personal lyrics. Very dark lyrics, Super-energetic and uplifting music…

The new song “Du og Meg” tells the story about a girl who fell in love with a boy from “across the ocean in the evil empire”. “Du og Meg” is norwegian for “You and Me”. In the song the girl tours “the evil empire” with her band, where she meets this boy. I guess the name of the band is The Ethnobabes

Here are some related songs for you:

The Ethnobabes – Make some sound

The Ethnobabes – my favorite fool
(both from their label’s site)

Of Montreal – Oslo in the summertime
Of Montreal – Heimdalsgate is like a promethean curse - from polyvinyl
Of Montreal – Du og Meg - from stereogum

+++

The whole new Of Montreal album can be streamed from here.
The great You ain’t no picasso has another downloadable track on his site.

Posted in Column | 2 Comments »

Winter Reporter

December 28th, 2006 by Ivar

Merry Christmas everyone! Here is one of my favourite alternative Christmas songs, “Winter Reporter” by The Loch Ness Mouse. The song is about a guy that works as a snow reporter for a local newspaper and the editor is giving him a hard time!

The song is found on a EP with the great title “If I’ll make it through Christmas” (Perfect Pop, 2001) along with artists like Dipsomaniacs, American Suitcase, Cinnamoon etc.

Listen to it here: “Winter Reporter” (from rosemary-records.com)

Another heartbreaker is Ephemera’s alternative Christmas song “Gift”. It starts like this:
“I sing, rather than pray. In Church on Christmas Day”.

Listen to it here: “Gift” (from ephemera.no)


On the Ferry. Home for Christmas. Photo: ephemera.no

Posted in Nordic music | Comments Off

Knut’s 2006 TOP45 list

December 27th, 2006 by Knut

I know I’m late, but here are the albums I liked best in 2006.

  1. Final Fantasy He poos clouds

  2. Audrey visible forms

  3. [Ingenting] mycket vsen fr ingenting

  4. My latest novel wolves

  5. Page france: Hello, dear wind

  6. Someone still loves you boris yeltsin broom

  7. Midlake – “The Trials of Van Occupanther”

  8. VETO – There’s A Beat In All Machines

  9. Bonnie Prince Billy the letting go

  10. Headlights – kill them with kindness

  11. The Curtains Calamity

  12. Shiny toy guns we are pilots

  13. My brightest diamond – “Bring Me The Workhorse”

  14. Junior boys so this is goodbye

  15. Drowsy snow on moss on stone

  16. Joanna Newsom ys

  17. Anathello floating world

  18. Ron Sexsmith time being

  19. Sonic Youth Rather ripped

  20. Math and Physics club s/t

  21. Tom Brosseau empty houses are lonely

  22. Lily Allen – “Alright, Still”
  23. The Rifles no love lost

  24. EPO 555 mafia

  25. The Dears ticket to immortality

  26. 120 days s/t

  27. Hey Willpower – PDA
  28. Semifinalists – semifinalists

  29. Hanne Hukkelberg Rykestrasse 68

  30. Guther sundet

  31. Thom Yorke – “The Eraser”
  32. Head like a kite – Random Portraits of the Home Movie

  33. ISAN plans drawn in pencil
  34. Vetiver to find me gone

  35. Serena Maneesh – Serena Maneesh

  36. Clogs lantern

  37. Dirty on Purpose Hallelujah Sirens

  38. James Yorkston the year of the leopard

  39. Juana Molina son

  40. Delaware lost in the beauty of innocence

  41. Crash Tokio – Heads, We’re Dancing

  42. Fern Knight music for witches and alchemists

  43. Pascal frbi fabriken

  44. The Submarines the submarines

  45. The Charade a real life drama

  • I also enjoyed a lot of Eps this year, especially from:
    MAPS, THE LITTLE ONES, I WAS A CUB SCOUT, FIELDS, TO MY BOY, HEARTS OF BLACK SCIENCE, THE BOYFRIENDS, FAMILIAR TREES, FANFARLO, HOPE I DIE VIRGIN, IT HUGS BACK, JENIFEREVER, THE LADYBUG TRANSISTOR, THE MARY ONETTES, [INGENTING], MONZANO, PALACE FIRES, PAGE FRANCE, VOXTROT, BIRD&BEE, 28 COSTUMES… and probably some more….

Posted in Lists | 3 Comments »

Last.fm tags: the gift that keeps giving

December 26th, 2006 by Nicolas

Merry Christmas, readers! I hope Santa brought you lots of records; my favourite novelty gift this year was an i-Dog, which is just kitsch enough for my taste.

L

Christmas day is always quiet and boring here, so I had lots of time to play with my Last.fm, probably the best social music website around. If you don’t know how it works, you should check it out: it logs everything you listen to on your computer, and then offers custom-made recommendations based on your taste, as well as several radio stations. I’m addicted to it (the community’s really friendly too), and though my profile doesn’t change much any more, there’s still lots to do when you start using tags.

See, you can file the website’s music using keywords; for example, you can note that Tender Trap is “twee pop“, and the band will show up in the “twee pop” radio for people to discover.

Of course, it becomes a lot of fun when you become creative with tags. Amelia Fletcher from Tender Trap, for example, has invited her fans to use the “kool girl disko” tag to create a fun radio for their community.
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/486423/2/istockphoto_486423_pink_disco_girl.jpg
By Dodeskaden (iStockPhoto)

So this is where we celebrate Christmas on Eardrums: let’s exchange tags! My favourite one to listen to all day and all night are “hey song youre so fucking cute“; it always brings a smile on my face, and if you enjoy Eardrums you’ll probably like it too. Help me feed it (with songs only please, not albums or artists)! There’s also “recorded on the john” for songs with weird echos, and “four guys with guitars“, for stereotypical (good) rock bands.
I look forward to getting tag suggestions from you; and don’t forget to join the Eardrums group!

Posted in Column | Comments Off

Lasse Lindh Wishes You a Merry Christmas

December 23rd, 2006 by Nicolas

The internet’s tubes are full of good karma this holiday season, and it sounds like music bloggers have been especially good this year: we’re getting lots of presents in the form we like best, mp3′s! It seems that Swedish artists are the most generous: Knut shared songs by The Knife, Irene and Hello Saferide earlier this month, and now it’s time for Lasse Lindh’s holiday special.

Lasse is a Labrador artist who gave us the song “Happy New Year” with his band Tribeca a couple of years ago; to me, it’s still one of the most eloquent songs about the sadness of the end of December (together with “The New Year” and, uh, “Last Christmas”).


Lasse live in NYC last summer (from official site)

His gift to us this Jul is a set of funny, disposable accoustic covers. Here they are, from his official site:
Lasse Lindh – Genie In a Bottle (Christina Aguilera cover)
Lasse Lindh – Let’s Go To Bed (The Cure cover)
Lasse Lindh – Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Smiths cover)
Lasse’s Myspace

Oh, and about “Last Christmas”, if you’ve never heard the version by Erlend ye (King of Convenience, Whitest Boy Alive and Singing DJ), you should; here it is, courtesy of The Yellow Stereo.

Posted in Nordic music | 4 Comments »

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