These are some of my absolute favourite blogs from my blogroll (see the left sidebar). The list is randomized from a larger list of my favourites, and it will change at every visit:
Young Galaxy is one of the bands I listen a lot to at the moment. They’re from Canada, and is fronted by former Stars touring guitarist Stephen Ramsay (and there are two other Stephen’s in the band as well + Stephen’s girlfriend Catherine + Pat + Susan = 6 bandmembers). Their music is not very different from Stars, - a bit “wider” and “spacier” maybe. I’m not going to say more, - just that they have a great album out on arts & crafts just now.
There’s so much good music released these days! Here are some albums that have been played A LOT on my stereo lately. These are highly recommended albums (+ some eps…)!
LUCKY SOUL - THE GREAT UNWANTED This is the ultimate spring music for me at the moment. Lucky Soul sounds very much like a 2007 indie version of the female motown soul-pop groups from the 60s. Their sound and their melodies really gives me the good, good feeling! An album full of good songs. The album can be bought from iTunes, amazon.co.uk and probably all good music stores.
ALL MY FRIENDS - ALL MY FRIENDS GET HUNG UP Those of you who downloaded our last mixtape (#10) will probably know the sweet, gentle and loveable popmusic of the UK-duo ALL MY FRIENDS. We had the song “Think of rain” on the mixtape, and I was so excited when I found this new album on eMusic. If you like the song we feature here and the songs on the band’s myspace, you’ll love the album. My heart melts when the good melodies and the warm male/female vocals are combined with xylophones, acoustic guitars, piano, tambourines and even flutes. Beautiful! The album is home-recorded and it is also released by the band on their own label. This means that if you buy it, the band gets most of the money in their own pockets, which is a very good thing in my opinion. Read about the album/recording/release in the band’s myspace-blog. Absolutely recommended! The album can be bought through emusic, napster and rhapsody.
THE LOVEKEVINS - VS. THE SNOW Better than ever! The Lovekevins’ debut-album is full of fresh sounding popmusic with lyrical twists that makes it all even better. Happy beats!
Here are two songs from an album with no bad songs:
JOANNA NEWSOM AND THE YS STREET BAND - EP Three songs, - three amazing songs. This ep is on high rotation on my stereo at the moment, and especially the opening track “Colleen” is something of the best I’ve heard so far this year. Unique as always, and with fantastic arrangements . Joanna Newsom sings wonderful on this. The two other tracks are different versions of songs from YS and The Milk-Eyed Mender.
The ep is available on eMusic, iTunes, amazon.com and probably in most other good record stores too. Since its only got 3 songs on it, I will not share any songs from it. Believe me, it is good, so go and buy it at once!
FEIST - THE REMINDER Everybody’s probably writing about this now, so I’ll keep it short. Feist’s new album is great, - even better than her last one. She’s almost gotten rid of the 80s references and the jazzy elements are more present, which I think is a great move. There are some really great songs on this new album. It is available from iTunes, amazon.com, and I guess this one will be available in ANY music store… or?
There are plenty of tracks from the album at The Hype Machine, but this one’s a masterpiece, so buy it at once!
THE MARY ONETTES - S/T We have enjoyed the two ep’s from the swedish Labrador-band THE MARY ONETTES for some time now, and their new album is very enjoyable. For those of you who still doesn’t know The Mary Onettes, they sound like NEW ORDER melted together with A-HA and DURAN DURAN…or something like that. Their two singles were great, but some of the songs on this albums are awesome. I especially recommend “Henry”. Listen to the full album on last.fm, or download the song “Lost” from the Labrador-label for free: The Mary Onettes - Lost
You can buy the album directly from the label, from eMusic and probably somewhere else too…
The swedish band The Milestone Corporation has released a new five-track EP called ‘Songs About Steven’. This is their second ep, and it will be released both as a free download on their website and as a cd-version that may be bought from the same site for 6 Euro. I especially like the song about Steven. TMC - Steven
This is not the kind of music that I usually write about, but I just had to this time. I love when musicians experiment and play around with unusual elements in their music, and when established artists dare to do it, I love them even more. This post is about Mira Craig, one of Norway’s best selling artists. She writes extremely rhythm-based popmusic, and here’s a video from norwegian television (NRK) where she shows us how she makes the rhythms and sounds in her studio. Some of the sounds on the album she’s working on now is made with a stapler, cardboard boxes, rubbing her back against the studio walls, toiletpaper-rolls, pincers and other things that she finds laying around in the studio. I love the playful attitude! (The interview is in norwegian, but just listen to those beats!)
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and probably in most other good record stores too. Since its only got 3 songs on it, I will not share any songs from it.
, and I guess this one will be available in ANY music store… or?
