Fanfarlo just posted this one on their site, – a cover of “A minor place” by Bonnie Prince Billy.

Today, I would like to point your attention to a couple of free releases from some other good music blogs. Both of these are highly enjoyable and recommended.

Canciones Pegajosas 2 – Argentinian indie pop, – perfect for summer!

The first one is a compilation-EP from our fellow Music Alliance Pact-blog Zonaindie from Argentina. It’s called “Canciones Pegajosas 2”, which should translate “sticky songs 2”. This is in fact one of my favourites this summer, – I love this one, and it is perfect for sunny and happy summer-days. All artists perform their songs in Spanish, and I have no clue what they sing about, but the atmosphere and the melodies in these songs are perfect for me. It’s mainly guitar-based indie-pop with some acoustic elements. The EP features five songs from artists who never have had the chance to record in a professional studio, and the people at Zonaindie invited them to a studio (Baker Street Studios) and helped them to record their songs professionally. All the songs are published under creative commons, and you are free to upload, copy or share these songs as you wish. They are also available in several formats, incl. mp3, OGG, Flac and even multi track versions. I’m impressed!
You can download it from here: www.cancionespegajosas.org or from this shortcut to the zip file: http://www.archive.org/download/cancionespegajosas2/CancionesPegajosas2.zip
There is also a 10 track “Canciones Pegajosas 1” available on the same site.

Here’s one of the songs from the compilation-EP:

Planeador 2.0 – Mi inconsciencia

Deirdre and Conor – playful acoustic folk-pop with great melodies

The second release comes from the fine music site Beat The Indie Drum.

Their netlabel has recently released their 6th release, and this time it’s a 6 track EP with the Philadelphia band Deirdre and Conor , “at our tiny dinner table”. The EP is full of lovely songs where both Deirdre and Conor sings (I guess that is their names…), acoustic guitars, violins/strings, nice la-la-choirs, glockenspiels and “soft” drums. The music of Deirdre and Conor was definitely a nice new addition to my music library, and one I am sure will be played quite a lot this summer. Very good, and highly recommended!

You can get the EP for free from Beat The Indie Drum’s netlabel, here:

http://www.beattheindiedrum.com/?page_id=252

Here is a song from the ep, and a video:

Deirdre and Conor – We should Self Unite

(My cat is just like me these days)

This post is just a “I’m sorry” from me to you. I haven’t been as active on the blog as I would like to, and even though I have tons of material to write about, I just don’t feel for doing it. I’m struck by some kind of summer laziness, and it has lasted a while. I love listening to music, and I love discovering music, but at the moment it’s so hard writing about it. It will get better, I know, but at the moment I will allow myself some laziness… So, there will be posts once in a while, but not every day. Sorry.

Here’s a little lazy favourite of mine, from an album that has followed me on several sunny holidays. It’s from Birdie’s lovely “Some dusty” album, and the song is of course called…

Birdie – Lazy Day

…and when I’m in the mood for lazy day-songs, here’s a classic from one of my absolute favourite bands:

The Boo Radleys – Lazy day (from “Everything’s Alright Forever”, – oh how I love that album!)

Just as I launched the new Eardrums collaboration project, the news about a collaboration between two of my personal favourites arrived. Just to make it clear, – these are not part of our collaboration compilation (but it would be fantastic if…).

THE PASTELS from Glasgow and TENNISCOATS from Tokyo has recorded some songs together. The project, Two Sunsets, will be released on vinyl, cd and download on September 7. A double-A single with the songs Vivid Youth and About You will be released on August 3rd, and The Pastels and Tenniscoats are playing at the Moseley Folk Festival on September 4 and Bush Hall, London on September 6 with more dates to follow.

This is what the pressrelease says:

“Recorded in Glasgow over a two or three year period usually around Tenniscoats UK touring, the album started out casually from a simple idea of booking some studio time to see what happens. Songs seemed to arrive as needed and a group mode was established, usually Saya and Ueno from Tenniscoats with Stephen, Katrina and Gerard Love from The Pastels with Tom Crossley, Alison Mitchell, and sometimes Norman Blake and Bill Wells dropping by. The sound is sort of compact but not too earth-bound; it opens out with graceful notes, odd notes, the melodic clang of cars and trees in the summer, and birds, trees, slopes, adventures. It’s melodic, optimistic, brilliant.”

The Pastels/Tenniscoats collaboration will be released on Geographic/Domino Recordings.

Great news!

I’ve just published the details about the new Eardrums Pop compilation we’re working on, with the temporary title “The Handshake”. This is a collaboration compilation where the artists need to collaborate on the songs, and the artwork will also be made this way.

The details can be found on our eardrums pop label site, and I need a lot of help from both you, the readers, + artists, illustrators, poets, painters, writers, bloggers + all other friendly people who would like to help with this release. Contact me from the Eardrums Pop-site!

I would also like to thank all the people who participated in our liveblog! Your advice and ideas helped me a lot! Thanks!!