Arguably (just by me) the best band indie-pop band to come out in the last decade, Annuals, release their first album in nearly 5 years.
Pick up their album "Time Stamp" on Bandcamp for a small fee of 8 bucks.
Of course, you can download it for free like every other music junky on the planet.
But be aware that the band went broke making this album.
How about we give them some money back for what they've given to us.
Just sayin', You will not be disappointed.
Drawing inspiration from the things immediately surrounding him,
Snævar Njáll Albertsson, writes about the relations closest to him.
Namely, his beautiful and creative daughter, who thought up the moniker Dad Rocks! (go figure)
His lyrics, are well-crafted and shed imagery with every new stanza.
'Nuff said.
The songs consists of twinkling pianos, bright acoustic finger plucking, and other various classical instruments that blend themselves into anthem-like arrangements.
Rendered into its own genre, consider Dad Rocks! as a brew of Indie-Folk music with a dash of Lo-Fi Pop
Practicing the sponge-approach, Dad Rocks! embodies anything it wants to.
Absorbing anything deemed creative to utilize and squeeze out all at once.
Which is actually fairly similar to what it's like to be a kid.
Never really knowing who you are, you helplessly scramble to try and figure it out.
You take pieces of everything as you get older.
Absorb anything that comes in contact with you.
Grab ahold of certain values and extremities but reject others.
Then, in a blended mess, you whisk them all together to form who you are.
Well that, in essence, is Dad Rocks!
It is the ability to uncover yourself over an elapsed period of time, through creativity and discovery.
Feel Flows~
"Mount Modern" is listed as a pay-what-you-want album on Bandcamp.
Any donations wold (obviously) be greatly appreciated by the band.
Hailing from upstate New York, Coast Jumper engulfs its listeners with reminiscent sounds of a washed-out beach boys harmony and new-school California indie-pop.
The album exudes a certain tension that suggests that I pick up and move to a different place.
All in one quick motion. This is not a bad thing.
Best consumed on your late-night drive home from the beach.
After you trudge your tired feet through the hot sand and into the parking lot.
After you brush away the final drops of your Bourbon into the dirt and start your ignition.
You're on your way home but you've got miles to go.
Squeeze the wheel and hypnotize yourself with the nearest tail light.
Learn the songs, sing the chorus.
Coast Jumper is here to keep you company.
Feel Flows~
*Pick up Coast Jumper's first album on Bandcamp for free!
Find a better deal than that, I dare you.
... Link listed below.
LIYL: Modest Mouse, Tv on the Radio, The Kinks, and Arctic Monkeys
While searching amongst the endless list of unknown bands on Bandcamp,
I found something worth listening to.
Its amazing how much crap music there is in the world. And all in one place might I add.
Like all the shitty musicians got together and said lets make the listeners ear's bleed.
But, good music always floats upward.
Turning shit into gold. Alchemy.
Few artists can master the idea behind silence.
Whole seconds without a single note.
Music goes on during every second of our lives,
but its the silence that we take for granted.
Yet somehow the quite actually becomes a sound.
Like how after you turn off a lamp or television,
there is always a faint buzz that rises above your head like its passing right over you.
"Translation" is Songs: Ohia's calling card.
If you like this song,
get the album!
One of the most incredible musicians of his time.
Not only does he have one of the most versatile catalogues,
but the sound of his whistle might make your girlfriend swoon.
Noootttt-a-problem.
Feel Flows~
If you like Classical....
If you like Rock N Roll...
If you like Folk Rock...
If you want something that makes you say "Holy Shit!"
LIYL: The idea of things working out the were they were supposed to. ***PHOX UNBLUSHING was recorded in one take, mistaken lyrics, wonky notes and all, over the course of the last 5 days of May, 2012 Feel Flows~
Their award winning album "An Awesome Wave"
is still being played on both sides of the Atlantic,
even months after being released.
...And there are no signs of that slowing..
"My name is Daniel McBride, 17 years of age, and Ablutophobia EP is the result of 9 months on-and-off recording in a tiny little studio I've managed to set up in my bedroom. I composed and performed all the songs by myself, borrowing various instruments to try and live up to the ideas I had in my head - an endeavour that saw me teach myself cello and euphonium, simply because I'd decided they were essential to the song. Feel Flows~
LIYL: The Lucksmiths, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, and M Ward Its good to acknowledge music as an exponential factor for change. The more we change, the more our taste for music change. and so it goes. However, sometimes the music itself sits solidified within its perfect structure. Styles harden and become a musician's own. Chord progressions and time signatures begin to represent the artist, and the artist represents the chord progressions and time signatures. and so it goes. An endless cycle of cause and effect that builds the (respected) genre into what it is now. All though, some musicians- like Christopher Wright- never really adapt new ears for new music. These musicians don't change- they don't alter their ways for the satisfaction of higher selling albums. Instead, they do what they always do. Perfect what has already been perfected. and so it goes. Feel Flows~
LIYL: The Oh Hello's, Of Monsters and Men, Coldplay, and Beirut
Step outside the box youve trapped yourself in,
to a crowded hallway.
Change the steps you take to walk,
to a slow hop.
Change the broken home alternative rock,
to a vast landscape of indie folk.
and you have Racing Glaciers.
Their songs build, glow, build, and refract.
In that order.
There was a time where Sam Beam from Iron and Wine had too many songs.
As docile as the man is, he searched for help to complete the songs that had filled his books.
From cover to cover, he taught the young band Calexico,
all of his songs.
Calexico, however, saw things differently.
They saw things a little bigger than one acoustic and a soft rounded spotlight.
They saw the songs as an atonement of everything holy and pure.
They recorded the album and stashed it within their book cases.
Always to look back on for some subtle advice as to how to write an album.
Point on telling you this: Dont allow yourself to get stuck within a bubble of your own music.
Step entirely out of your own box to find opinion. Besides, the fans are who you want to please.
LIYL: The Head and the Heart, Dr. Dog, Bowerbirds, and Devendra Banhart
I remember marching through the lined layers of evergreen and maple..
They established my trail back to the campus..
--It was the summer of 2009-- I think.
I consumed the morning- in the forest- behind the baseball field..
All the other kids (with their pumped up kicks) were going down to the football field.
-I wasn't interested-
I don't even remember what I was doing.
Probably trying to hug the wind --if i know my adolescent self
I just remember settling into a comfortable pile of soil + stone,
and listening to Andy Cabic's (Vetiver) catalogue on my Ipod.
It was so innovative at the time.
So avant-garde (if you will)
I found myself embedded within the soil itself.
Enough so, that I didn't leave that very spot until every one of his tracks were carefully examined.
... We all have this sort of pull string in our head.
One that yanks at our emotions every time something triggers it..
It could be an old picture of the house you moved away from all those years ago.
It could be the post card you got from your grandfather just before he passed away.
It could even be the developing lines on your mothers face as time canyons in and out of dark and light.
It could be a lot of things.
But music is the best at doing that..
One note can send you spiraling down the rabbit hole and into a fresh wound.
...It can flood your veins with emotions you were certain you defeated.
...But we should be embracing that feeling.
Embracing the hardships
Embracing the misery and misfortune.
Embracing catastrophe.
"Dont be upset that the rose grew thorns...
be happy that the thorns grew a rose."
Home-Work Assignment:
In light of all the shit you have on your plate,
sit and listen to a song that brings you back to a better time..
Reflect on it.
Realize that time heals all.
Realize that you cant remember the stress you were under during the first time you heard that tune back in 2009, 8, 7, 6, whatever
This is because our consciousness doesnt allow us to dwell on the difficulties,
and because music -when you want it to- tends to buffer out the bad.
It shelters you from the universal truth that time is passing by.
...Now attempt to grasp the concept that your future holds- relative- but higher levels of stress.
And all the stress you tend to find yourself under now
is merely an obstacle in time that you must work through to forget.
Sit and listen to a song that brings you back to a better time,
because music is the only thing that can solidify itself enough for you to still recall the melody
even after years of neglect.
LIYL: Sufjan Stevens, Lost in the Trees, and Andrew Bird "Half Moon Run is a talented young trio from Ottawa, Ontario and Comox, British Columbia. It was in a practice studio situated in Montreal’s Mile-End district, through the hardships of time constraints and flatlined bank accounts, that the trio bonded and created their unique sound, fusing together the restless elements of indie, pop and folk with beautiful rhythmic harmonies, delicate guitar lines and a hint of warm electronica" -Band Website ~Flows Feel
