Phillip Bimstein’s Larkin Gifford’s Harmonica, J Luc Pitard dropped this one by the other day to try and I have listened to it about a dozen times since then. It is music with vocals worked in a similar way to Steve Reich’s Different Trains, modern ‘classical’ music as I understand it. Most modern classic leaves [...]
Belle and Sebastian are a big band among the trendy, but surprisingly are actually very, very good. Their latest album is The Life Pursuit and you will see it near the top of many best of the year lists. My favorite track is The Blues Are Still Blue sadly unavailable to sample anywhere I can [...]
Ratatat are an electronica group out of Brooklyn, New York. Electronic music is often background music for me, not really something that grabs me, but I like to have it around. Wildcat from their album Classics is a rare electronic song that really grabs me, you can listen to it on their myspace page here. [...]
November 28th: Today in 1925 the Grand Old Opry show debuts on WSM radio, still its home today. I know that many look down on country music, but I have to say I think it is their loss. Much of country music is crap, but so is most rock, rap, opera, etc. If you look [...]
El Perro Del Mar is a one person band from Sweden with a unique singing style you will likely either love or hate. I really like it obviously, but the sound is so distinct that I suspect it will be like the Indigo Girls for me, I will love her work in small doses. Anyway [...]
The Mendoza Line is a New York based band with a variety of music styles ranging from folk to the catch all ‘alternative’. I have no idea how popular they are in the real world but their recent album Full of Light and Full of Fire has a number of good catchy songs. My favorite [...]
Ok, this one is a bit lean, nothing on Youtube, no free full sample songs around and the album I am listening to is over ten years old, but I am really enjoying Annbjorg Lien’s Felefeber album. She is a Norwegian Fiddle player, the sound is very similar to celtic fiddle on this album, at [...]
Jonathan Coulton is a singer-songwriter with an interesting range of songs and fairly big nerd following. He is also a believer in the Creative Commons Licenses as am I*, so you can try quite a lot of his music then give him some cash if you like the songs. Note, this only works if people [...]
Another brilliant example of what makes the internet great, The Helsinki Complaints Choir, don’t worry it is subtitled:
Via Neil Gaiman’s Blog
Katherine Whalen was one of the lead singers for the Squirrel Nut Zippers in the 90s and her singing has been compared to some of the great early jazz and torch singers. This June she released a new album that she did with David Sale called Dirty Little Secret which has a number of great [...]