Music

Good stuff to download:

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha. Bird makes a play for a bit more commerical appeal, with a few tracks in U2's wheelhouse, but overall it's very quietly passionate, idiosyncratic wonderment. One odd thing, though--emusic has an exclusive track called Self-Torture that's not on the album and better than any track on the album. So get both. If you don't have an emusic subscription, get one, at leat for a month. You'll find enough good stuff.

Like...

Antibalas - Security. This is probably the only thing I have that falls into the category of Afrobeat. It's largely instrumental, funky jammy stuff, sort of between upbeat Santana and less horny James Brown. Good horns, organ, percussion and lots of chicken scratch guitar. Good party music.

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Louden Up Now. A weird kind of whispery punk/funk thing. Most of the songs are kind of long and humorously political, kind of juvenile. I think they may have asked Bush to suck their dick. A song called "Shit Scheisse Merde" appears in two parts and an instrumental version, which is a bit much. It kind of pushes the envelope of cool-to-embarrassing white boy funk like the Chili Peppers sometimes do, though there aren't good guitar riffs here. It's fun, though.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal - I can't remember, there may be a comic with this if you buy it, but I downloaded it. Or maybe that comic part fell through. Anyway, this is pretty good stuff but hard to describe. At times it's kind of techno, sometimes really reverby like Jesus & Mary Chain but with sweet female vocals that are hard to make out. Lots of echo and reverb and found sounds all over, plus chimey bits. Actually most songs have high contrast between trebly parts like high keyboards and low throbbing bass or keyboard. Part of me thinks this is melodic enough to have been really good with more traditional production, like more decipherable vocals mainly, but it's still cool. Their funny title song is "Panic Attacks Are What Make Me 'Me'"

Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere. I think this is a side project of another hip band but I forget which. I think it was intended to satisfy the guy's jones for Latin music but that actually doesn't show up much. Mostly it's good indie rock. First track "My Sword Hand's Anger" is catchy. Good clean production, solid guitar work. Not a great vocal instrument but it's comfortable. This is one I will be playing quite a bit of, between Arcade Fire and Peter, Bjorn & John.

Bright Eyes - Four Winds. I like artists who still put out EPs when the mood strikes them. This represents six new tracks from the prolific poster boy Conor Oberst. He's still following his Country muse, and I have to say he's doing it more effectively than Ryan Adams did on his Jacksonville City Nights cd last year.

Deerhunter - Cryptograms. They can rock and get weird, but a bit too reliant on reverb and vocal processing to mask their shortcomings, I think. I guess I'd give it about a C+/B-

More to come!