Karen from the Office dances to twee pop!

I’m a huge Office fan and one of the great new developments of this season is Jim’s romance with Karen, who I think is a fantastic addition to the show. She’s sophisticated, straightforward with her feelings, and overall good for Jim. I’d still like Jim and Pam to have something together in the future but for now I think Karen is a great fit.

Thanks to Life in the Office Blog I just discovered another reason to love Rashida Jones, she was in The Boy Least Likely To’s video for “Be Gentle With Me”. She goes on a picnic, dances with puppets, and is wooed by a purple bunny. It’s a perfect little video (and one you can see embedded below).

MP3 The Boy Least Likely To – Be Gentle With Me

Set your Tivos for The Office tomorrow. It was written by Ricky Gervais himself. If your a consider yourself a huge Team Karen fan you might also want to see this.

Wednesday is Mix Day! The Beaten Path Mix

You might have noticed that for most of this semester on Wednesdays, I’ve been putting up a mix, whether it be on Guitar Hero, Facebook, Bagpipes, or Thanksgiving. The mix today isn’t as much of a theme/event mix but it’s just songs that I’ve been listening to and enjoying lately tied together by two songs from The Good Life’s amazing album “Black Out”.

The mix starts with the electronica sounds of the song “Beaten Path” before inheriting some Eastern European flair with Devotchka and then breaking down to pure folky goodness with The Lucksmiths. From their the album steps into dreamlike terrritory with Kunek’s “Coma” and let’s you float around for a while before bringing you down to earth with the pop tinged notes of Josh Ritter. “Girl in the War” is quirky yet solemn enough to lead you seamlessly into the final epic ending sounds of The Good Life’s “Off The Beaten Path” which is a journey within itself.

All the songs are, of course, highly recommended and I hope you enjoy them whether you want to listen to them together or take them each individually and add them to your own mix.

MP3 The Good Life – Beaten Path
MP3 Devotchka – You Love Me
MP3 The Lucksmiths – From Macaulay Station
MP3 Kunek – Coma
MP3 Josh Ritter – Girl in the War
MP3 The Good Life – Off The Beaten Path�

The Butterfly Explosion – Turn The Sky

Earlier this year, I did a week dedicated to Irish music and my favorite discovery from doing that was The Butterfly Explosion. They are an awe-inspiring, breath-of-fresh-air, shoegazing, post-rocking band. Their only release at the time was the Vision EP, but I featured a new song from them called Sophia that is so good that I still continue to listen to it on a biweekly basis.

I checked back up on them this week and am very excited that they have a remastered version of Sophia that is as beautiful as ever, as well as a four new songs on their recently-released EP, Turn the Sky. Each of the songs blasts you with its walls of sound using atmospheric or distorted guitar as a foundation and brilliantly mixing keyboards, drums, and airy vocals to create pure musical bliss. “Car Park” is an all-out instrumental space-rock jam session. “Next Year” is the most direct song and it’s completely solid in every way, featuring some of the best guitar parts on the EP. “Chemistry” delves more into noise pop with and is the most retro sounding track. “Score” starts out slowly before entering into a punk-infused explosion of a climax.

I was wow wowed dozens of times while listening to these five songs and I can’t recommend “Turn the Sky” enough, it’s easily the best music I’ve heard in the post-rock genre this year. Here’s the first two tracks from the album and you can download the rest from either of the two music stores below.

MP3 Sophia
MP3 Car Park

Download at emusic
Download at iTunes

Foreign Islands

Described in their press release as a “spazz-rock explosion”, Foreign Islands have been tearing it up on the NY scene for a while. They have the disco punk guitars that Franz Ferdinand are most notable for as well as a massive amount of live energy. The tribal drumming ain’t bad either.

“We Know You Know It” is easily their best song, it hooks you in with a killer guitar riff before the call-and-response vocals, and the breakdown 2/3 way through the song delivers in the shredding guitar solo department. The band isn’t groundbreaking but if you’re a fan of music like Thunderbirds Are Now! and Les Savy Fav, Foreign Islands is just what you’re looking for.

MP3 We Know You Know It
MP3 That’s How This Goes Down

Mittens

Over my thanksgiving break (both from school and blogging) I came across a thoroughly enjoyable indie pop band from the land of Boston. The band is named Mittens which is perfect because they’re warm and much friendly than gloves. The band excels at laid back tempos and jangling guitars.

“Fools on a Holiday” is the album and it’s one you’ll want to keep on your playlist for a while, especially if you’re into Voxtrot-style indie pop. I have a couple samples for you and you can get the rest at iTunes.

MP3 Half A Dozen
MP3 Leeway

Myspace

The Thanksgiving Day Eve Mix (Gobble, Gobble)

Since tomorrow I’ll be dedicating most of my time to eating as much food as I can, I’m making a mix today that is so good it could last you even longer than all that leftover turkey and be just as satisfying. There’s a caption that explains what each song has to do with Thanksgiving, if you’re the curious type. Side note: my family decided that we’re all going to see Stranger Than Fiction tomorrow. Any good?

MP3 Azure Ray – November
MP3 The Shins – Young Pilgrims

Lest we forget the first thanksgiving when the Indians gave the Pilgrims corn and the Pilgrims introduced the Indians to Yellow Fever.

MP3 Talking Heads – Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
MP3 Ben Folds – You To Thank

Self-explanatory (Thanksgiving is all about being thankful and stuff.)

MP3 Green Day – Macy’s Day Parade

What’s Thanksgiving without marching bands and a giant inflatable turkey float.

MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Meat and Potatoes
MP3 Adam Sandler – The Thanksgiving Song (I love to eat turkey)

Food! This is by far the best part of Thanksgiving. Team Dark Meat!

MP3 The Decemberists – The Sporting Life

Cowboys or Buccaneers? “Oh, how they love the sporting life”

MP3 Flogging Molly – Black Friday Rule
MP3 The Beatles – Can’t Buy Me Love

The friday after thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year, named Black Friday because it would bring businesses out of the red (losses) and into the black (gains). I’ll be lining up at Circuit City this year, I hear that the first season of Entourage is only 15 dollars.

MP3 Sufjan Stevens – Hey Guys! It’s Christmas Time!

After Thanksgiving Weekend is over lights/wreaths/plastic snowman go up. It’s Christmas Time!

There you have it. I’m taking a short blogger vacation but check back in a few days. In the meantime, visit anyone on my sidebar, they’re all good. I’ve been reading Chromewaves a lot lately and they have a brand new design that looks pretty amazing. Make this thanksgiving a good one!

The Jealous Girlfriends

The Jealous Girlfriends are an on-the-rise New York band that don’t fit neatly into any genre but are good enough that you don’t really care. All their sounds are linked by an ear for great guitar riffs and melodies that as one reviewer put “stick to you memory gland like putty.” They’re definitely a band to watch for in the upcoming months.

The band has a new self-titled album out that is full of highlights. “The Pink Wig to Salieri” which is an extremely well-constructed dream pop tune. With a great mix of shoegaze guitars and an epic sing-a-long chorus, it’s the kind of song you could rock out to all day. “Something in the Water” on the other hand is a straight-up punk rock and reminds me a lot of early Rainer Maria, especially with the lead female vocals. The song was recently featured on Grey’s Anatomy, a show which has a knack for choosing great new bands for their soundtracks. Both songs I highly recommend you checking out. Check out their myspace for a couple more and if you’re in New York, catch them at the Bowery Ballroom tonight.

MP3 The Pink Wig to Salieri
MP3 Something in the Water

Here’s a song from their first LP, that was also featured on a television soundtrack (The L Word). It’s quite different from the other two tracks but in a good way. Laid back and soulful in a Chan Marshall type way.

MP3 Lay Around Purchase their CD

The Awkward Stage

The Awkward Stage is one of the best kept secrets or “secret weapon” if you prefer, of the Vancouver indie pop scene. The slogan of the band is “Forget your age, forget you’re clever; the awkward stage, it lasts forever.” Shane Nelkin takes this awkward youth theme and puts it with create some excellent orchestral pop that’s comparable to the New Pornographers (a band in which Nielkin has played).

The first song “The Morons are Winning” introduces you to the jangly guitars and pretty melodies that characterize the band as well as the lyrics that Dwight Shrute could have wrote (“wearing the face of concern with your free medications / stealing my thoughts and my top secret calculations”). The title track “Heaven is for Easy Girls” is beyond catchy and an easy highlight of the album. “We’re Going For A Ride” is a 60’s throwback, with a bridge that features Yellow Submarine trumpets and Beach Boys doo-wop vocals. “T-Rexia Nervosa” features some fancy piano playing and a gospel choir and tackles the eating disorders in the process (“you can read minds?”).

The awkward stage scores big points on relatabiliity, because everyone has had their share romantic misfortunes, loneliness, and bad acne, and musically it’s one of the most memorable albums I’ve heard in quite a while. “Heaven is for Easy Girls” came out on October 10, buy it here.

MP3 Heaven is for Easy Girls
MP3 The Morons are Winning
MP3 We’re Going For A Ride

The "If they ever made a Indie Rock Guitar Hero" Mix!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but where I’m from Guitar Hero is absolutely massive. The second edition came out last week and everyone on my dorm floor has been playing it nonstop. If you’ve never played before, I’m not going to go into the details, but basically you pick up a plastic guitar and use hand eye coordination and rhythm skills to rock out to songs like “Ziggy Stardust”, “Freebird” and “Sweet Child of Mine.” (Read tons more about it here). Pretty awesome, even you’re not into classic rock or metal (they occasionally throw an artist in there like Franz Ferdinand or Wolfmother).

After a week of Guitar Hero playing though, you begin to wonder what other songs that could be Guitar Hero-ized. There’s already a fansite dedicated to songs that should be on the next editions (Crazy Train is leading), but I’m wondering, if they ever made some kind of “indie edition”, whatsongs should/could be added. I made a mix of some current indie tracks that I would like to see. Qualifications are: 1) The guitar should be the forefront of the song. 2) The guitar part should be somewhat complex at times and evolve throughout the song 3) There should be a rockin’ guitar solo or breakdown during the song. Here’s what I came up with:

MP3 Wilco – At Least That’s What You Said
MP3 Broken Social Scene – Cause = Time
MP3 The New Pornographers – Jessica Numbers
MP3 Muse – The Small Print
MP3 The Hold Steady – Hot Soft Light
MP3 The Futureheads – Stupid and Shallow
MP3 Silversun Pickups – Well Thought Out Twinkles
MP3 Rilo Kiley – My Slumbering Heart

Feel free to add some more guitar hero-worthy indie tracks in the comments. No, Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” doesn’t count.

The Damnwells

I consider Lizzy from Come Pick Me Up as one of the top bloggers when it comes to alt. country, so when she says that the Damnwells are her favorite band, I listen up. The band just released their second album, Air Stereo, last month, and a few of the songs have made their way onto my morning listening playlist (which is considered a prestigious spot by many).
“Golden Days” is a laid-back track that recalls 70’s Americana bands like Fleetwood Mac. Like many of my favorite alt. country tunes, it creates a smooth, mellow atmosphere and features a melody that floats around your head. Album opener “I’ve Got You” is a more straight up rock song and it has a fantastic piano line throughout the song and some skillful slide guitar playin’. Download both of these tracks below and make sure to pick up Air Stereo if you like them.

MP3 The Damnwells – Golden Days
MP3 The Damnwells – I’ve Got You

Here’s another Damnwells track which is off their first album. It’s probably one of the most gorgeous and moving songs I’ve ever heard (seriously).

MP3 The Damnwells – Texas