Ola Podrida

I’ve heard some recent talk about how there haven’t been any blog buzz bands this year. While no one like Tapes n’ Tapes or Cold War Kids has come around, there are a few more subtle choices that have been heavily talked about on blogs that have done well (usually bumped by a good review on Pitchfork). The Broken West, The Twilight Sad, Battles, Cloud Cult and Lucky Soul have been a few that have made the rounds and another upcoming band that I’ve been seeing more and more is Ola Podrida. Luckily for me, I found their debut album in the used section of the local record store (why someone would be giving this up, I don’t know).

The album stays fairly mellow and introspective for the most part, using a very organic sounding acoustic guitar/hushed voice combo, but the band comes alive during songs like the lively and compelling “Cindy” (which I’ve seen described as shoegaze folk). Songs like “Photo booth”, with its understated beauty, are perfect tunes for calm summer nights. The melodies seem to float along with the breeze.

MP3 Cindy
MP3 Photo booth

Windmill

Windmill is a band on the rise, there’s no question about it. After just a few listens, I’ve decided that Windmill (the moniker for solo artist – Matthew Dillon), has made one of the most beautiful, epic, and heartbreaking debuts of the year. I’m a sucker for piano-led tunes and nearly every song on Puddle City Racing Lights, uses the instrument prominently, but Dillon’s voice is the real thing that drew me to the music. Sounding something like a mixture between Alex Ounsworth, Daniel Smith, and the guy from Cloud Cult, to say it’s an unconventional voice to hear over the uplifting orchestral music might be an understatement. Surprisingly though, the results are far away from grating, and add an emotional element that makes the music even more powerful.

“Tokyo Moon” is a wonderfully written song, a perfectly-executed pop masterpiece complete with an incredible opening build, a catchy melody, and a fist-pumping sing-a-long chorus backed by thundering percussion. “Fluorescent Lights” has the epic sprawl of an Arcade Fire song, as well as the stringed interludes, but the song has a much more ethereal, otherworldly feel. While these songs are probably my favorites, each track is exceptional, the album wows me at every turn. I know I’m no stranger to hyperbole, but this really is one of the most impressive albums I’ve heard all year. Extremely highly recommended!

MP3 Tokyo Moon
MP3 Fluorescent Lights

Buy Puddle City Racing Lights
Check out some other songs from the band by searching the Hype Machine or going to Windmill’s myspace.

Who's worse? Puddle of Mudd or Staind

Last time we played this game, we pitted Maroon 5 against Hoobastank and came to a clear conclusion that Hoobastank is much worse. This time it’s two of the worst bands that nu-metal/post-grunge (even the genre names make me shudder) have to offer. While both bands have committed heinous crimes against music-listeners, only one can be the worst. Again, like last time use the comments as a public discussion forum so we can make a collective decision.

First, We have Puddle of Mudd. Perhaps one of the most shameful grunge rip-off bands of all time. They didn’t pretend to be anything but a watered down, crappy version of Nirvana/Pearl Jam even ripping off Corbain’s look and vocal style. Even this wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t created “She Hates Me” one of the most painful songs to listen to of all time. It’s completely unimaginative drivel, both lyrically and musically. I think you could get a tumor just listening to it.

We also have Staind, one of the most manufactured, corporate grunge-flavored soft rock bands of all time. The band came up with song after song of whiny, obnoxious metal ballads about how horrible it was before the lead singer was a multi-millionaire, somehow relating to teens who “feel his pain”. Staind’s songs all sound almost exactly the same: boring, contrived, depressing and ripped straight out of a 13 year old’s diary.

So it’s up to you to decide which one is worse. Cast your votes in the comments section, and make sure you have something to back-up your claim…

MP3 Puddle of Mudd – She Hates Me
MP3 Staind – It’s Been Awhile

Pitchfork Fest full lineup / Contest Winner!

Pitchfork just announced the full Pitchfork Fest lineup on the official website, with new additions including Junior Boys, Mastodon, Voxtrot, and Brightback Morning Light. Here’s the full line-up:

Friday, July 13
Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation)
The GZA (Liquid Swords)
Slint (Spiderland)

Saturday, July 14
Yoko Ono
Cat Power
Clipse
Mastodon
Iron and Wine
Girl Talk
Battles
Grizzly Bear
Voxtrot
Califone
The Twilight Sad
Dan Deacon
The Oxford Collapse
Professor Murder
Fujiya & Miyagi
Beach House
The William Parker Quartet
Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15
De La Soul
The New Pornographers
Of Montreal
Stephen Malkmus
Jamie LIdell
Klaxons
The Sea & Cake
Junior Boys
Menomena
The Ponys
Deerhunter
The Field
Cadence Weapon
Cool Kids
Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic
Nomo
Brightblack Morning Light
Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra

If you remember, I had a contest earlier this year to see who most accuractely guess the bands that would be playing at Pitchfork Fest this year. The winner of the contest with a very impressive 13 correct guesses was Jack Spatafora. Jack, your prize is in on it’s way, hope to see you at the festival!

The Race

I’ve finally gotten the chance to listen to some of the promo CD’s laying around my room in the last few days, and one of the real gems I’ve found is the album Ice Station from Chicago-bred band, The Race. The CD is full of dazzling post-punk soundscapes and drowning, breathy vocals (much like Snowden’s album from last year). The guitar work is fantastic whether exploring a dreamy feel or interjecting drones and buzzes during a drum machine freakout.

“Feather” is the first track on the record and sets the stage for the atmosphere of the rest of the album. The tradeoff between the far-off distorted sounding vocals of the verses and the smooth, dreamlike vocals of the chorus give the song an interesting dynamic. Another track I’d suggest is the warm ballad, “Walls”. The opening build of the song is improved dramatically a electric guitar which at first, sounds very much like a fiddle, giving the track a Celtic sound.  As it progresses the sound becomes much more distorted and ringing, making for a big washed-out ending. Buy the album from Flameshovel Records.

MP3 Feathers
MP3 Walls

If you enjoy these two tracks you’ll probably like their earlier album, If You Can. Here’s a sample:

MP3 Sinking Feeling

Arcade Fire – Live @ Chicago Theatre

View all my pictures from the show

It’s hard for me to describe the Arcade Fire’s performance on Sunday night without sounding like a 14-year-old girl who just saw “High School Musical” for the first time. OMGLOLZ! They really went above and beyond my wildest expectations undoubtedly providing the best concert I have ever experienced (and I’ve been to a fair share). The setting for the Arcade Fire’s performance could not have been better, the Legendary Chicago Theatre is gorgeous inside, with incredible detail in the architecture. The crowd also was perfect, they were uproariously loud at the appropriate times and were extremely attentive to the band’s every move.

One of the things I had hoped for was to see “Wake Up” live since it was the song that introduced me to the band and all that. As it turns out, the band opened with the song and the energy of the theater immediately shot threw the roof. The band played three of my favorite songs from their new album right afterwards – “Keep The Car Running”, “Antichrist Television Blues”, and “No Cars Go”. I was especially looking forward to the instrumental breaks within “No Cars Go” and they were just as lush and beautiful as the they are on album (as were the ladies that played the violin parts, I won’t get into Sarah Neufeld and her hot pants).

One of the things that really stood out of the show was Regine’s performance, bouncing around the stage, acting out the daughter of “Antichrist Television Blues”, and interacting with the audience the entire time. Her evil “Haiti” dance also really made the song. During “Laika” the standout members were Will and Richard, banging their drumsticks on everything in sight (helmets, lights, poles, each other). At the end of the song a second drum set appeared out of nowhere which Richard played on. Soooo good.

The band cooled off a bit with some of Neon Bible’s slower songs (including the title track and My Body is a Cage) before bring the energy back up with “The Well and the Lighthouse”. This led into probably the biggest highlight of their show, the Power Out –> Rebellion (Lies) two song powerhouse combo, which I had heard of but couldn’t really believe until seeing. As Power Out escalates to a mountain of sound all the instruments stop except for the drums marching out the beat to Rebellion. It’s an incredible moment that encapsulates everything that the Arcade Fire is about.

The band ended the night with “Ocean of Noise” and “Tunnels”, two beautiful and powerful songs exploring human emotions like no other band can do. I left the theatre like much of the rest of the audience – awestruck and speechless. I imagine this show will be replaying in my head for months to come.

MP3 Keep The Car Running
MP3 Rebellion (Lies)

Newsflashes: Battles, Spoon, snowcones, basically anything that's awesome…

Taking my inspiration from Kelly Kapur, I’m going to start a new thing on the site where I talk about current music-related things that I think are awesome. I know you’re thinking, “hey, don’t you already do that”. Well, yes, but this in a more random jumbled sort-of way. So there!

Battles. I mentioned this band before when their Atlas video hit my number one spot on my favorite videos of 2007 so far list (check out the hi-res version). Mirrored is so different to anything else out there, it really defies definition. Needless to say, I’ve been playing and replaying the album getting joy out of avant-garde experimental randomness and the frantic instrumentation vocal effects. Ddiamondd (MP3) is such a great song.

By the way, I found out what they’re singing on the song Atlas (MP3) – ” singer is a crook, whoa-ey-oh. kitchen is for cook, whoa-ey-oh scissors at the barber, whoa-ey-oh.” Redonkulous.

Spoon’s new album leaked a few days back and there is no stopping this band. How many albums can they release with no visible reduce in quality? The big difference on this album is that they’ve added a brass section, which makes songs like “The Underdog” and “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” huge highlights. Approved promo track, The Ghost of You Lingers (MP3) is good enough but the rest of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is much better.

I saw Arcade Fire last night and they killed it in every way. Best. Concert. Eva. I’ll have a full review later on, but they opened with Wake Up and closed with Tunnels (MP3) which is all a human being can really ask for right? Electrane was good too, will be checking them out more…

I guess I don’t have to remind the Lost fans that the finale is on this Wednesday. I thought it was interesting that the Mascara-wearing, Ageless dude himself, Richard Alpert was cast in the next Batman movie.

There’s a new blog in town, and it’s name is 22 positions. It’s co-written by a friend of mine and they already have some good stuff on there (check out the quarterly reviews especially).

I like snowcones.

Rise in the Springtime

I really should start buying random used CDs more often. Its very cost-efficient and I’ve had a good amount of success finding new music doing so. I recently picked up Lavender Diamond‘s Calvary of Light EP using this method at Waiting Room Records in Normal and I have been thoroughly enjoying since then. From the EP and the songs I’ve heard from their full-length, the band has seemed to found their stride in writing bright and sunny ballads. They don’t try to play down their playfulness in any way writing mostly about things like love, hearts, and spring (and there’s plenty of oooohh and aaaaahh background vocals).

The band stems from Becky Stark who was a solo artist before Lavender Diamond and her vocals provide the heart and soul of the group. Her vocals draw from older greats like Nico and spark similiarities to current artists like Regina Spektor. Backing the melodies are piano and strings flourishes that help create arrangements that are nothing short of gorgeous. If you’re beginning a summer mix, and need something to go between “so happy together” and “steal my sunshine”, you’ll find it here.

MP3 Rise in the Springtime
MP3 Open Your Heart

The Great American Smokeout

When I received the Dear and the Headlights album (which is fantastic) from Equal Vision it was packaged with an album from the band, The Snake The Cross The Crown. Judging from Equal Vision’s punk/hardcore-heavy catalog and the odd band name, I figured it wasn’t something I’d be interested in. After going in with those expectations, I was completely surprised at how much I enjoyed the album (titled Cotton Teeth) and completely relieved that the music fell more towards indie rock, folk, and Americana.

“The Great American Smokeout” is the name of the second track, and it starts like many of the tracks on the album, with a catchy acoustic melody before adding vocals, piano, a shuffling drum beat. The vocals are one of the strongest parts of the band, the singer has that quivering baritone thing down very well, but the well-polished guitar work is the real star of the show. The acoustic sets the pace for many of the songs while the electric comes storming in at the end. This is best exemplified by “Gyspy Melodies”, which after an ominous opening goes into one of the most exhilirating and uplifiting endings I’ve heard this year with the repeating line of “Lead the way, and we’ll all go home”.

The album is very consistent throughout with the gospel-like “Behold The River” and the epic “Electronic Dream Plant” providing further highlights. If you’re like me and you really enjoy the following two tracks, there’s no reason you shouldn’t seek out the rest of Cotton Teeth.

MP3 The Great American Smokeout
MP3 Gypsy Melodies

The Snake The Cross The Crown The Myspace

I'm listening to dance music

I figured out today that this site is heavily lacking in the dance department, and it’s a genre I’m becoming more and more interested in by the day. Last year Spank Rock, CSS, Hot Chip, and Girl Talk rocked my world and this year there’s a whole new crop of dance albums that are going to make for an awesome summer. Justice has D.A.N.C.E., Simian Mobile Disco has Attack Decay Sustain Release, M.I.A. has Kala, and Dan Deacon, LCD Soundsystem, !!!, and Klaxons have already released some killer albums.

Here’s a sampling of tracks that I’ve been playing in my car at full volume this year and making my friends listen to every time there’s a party going on.

MP3 Justice – D.A.N.C.E. (Tittsworth Remix)

As awesome as the original track is, the Tittsworth Remix is 10x better. There’s not a track this year that will get me on the dance floor faster. It has those awesome orchestral punches from the original but it’s mixed with a much faster, energetic beat.

MP3 Dan Deacon – Wham City (Edit)

Deacon is becoming one of my most anticipated artists at Pitchfork Fest this year, and it’s primarily for dance anthems like these. This is the shortened version of a 12 minute track full of overstimulated synths and beats and sing-a-longs.

MP3 Grizzly Bear – Knife (Girl Talk Remix)

Girl Talk (DJ Greg Gillis – pictured above)’s Night Ripper album has been the soundtrack to many crazy nights for me and I was more than excited when he remixed Grizzly Bear’s Knife while sampling both Clipse and Tears for Fears. If you’re familiar with Girl Talk’s mashups you know what you’re in for and it’s all kind of awesome.

MP3 Klaxons – Magick (Simian Mobile Disco Mix)

The Klaxons album is an amazing rave experience in it’s own right, but some of the club remixes are just as exciting, especially this one from Simian Mobile Disco (who are everywhere these days). The best part is that the track doesn’t resemble the original hardly at all, it gives the heavy dance-punk-on-speed song a chance to breathe, putting the elements over a extremely hypnotic beat.

MP3 M.I.A. – Birdflu (Diplo Remix)

M.I.A. was one of the biggest surprises of 2005 and now she’s getting ready to capitalize on her hipster fame with a second album. The first thing we heard from it was “Bird Flu” which informed us that her beats were too evil for a major label. The Diplo remix is a heavier, more wicked version that fits the song really well.

MP3 !!! – Heart of Hearts

The only reason I knew !!! (chck chck chkc) before Myth Takes came out is that they were the first artist when we were sorting CD’s at Barnes and Noble. I was very impressed though when I began hearing tracks from the dance-punk (heavy on the former) group and ended up getting the latest album and thoroughly enjoying it. For an album full of sick beats, “Heart of Hearts” has to be the sickest.

MP3 Simian Mobile Disco – Hotdog

Really I could any song from SMB’s upcoming album in this place as they are all solid electronica jams. Hotdog is one of the more direct, in-your-face type dance songs on the album, the minimalistic opening sounds exemplify what I like most about Simian Mobile’s music.