SSLYBY / Ohtis – Live @ The Coffeehouse

After spending two years at ISU, it’s just my luck that the first half-decent indie show that comes around, is the year after I leave. Thankfully, Bloomington/Normal is less than an hour drive away from me, and it was pretty fun heading over to my old stomping grounds, the Coffeehouse (I used to do much of my studying here) to catch up with some friends and see one of my favorite indie pop bands, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin.  From the big crowd that showed up it’s a wonder more bands don’t come around here (hint hint to any band reading).

Ohtis, a local band (the drummer is actually a barista at the establishment), did the opening honors, and did a fine job of it.  The band, who notably impersonated Ryan Schreiber to convince a would-be pitchfork reviewer to give them single review (read the story here), but I must say that I quite enjoyed their music as well. They had a jangly twangy country pop thing going on, that reminded me at different times of Bright Eyes, Neutral Milk Hotel, and R.E.M. Also, the keyboard player had a sweet handlebar mustache.  I haven’t got any tunes to share yet, but I’d recommend listening to the bouncy, handclappity, gospel tune “Bloodshed on Calvary” at Ohtis’ myspace.

Someone Still Loves Your Boris Yeltsin came on next and jumped immediately in with “Glue Girls” and “Dead Right”, wooing the crowd with their ridiculously catchy melodies and lovable stage presence. They played a nice mixture of Pershing tunes, songs from their debut, and some random stuff like “Half Awake (Deb)”.  I quite enjoyed seeing favorites of mine like “Think I Wanna Die”, “Pangea” and “Oregon Girl” and the band was very cool, pointing out that this was the best crowd they ever played on a Monday night (which they quickly changed to EVER!) and having us argue over whether Bloomington or Normal is better (duh, Normal).  The show ended with an energized version of “Modern Mystery” that pretty much rocked.  Love the harmonies on that song. Good times were had by all.

MP3 Think I Wanna Die
MP3 Pangea

See all my pictures at the musicforants.com flickr page.

Album Cover Look-Alikes Mix

Inspired by the whole U2-ripping-off-our-album-cover controversy (if you haven’t already heard, read about it here), I’ve decided to make a mix featuring album covers that have striking, and seemingly accidental, similarities to one another.  It’s like that movie where the Olsen twins run into each other at summer camp and discover they are “identical strangers”.  Except none of these albums feature the talents of Steve Guttenburg and Kirstie Alley, which is disappointing to say the least.  So here you are.  Enjoy!

MP3 Explosions in the Sky – Your Hand in Mine
MP3 Stars – Ageless Beauty

MP3 Broken Social Scene – Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)
MP3 Parts and Labor – Fractured Skies

MP3 Mountain Goats – Cubs in Five
Youtube: Coldplay – Shiver

MP3 Radiohead – Knives Out
MP3 Interpol – NYC

MP3 Ratatat – Wildcat
MP3 Against Me! – Borne On The FM Waves

MP3 Feist – Mushaboom
MP3 Eagle*Seagull – Your Beauty is a Knife I Turn on my Throat

MP3 Massive Attack – Teardrop
MP3 Flying Lotus -Parisan Goldfish

Credit to this message board thread to many of these finds. If you have some more oddly similar album covers I didn’t mention? Let me know in the comments…

And hey I got a new post up at MTVU on Lily Allen.  Go, read now.

Cymbals Eat Guitars

Out of all the new band’s I’ve heard this year, I think Cymbals Eat Guitars have the best shot of making it big.  Charles Bissell from the Wrens, who knows a thing or two about this kind of thing, agrees.  He recently said of the New York band, after listening to their self-released debut album, Why There Are Mountains, that they “will end up indie famous within the year”, which should be enough for any self-respecting indie-rock-lover to give it a listen.  The band’s sound is hugely ambitious, explosively energetic force of nature that is clearly influenced by a multitude of 90’s indie rock classics from Pavement to Built to Spill to Modest Mouse while still achieving something that is forward-looking and unpredictable.

The songs are loaded with a mixture of dueling guitars, powerful trumpets, and ornate piano that brilliantly combine with the ragged vocals of Joseph Ferocious which impulsively jump from a melodic croon to an angst-ridden yelp throughout the songs.  The best sample I can give you of the band is “Wind Phoenix”. The track begins with a playful bass line and triumphant horns and bells that hook you immediately before taking a mid-song turn towards epic, sweeping guitar wankery territory.  The song casually leads you back to the melodic, though, providing a wonderful bookend for the track.

“Share” is another spell-binding song, a slow burner that starts out sounding remarkably similar to Broken Social Scene’s more atmospheric work. This all builds to a cathartic, rousing ending that is simply a frickin’ incredible piece of music that gets better on each listen. I know it’s early in the year, but I’m thinking that 2009 will really have work hard to produce a better debut album then this one. Truly mind-blowing stuff.  My advice for you: download this immediately, this is a band you can’t afford to miss out on.

MP3 Wind Phoenix
MP3 Share

Read more rave reviews at You Ain’t No Picasso, Obscure Sound, and  MP3hugger.

LOST Recap: Because You Left / The Lie

The first two episodes of LOST aired last night and, me being the LOST-obsessed guy that I am, I can’t think about much else today other than the Losties and their plight.  The story picks off with the Ben and Jack plotting to get the Oceanic Six plus dead Locke back to the island, and Sawyer, Locke, Juliet, and the Freighter Three skipping through time like a broken record. Here’s a few things observations of mine:

-To kick things off, we get a glimpse of the orientation film man with the many names (Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund, Edgar Halliwax among them).  Looks like he’s sticking with Pierre Chang for now. And he’s listening to Willie Nelson (third time by the way a LOST season has started with someone putting on a record, see Mama Cass, Petula Clark).

-Oh, and Daniel Faraday is hanging around with him at the Orchid Station.  So would that make this scene a flash-forward to a time when Daniel and co. travel back?

-Locke has now witnessed Yemi’s plane crash in his dream as well as in real life.  Could this be related somehow?  Also notice how something bad happpens everytime someone climbs up that vine wall. See also: Boone, Eko (although in his case it was only a dream). Also, loved seeing Ethan again.

-So apparentally the Islanders are moving through time but not Others. So is the possibly-not-dead Jin and Claire skipping through time also.  How bout Cindy and the kids who are still presumably hanging with the others.  They are probably crazy confused about now.

-Who were those guys at Kate’s door?  I’m thinking that they were hired by Ben to spook Kate into running and make it easier to convince her to go to the Island. So were the people Sayid killed Ben’s or Widmore’s?

-I’ve readsome other recappers point out that Ben hiding his stuff in the air vent could be seen as a possible No Country For Old Men reference.  I also noticed Sayid’s busting into a hotel and killing people was very Anton Chigurh-like, as was Richard’s homemade bullet removal.

-Talking about Richard, that conversation he had with Locke was awesome.  I wondered though, if you can’t change the past why did he tell Locke that information and give him the compass?  Wouldn’t that in fact, change the past?  Is Richard special like Desmond and can break the rules?

-I’ve heard people theorize that the Whispers are people from the time travelers trying to that can’t be seen because it would change the past.  That would be pretty cool.

-So when is that Richard & Locke conversation taking place anyway?  Locke sees Yemi’s corpse in the helicopter which would place it before season 3, episode 5, when Eko discovered the body was gone.  But then how did Richard know that the O6 got onto the island way before this happened?

-The second hour of LOST, focusing on Hurley wasn’t quite as interesting as the first, but still had some good stuff.  It did have some great lines (“Why is there a dead Pakastani on my couch”) and this moment:

Ben’s furrowed eyebrow reaction is priceless.

–Vincent is still around. Hooray!

-Nice to see Frogurt again briefly, who was first referenced in S.O.S. and then seen having a tussle with Hurley over Libby’s affections in one of the mobisodes. Glad he died when he did though, guy’s annoying as heck.  Guy can’t even remember to get milk.

-Did anyone else say “Weekend at Bernies” when Hurley put the sunglasses on Sayid.

-Finally, we have the Jedi-hooded, possibly Daniel Faraday’s mom, Ms. Hawkings who loves science equations, has a really cool swinging pendulum with chalk machine, and is determining event windows on an ancient-looking computer, telling Ben that they have about three days to pull this together (same amount of time Sun will be in LA… coincidence?) and repeating the line Dr. Chang said at the beginning “Then God help us all”.

And there you have it, LOST has officially returned and all is right with the world.

MP3 Elliott Smith – Let’s Get Lost

Let me know your thoughts/theories in the comments!

Music Video Watch (only good stuff)

I find there’s not too many blogs that post music videos based on their quality (it’s more “hey I like this artist and here is their new video”) and because of this, a lot of the truly good vids get lost in the swarm.  So from time to time, I’ll be highlighting some of the most exceptional music videos and rest assured, only the ones worth checking it out will be posted.  Over the weekend, I caught up on watching new videos and here’s three that I found to be excellent, top-notch productions.  If you see any videos that have it going on, comment or email me and I’ll take a look.

Friendly Fires  – Skeleton Boy (dir. Clemens Habicht)

I recently wrote about Friendly Fires’ “Paris” for MTVU, and the band’s new single is the shimmering, “Skeleton Boy”. This is pretty simple but visually interesting idea involving double-sided sticky tape, high powered fans and tons of bean bag balls. Very well executed and fun video and the monochromatic color scheme works great with the material.

MP3 Skeleton Boy

Pistol Youth – In My Eyes (dir. Isaac Rentz)

I’m not familiar with this band and would probably skip past this song if I heard it, but the video is undoubtedly  awesome.  Similiar to Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”, this video has the band inserted into old Golden Girls clips and the effect is clever, hiliarious, and technically impressive. Rose, Sophia, Dorothy, and Blanche would approve.

Headless Heroes – Just Like Honey (dir. Nina Spiering, M. Duijn)

The song is an acoustic version of Jesus and Mary Chain’s classic tune and the video is a mixture of stop-motion and cut-out animation with some live action elements.  There’s some gorgeous scenes like the lit-up tree and many of the animal shots. The use of transitions (especially the one with horses) is also very well done.  Nice-sounding cover too.

MP3 Just Like Honey

New Songs: The Decemberists, Asobi Seksu, Loney Dear

2009 got off to a slow start as far as leaks and new songs are concerned but I think it’s finally hitting it’s stride. Here’s three new tracks from albums I’m highly anticipating this year starting with a song from everybody’s favorite accordian-wielding sea-shanty folk/prog rockers, The Decemberists.

MP3 The Decemberists – The Rake’s Song

This is a much punchier, fiercer song from the band.  According to Meloy, this album will be influenced by both British folk revival music and classic metal (a la Black Sabbath, Led Zepppelin), and although you won’t see Dethklok covering this song anytime soon, the metal influence is noticeable from the forcefully-played raw-sounding acoustic guitar to the machine-gun drums.  I was a bit unsure about the change in tone at first, but I have to admit it’s growing on me, even if I’m still not completely sold.  I am definitely liking the Arcade Fire-esque chanting scattered across the final third of the song.

MP3 Asobi Seksu – Familiar Lights

I’ve been listening to Hush for the last couple days and I think it’s a fantastic album. “Familiar Lights” is a highlight and a great choice for a single.  This new album from the Brooklyn band (who are now, I hear, a duo) shifts the band’s sound slightly, still living in a shoegaze world but now incorporating more traditional indie pop elements. This results in mesmerizing, lush tunes like this one.  Yuki’s soaring vocals really shine on this song making it one of the band’s most uplifting and jubilant tracks.  Like all Asobi Seksu’s tracks, play this one loud, folks.  Once the feedback kicks in near the end (2:15 to be exact) you’ll see why.

MP3 Loney Dear – Airport Surroundings

This year, Swedish pop maestro Emil Svanängen, is back to doing what he does best: writing and performing orchestral pop music about airports (among other things).  The first time Loney Dear explored those heavily-congested travel buildings was in “The City, The Airport” which was one of my most played tracks in 2007.  This track has puts Emil’s multi-layered falsetto to great use and, while still very upbeat, has a bit of a darker/mellowdramatic tone that is best heard in the booming trombone and ominous synth sounds.  While previously for Loney Dear, the airport was a symbol for escape in this track, “Airport Surroundings” takes a more depressive turn, focusing on the loneliness and confusion of the terminal.

MTVU and other odds and ends

It’s been hard not to blow the lid off this early (prematurely shoot my wad as Tobias would say) but I’ve been given the OK that I can officially announce that I’m going to be writing some posts for MTVU‘s new music blog, which is called, wait for it… The Music Blog.  Overly-obvious title aside, it’s a pretty cool gig and it’ll give me a chance to spread my music rantings to a larger crowd.  Also on the blogger panel are Zack and Adrian from All Things Go and Lindsay (who also heads up the project) from Post-Its and Chicken Scratch.

I have two posts up currently up, both on bands with the initals FF – Friendly Fires and Fleet Foxes (Franz Ferdinand, you could be next!).  You can see my recent posts at any given time by clicking here.  I might put a link or two on here occasionally when a good article goes up.  So check it out people!

MP3 Dire Straits – Money For Nothing

***

A couple new video premiers of interest: The first song from Beirut’s new EP, March Of The Zapotec, the horntastic “la Llorna” is out in video form at Stereogum.  Also check out Of Montreal’s kite-tastic new video for “An Eluardian Instance” (which you might remember was in top 10 tracks of 08). Here’s both links:

Video: Beirut -La Llorna
Video: Of Montreal  – An Eluardian Instance

Coachella line-up rumors are flying and I’ve already read a few rumors concerning Lollapalooza ’09, and it’s looking very good so far.  According to Chicago message boards: Animal Collective, No Age, Kaiser Chiefs, and Hot Chip will all be at Lollapalooza this year, which is 4-out-of-4 for bands I’ve never seen and would like to. 

Read my Lollapalooza ’08 coverage

I’ve been kindof obsessed with this show on Discovery Channel called Time Warp lately. Basically the entire premise of the show is that they use insanely high-tech high-speed cameras to capture anything they think would look cool in slow-mo (stuff like bullets, firecrackers, dry ice bombs, popcorn, bubbles, car crashes, getting punched in the face).  It’s like an entire show based on Korn’s “Freak on a Leash” video. I love it.

Video: Time Warp Trailer

This is hands-down the most horrible commercial I’ve ever seen for Microsoft’s new Garageband-killer Songsmith.  It’s hard to believe that this is real and not one of those SNL parody commercials. Major LOLZ at the line, “It’s Microsoft, so it’s easy, right?”.  Watch below, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Video: Microsoft Songsmith

The Antlers

This year, I’m making a new years resolution to do better at checking and responding to email.  I got so overwhelmed as the emails started piling up (I still have over 10,000 unread from ’08 alone) that I almost stopped checking altogether.  Now that I have my handy iPhone on me 24/7 hopefully I can start doing better, and it’s already paying off as it led me to discover The Antlers, a Brooklyn-basedband who are preparing to release their sophomore album, Hospice.  I was immediately captivated by this band’s delicate, refined folk sound.  Peter Silberman’s wispy, delicate vocals and the warm, natural melodies make this music incredibly affecting as the acoustic Shins-like instrumentation floats along effortlessly.

“Two” is a song I’ve listened to over and over and each time I’ve been profoundly moved by the song’s simple melodic progression, Silberman’s sublime falsetto, and the incredibly touching lyrics.  The vocal performance is honest and heartfelt as he sings about his girlfriend dying of (presumably) cancer.  His inability to save her tears himself up inside and you can feel the pain in lines like “Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying / They should have listened, they thought that you were lying” and his anger when he says “Daddy was an asshole, he f**ked you up”. The steadily strummed guitar propels the song forward as it builds to a stirring climax. “Bear” is another lovely tune with a bedroom pop feel and wonderfully catchy melody that sounds like something Ben Gibbard might have written circa 2001. Easily the best (relatively) new band I’ve listened to this year, I give this a very high recommendation.

MP3 Two
MP3 Bear

Download some more Antlers tracks here.

Newsflashes: Cotton Jones, Album Art, Animal Collective

These are the things I’ve found awesome in the first week of 2009:

Cotton Jones

I’ve been a fan of Page France since the first second I heard them but I was a bit wary when Michael Nau dropped his old moniker and started moonlighting as this Cotton Jones character.  Looks like my suspicions were unfounded because the band’s debut, Paranoid Cocoon, is wonderful.

Nau jumps through genres seemlessly going from acoustic indie pop to to warm alt-country and to bluesy gospel-folk. All the time, Nau’s slow draw is complemented by Whitney McGraw’s lovely voice.  It all makes for a perfect lazy day type of album, retro-pop at it’s finest.

MP3 Blood Red Sentimental Blues
MP3 Some Strange Rain

2009 Album Art

Not too many albums have leaked yet this year but a lot of sweet albums covers have been popping up.  Here’s some of my favorites:

Here’s a totally great song from Dan Deacon’s upcoming (it’s the cover that looks like In Ear Park with a tent):

MP3 Dan Deacon – Getting Older

My iPhone

I bought myself an iPhone this year (one of those $99 refurbished ones) and I’m seriously very addicted to it.  There are so many things that I didn’t even know that I needed on the iPhone.  It’s just a brilliant gadget.  For those who’ve had their iPhones a while, what apps to I need?  Got the basics (Facebook, Shazam, Remote, Flixster, Tap Tap, Urbanspoon) but I could always use more.

MP3 Daft Punk – Digital Love

Brother Sport

Best song of the year so far.  Been listening to this non-stop. Open up your, open up your, open your throat.  Other people seem to like it also.

MP3 Animal Collective – Brother Sport