General Music Discussion Thread (a.k.a. indie lovefest)

[cobrakai111]

Can anyone here recommend a good Guided by Voices album? I've heard all the "best of" stuff but I don't know where I should start in terms of original albums.

Few quick other thoughts:
Neon Bible gets better and better, I cannot wait for the show.
Magnetic Fields (69 Love Songs) is heavy in my rotation now.
I passed on a free Shins ticket for this Thursday to watch college hoops. Not sure if that's how much I disliked the show at Webster Hall or how much I like college hoops.
If anyone is at SxSW this weekend try to check out the band my buddy is managing West Indian Girl. Feel free to give them a listen http://www.myspace.com/westindiangirl

[MrDiz]

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Whenever a music thread comes up there is almost never mention of any of the many British bands who have emerged over the past few years. The British music scene really has expoded recently, lead by the likes of Coldplay, Muse, Bloc Party etc, but there are a lot of great bands who have yet to make the move stateside, or are just starting to, who I'm sure you guys would like.

The Fratellis - Costello Music

The Fratellis are an indie rock band from Glasgow, Scotland who broke into the UK scene in '06. Their debut album Costello Music charted at number 2 and received critical acclaim as one of the best albums of the year. Their music is upbeat and pretty similar to the American indie stuff that gets mentioned here a lot. They just released their first American EP, which is available on iTunes and in stores, and are releasing their album in the US on March 13th. This is one of my favourite records of last year.

Fratellis MySpace

YouTube videos of their singles:
Henrietta
Chelsea Dagger
Whistle For The Choir
These are definitely their best tracks, Chelsea Dagger probably being my favourite.

Hype Machine - Fratellis

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Fantastic band. Popped my crowd surfing cherry at their gig a couple weeks back, great night. Had to go an hour afterwards with one shoe on tho after someone pulled if off mid surf heh.

[nyc999]

Albert Hammond Jr. - Yours to Keep



Albert Hammond Jr. is the guitarist for the Strokes and released his first solo album last week. I'm not a huge Strokes fan, but I love this album. Very mellow, and one of those few albums that are great from start to end.

You can listen to the entire album on his MySpace.

[SL__72]

Two newish CDs I've been listening to lately:

Menomena - Friend and Foe


According to wikipedia it is "experimental rock" but its really easy to like... think a softer Animal Collective maybe. Both CMG and Pitchfork loved this album rating it 87 and 8.5 respectively.

You can check out a few of their songs on their MySpace page here.


The second one is the new The Apples In Stereo album, New Magnetic Wonder


Robert Schneider, the singer/guitarist/songwriter for this band was one of the founders of The Elephant Six Collective. Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel was another of the E6 founders and Of Montreal is another band that was spawned from an E6 project. The Elephant Six Collective

Its a really catchy album and is both well written and well produced.

The Apples In Stereo on MySpace

Cool "making of" series on YouTube: this is 4/5:

The Apples in stereo: Recording "New Magnetic Wonder" 4/5

[JaBlue]

RATATAT

going to see these guys april 3rd, it should rule:

two guitarists form this funky electronic-sounding group. Hard to explain or compare, so just listen. Favorite song by far is 17 years from their first album Ratatat. In general I like the second album Classics better.

pitchfork review: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...atatat_Ratatat

music:
weird asian music video for 17 years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0P7Y...ed&search=

actual music video for germany to germany from s/t:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWrqkpFssjc

[Macdaddy Warsaw]

Have you heard the Ratatat remixes? Volume 1 was never released commercially but you can find it on the web (it's been around since 2004) and Volume 2 is slowly being leaked on various blogs. They take hip-hop songs and lay their own production behind the vocals and the results are almost always amazing. I think the best way to describe Ratatat is definitely hip-hop production with guitars.

If you like Ratatat, I think you'd probably like Eliot Lipp too. He has the same type of hip-hop beats with keyboards instead of guitars. Still sounds very fresh even if some of the actual drum beats are derivative.

Anyway, if you want to check out some of those remixes, this is a 3 Kings Remix which I got from www.discobelle.net and then there are the Beanie Sigel and Jay Z - Glock Nine and Young Buck - Shorty Wanna Ride remixes which are available from fluokids.blogspot.com

Oh yeah, I saw them live a while ago and they were awesome.

[Enon]

A few lesser known artists:

Excellent up and coming seattle indie rock band. Nothing innovative but very well written songs for a lead man this young: The Fleet Foxes

Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallet) is starting to gain some more press as the string arranger for Arcade Fire and the Hidden Cameras and is currently opening for Bloc Party. Lots of violin, strings, good melodies and strong narrative lyrics. His live show is incredible. Only him and a violin and a loop pedal and layers the whole track as he goes. Very impressive musician. Final Fantasy

Panda Bear is one of the main songwriters in Animal Collective and has a great new album thats not out yet, called Person Pitch. Compared to animal collective, the vocals are more sedated, the tracks more computer generated/processed and less cathartic but he still brings with him the same melodic strengths he has in AC. Panda Bear

[Mondogarage]

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I'll second that recommendation. There was a few weeks this fall where All This Time and Neko Case's Fox Confessor album were pretty much all I listened to.

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I've pretty much had Neko Case on constant rotation for the last 2 weeks. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

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loooooove Neko Case...check out Kathleen Edwards, too....she's awesome.

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And check out the various tracks Neko's done on various Sadies albums. Soooo awesome.

Also, if you like Neko on the lowfi Brit tip, I cannot recommend Holly Golightly strongly enough. I'm at work, but I'll try to link a couple album covers later.

[SL__72]

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A few lesser known artists:

Panda Bear is one of the main songwriters in Animal Collective and has a great new album thats not out yet, called Person Pitch. Compared to animal collective, the vocals are more sedated, the tracks more computer generated/processed and less cathartic but he still brings with him the same melodic strengths he has in AC. Panda Bear

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I came to mention this album since it came out this week... didn't know it had already been mentioned.

This is probably the best week in a long time for new releases.

Panda Bear > LCD Soundsystem > Modest Mouse > Awesome!

[Jack of Arcades]

I can't stand Animal Collective. Is Panda Bear any better?