Ben Woods - A Collection of Thoughts (2008)

Genre : Ambient, Modern-Classical Piano
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Tracklist :

1. Taking Small Steps Pt.1
2. A Calm Yet Determined Wind
3. Left At Sea
4. A Crowded Corridor
5. About To Fall
6. Running After Clouds
7. Walking Away Unwillingly
8. Waking Up With Stories Of You To Tell Nobody
9. A List Of Things I Said I Would Do
10. Taking Small Steps Pt.2

Ben Woods Is a full time student at the University of Plymouth UK, where most of this music is written and recorded. His style is has been described as dense and intoxicating whilst at the same time beautiful and deep. His music is written to audibly represent recent emotions and feelings with regard to situation, experience and circumstance.

His latest work is predominantly piano based but Ben is always working on the newest approach he discovers. He has been working on a series of acoustic guitar lead soundscapes and has also been experimenting with turning written acoustic songs into beautifully layered drones.

After receiving some interest by some artists in the Plymouth area, Ben is working on a way to translate his music to play in a live setting.

[me]Beautiful piano instrumental. If you like Goldmund, i think you'll gonna like Ben Woods. Thx to sir Mayo @ IP ;)

Javelins - Heavy Meadows (2008)

Genre : Indie,Rock,Experimental GREAATT!!
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Tracklist

01. Flowers
02. Heavy Meadows
03. The Pounding
04. El Dorado
05. Roman Saints
06. Out On The Sand
07. Pickup Lines
08. Entropy
09. JConnected
10. Red Handed

"Javelins have created the perfect summer record for 2008. From the very first shimmery wall of guitar, every note of Heavy Meadows is capable of sticking to a listener's heart and brain." - Metro Times

"Javelins have gone the extra mile on all fronts.... literate, orchestral pop, heightened by their ear for whirling futuristic breakneck rock." - Real Detroit Weekly

"Javelins didn’t just write a collection of random songs. They aimed to achieve a cohesive work of art, capturing in music the contradictory nature of the wounded lover.... this is the sound of zero gravity." - Detour Magazine

"Whether it’s the small thread of psychedelia running throughout the album, the lush instrumentation, driving guitars, danciness, expansiveness, smoky-yet-sharp feel — I’ve found myself enjoying each one." - Buzzgrinder.com

"Jangly and dreamy, but also poppy. and Awesome." - Relevant Magazine

Simon Bookish - Everything/Everything (2008)

Genre : Indie,Pop,Electronica,Classical,Singer-Songwriter GREAATT!!
Myspace
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Tracklist

01. The Flood
02. Dumb Terminal
03. Portrait Of The Artist As A Fountain
04. Carbon
05. Victorinox
06. Il Trionfo Del Tempo... (Ridley Road)
07. Synchrotron
08. A Crack In Larsen C
09. Alsatian Dog
10. A New Sense Of Humour
11. Colophon

The new album, EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING, is finished, polished, cooked and ready for release this Autumn... there's a sneak preview in the music player above...

An unpredictable and dramatic "big band song cycle about science and information", EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING is a new departure for Simon Bookish, being his first album for TOMLAB.

Additionally, whilst previous Simon Bookish releases have been informed by the sounds of digital synthesizers, EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING does away with them entirely to focus on live instruments.

Scored for an ensemble dominated by saxophones, brass, piano, harp and Farfisa organ, it features luminaries from both the jazz and experimental classical music scenes.

Whilst this is almost certainly his most pop-oriented release to date, EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING, as it's name suggests, finds room for moments of racing Philip Glass minimalism, lop-sided disco, expressionist cabaret, and even an eery ambient interlude.

Lyrically, the album's concept is "the flood of information" in our modern age, taking in chemistry and ecology, language and art, sometimes surreal, sometimes humourous, sometimes provocative, a weird blur of fact and fiction, delivered in Bookish's distinctive English-eccentric vocal.

It's only natural that Simon Bookish would want to tackle this chaos of stuff, since 'Simon Bookish' is the pseudonym of London-based composer Leo Chadburn, whose diverse recent work has included everything from sound-art installations in Bregenz, Austria, improvisation and guest spots with Leafcutter John and Polar Bear's Seb Rochford, and computer music for contemporary dance at the Royal Opera House to an acclaimed appearance with the National Theatre as "The Singer" in Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle".

Herman Dune - Next Year In Zion (2008)

Genre : Indie,Pop,Folk GREATT!!

Myspace
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Tracklist

01. My Home Is Nowhere Without You
02. Try To Think About Me
03. When The Sun Rose Up This Morning
04. When We Were Still Friends
05. On A Saturday
06. My Baby Is Afraid Of Sharks
07. Lovers Are Waterproof
08. Next Year In Zion
09. Someone Knows Better Than Me
10. My Best Kiss
11. Baby Baby You’re My Baby
12. (Nothing Left But) Poison In The Rain

On the new album Next Year In Zion, songwriter and vocalist David-Ivar Herman Dune and drummer Neman Herman Dune deliver a dozen charming and intricately constructed pop songs. Next Year In Zion is the Parisian duo’s debut long-player for the City Slang Label. It is the sound of Herman Dune, all grown up.

After years as a highly prolific, mostly DIY band, Herman Dune gained considerable cult status across Europe and in New York City, where the young band lived off and on for nearly 8 years. Releasing 5 official albums and distributing countless homemade CDRs at live shows, they found an early champion in legendary UK Radio DJ John Peel. The archive of Peel Sessions the band performed for the BBC number in the double digits. With their tireless work ethic, ramshackle shows in NYC artist squats eventually gave way to headlining sold out gigs at the 2,500 seat Olympia, in Paris. Tours with Arcade Fire, The Kooks and good friend Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches, Juno) put them in front of increasingly larger crowds, and even without a U.S. release to their names, Rolling Stone tagged “I Wish That I Could See You Soon” in their year-end list of the Top 100 Songs of 2007.

Frontman David-Ivar Herman Dune’s facility in bending the English language to his whims is impressive, given that he was raised in Paris but born in Stockholm of Swedish and Jewish descent. He learned American English playing chess with his grandfather, a Swedish diplomat who lived in DC, and began writing simple songs in English at the age of 11. There is sly playfulness and whimsy in David’s lyrical acrobatics (rhyming ‘coconuts’ with ‘cigarette butts’ and ‘Pelican’ with ‘Mexican’) and his phrasing and cadence pay tribute to songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Jonathan Richman and Stephen Malkmus. On drums and percussions, Neman Herman Dune (who is Swiss born, but also raised in Paris) provides the steady heartbeat that syncopates David’s words and music. The elegant polyrhythmic thump hints at an affection for Charlie Watts, Can and Mo Tucker, and gives a buoyant foundation for David's chiming guitar. These two play off each other’s strengths with the familiar ease that comes from life-long friendship.-CITY SLANG

T. - Bau (2008)

Genre : Indie,Pop,Singer-Songwriter GREAATT!!
Myspace
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Tracklist

01 #1
02 Roof Top
03 Love Recorder
04 #4
05 Back In 94
06 A Gun In My Hat
07 #7
08 Magazines
09 Bootsy
10 #10
11 Sick & Sad
12 The Carpenter
13 Modern Love

In 2001, 20 year-old Thomas Walter recorded his first album in the artists collective Vergo: his album resembles a b-movie. It’s a concept album which covers his teenage years, moving from his time spent in his hometown of Goetzenbruck (in the northern Vosges, North East France) to the polytechnic schools in the grey suburbs of Strasbourg (France). After this sombre and distressing album which appeared as an ep (now out of print), he wrote a huge amount of songs that he gave out to his friends or distributed around local record shops and cafés in carefully packaged CDRs for interested strangers. From this collection which makes up a real little treasure, he picked out a few songs to record his second album which is coming out on Herzfeld records. His aerial music reveals itself through hypnotizing melodies, spacious arrangements, layered vocals and arranged rhythms.

TV on the Radio - Dear Science (2008)

Genre : Indie,Rock,Post-Punk,Experimental
Myspace
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Tracklist

01. Halfway Home
02. Crying
03. Dancing Choose
04. Stork & Owl
05. Golden Age
06. Family Tree
07. Red Dress
08. Love Dog
09. Shout Me Out
10. DLZ
11. Lover's Day

The follow-up to the band’s 2006 record Return to Cookie Mountain, encompasses an impressively majestic and strikingly orchestral arrangement into its 70/80’s glam-rock David Bowie-influenced sound (See: ‘Golden Age’). Opener ‘Halfway Home’ begins with a guitar riff that recalls previous single ‘Wolf Like Me’, but as the melody kicks in, features solid drumming built around a straight forward beat, with Tunde Adebimpe’s falsetto vocals delivering the lyrics with the dreamy, sing-song quality of a nursery rhyme. But don’t be fooled and lulled in by this. He later displays his more primal, aggressive side on the tracks ‘Dancing Choose’ and ‘DLZ’ which hark back to REM at that their most urgent and frantic (See: ‘End of the World As We Know It’). Guitarist Kyp Malone takes the vocal duties on ‘Crying’ and boy, what a take. The song could easily be mistaken for an 80’s funk-fuelled R&B track and his vocals could leave even Prince impotently whimpering to a corner.

Ultimately, I would prefer to listen to this record on repeated listens and in a more private environment. Listening to the record while a hundred or so people chat away isn’t exactly the most ideal conditions to fully absorb the music I’m sure you’ll agree, but from what I heard, and what I remember, this record has definite moments of instant genius, but it’s the more subdued tracks which I’m intrigued and keen to listen to again. Songs such as the closer, ‘Lover’s Day’, with lyrics like “I’m going to make you come“, again sounds erotically like Prince. I was also informed that Katrina Ford from ex-tour-mates Celebration, guests on the track too, providing the backing vocals. Cool. I like Celebration.

The group’s very own guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek (yep, that’s the guy behind Scarlett Johnanson’s ode to Tom Waits and the very same person that Foals foolishly felt didn’t harness their sound when mixing their dry and lame debut album) produces the record. He expertly hones and layers the mesh of noise from the euphoric and epic guitar noise and distorting a grand array of destructive beats. To fully appreciate these though, the record will definitely merit intent listens for the more subtle undertones of production. May I strongly advise you to keeps your eyes and ears peeled for this one. It would be just plain silly not to.-www.thelineofbestfit.com

Yndi Halda - Enjoy Eternal Bliss (AWESOME !!!)

Genre : Post-rock, Experimental
Myspace
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Tracklist :

1) Dash and Blast
2) We Flood Empty Lakes
3) Illuminate My Heart, My Darling!

Yndi Halda are an indie-rock band from Canterbury, United Kingdom. ‘Yndi Halda’ is Old Norse for “Enjoy Eternal Bliss”, also the name of their “self-titled” debut. The band’s music is characterized by expansive, cinematic pieces that have seen the group compared to modern classical and post rock - however, Yndi Halda’s work is usually considered more thematically optimistic or hopeful, and more song-based than artists of those genres.

"There is something untangible about Enjoy Eternal Bliss, something that evades the analytical eye but is looming over the album. Perhaps a mysticism of sorts that enchants the band's music much in the way that Sigur Ros just seems to transcend the normal limitations of music in the creation of otherworldly songs. For a band that plays and records in a barn, Yndi Halda does quite a good job of making it look easy to churn out one of the year's best albums. Enjoy Eternal Bliss is easily the year's best self-released album, and there is no doubt that this band is only going upward from here."

MGMT - Metanoia EP (2008)

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Genre : Indie,Pop,Psychedelic,Electronic HARDLY WAITING THEIR NEXT ALBUM!!
Myspace
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Tracklist

1. Metanoia 13.49

Almost a year since the release of MGMT's much-loved debut Oracular Spectacular, the hype surrounding the band is still heating up. As much as I love the acclaimed album, I couldn't be listening to it for 12 months straight. I stumbled across something unheard of from the boys Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden that comes in the form of an EP named Metanoia which only consists a 13-minute track. MGMT does not dissapoint with Metanoia, it continues the mixing-of-genres trend in Oracular Spectacular. It opens with an acoustic, then when the piano kicks in, we hear a sound not unlike The Arcade Fire attempting a Queen before it maneuvers into a psychedelic number. I guess people in town (or the blogsphere) will still be talking about the Brooklyn psychedelic synth duo for quite awhile and I don't mind even a bit. 2008 is going to be the year of MGMT! -yourheadsnotright.blogspot.com

St. Augustine - In a Field of Question Marks EP (2008)

Genre : Indie,Pop,Folk,Singer-Songwriter
Myspace
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Tracklist

01. Icelandic
02. To the floor
03. 14th of July
04. Kidney
05. Polar Bears
06. Rainy country

Raised in a ranch norvégo-Syrian by Dutch cowboys, St Augustine sings the polar bears and the days of rains, the small shelters and big spaces, the houses to be built and all that remains to be come…

Iglomat - Iglomat (2008) (AWESOME !!!)

Genre : Post-rock, Ambient

Myspace
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Tracklist :

1. Dial Wookie
2. Tornadic Activity
3. Augustus Loop
4. Apollo 18
5. Actung Kitler
6. Federal
7. Stormtroopers Of Gentrification
8. Dolphins From Wales
9. Two By Two
10. Neo War

‘Iglomat’s self titled album is a Ginger minimalist threesome collaboration, via the inner space of satellite communications. i.e, from opposite sides of the globe. What does the name mean? The band don’t even know, but it’s not important in your mid 30’s as much as having a broadband connection and pro tools. This 3 year, almost all instrumental project could easily play in any top 10 post-rock radio retirement home. ‘Cmon the ‘Mat! -Rolling Stone

[me]It's a nice debut album. Thx to sir Mayo @ IP ;)