I hadn’t heard much of Lia Ices, if anything at all, until I heard “Grown Unknown,” the teaser track off her similarly-titled album. Immediately captivated by the simple combination of Ices’ echoing vocals and sparse instruments, including my favorite – hand claps, I began to wonder: were we getting another Glasser here? It seemed so… Continue reading Lia Ices casts her spell on Grown Unknown
Tag: experimental
Ghost Heart
Ghost Heart is anything but. Passion oozes from every pore of this Michigan quartet’s sound. Experimental yet FUN, these guys actually remind me a bit of Knox Road favorite, Hands. Tribal beats and full ranging vocals dominate these long songs. And by long, I mean like, nothing less than five minutes. But it’s cool! The… Continue reading Ghost Heart
[MP3] Ori: “Milka’s Dream”
Ori Alboher is a unique musician from Jerusalem, Israel, who creates abstract soundscapes within a traditional Jewish Hasidic context (which should make the music all but traditional). His deep-seated Hasidism doesn’t exactly shine through in the recorded music as he might have hoped for, though I’m sure it’d be fairly obvious on stage with the… Continue reading [MP3] Ori: “Milka’s Dream”
[MP3] Hands: “Brave Motion”
“Brave Motion”, coming to you live, hot off the press! It’s only fitting that the day after our second birthday comes a new MP3 from an artist that has been a staple of our existence. Like Balmorhea, I’ve exhausted many a word on our LA buds Hands, and they’re not really the type of band that needs to be analyzed… Continue reading [MP3] Hands: “Brave Motion”
Zach Hurd
Zach Hurd is a Brooklyn based singer/songwriter who makes acoustic pop that straddles the line between mainstream and atypical. He has sugary vocals and simple guitar tones to work the mass appeal but adds unusual harmonies and a variety of backing noises. Hurd released a full-length album, Changing Landscapes, earlier this year. Unfortunately, only half… Continue reading Zach Hurd
Serena Andrews
Serena Andrews is a tough one to crack. One minute she’s singing a Broadway-ish, super radio-friendly single, the next she’s getting all bizarro and experimental. She could probably go for something in between the two and gain a bit of consistency. Not that I don’t enjoy the eclecticism, I just think it can be further… Continue reading Serena Andrews
[MP3] The Rest: “John Huston”
Canadian rockers The Rest recently released a teaser track, “John Huston”, off their forthcoming 2011 album, SEESAW, and it’s all kinds of wonderful. I’m also curious as to what the album will be like. Seesaw like the playground item, evoking a deep-seated nostalgia, or seesaw like the play-with-words item, evoking, well, I don’t know what.… Continue reading [MP3] The Rest: “John Huston”
Bullets in Madison’s new b-sides compilation
Just because I’ve been busy going to CMJ shows the past few days doesn’t require me to write about CMJ artists, nor does it allow me to ignore the blog because of CMJ-related activities. Did I mention CMJ? I’ll shut up now. I know it’s the last thing most of you want to hear, and… Continue reading Bullets in Madison’s new b-sides compilation
[MP3] Hands: “Onward Upward”
Oh man. It’s that time again. The Hands crew has dropped another bomb on us, this time with new song “Onward Upward”. They’re hard at work on a new album and the track is a taste of an even fuller, complex Hands sound. The song has the typical elements of Hands music, with layered instruments,… Continue reading [MP3] Hands: “Onward Upward”
The Conduits
It’s time for The Conduits. Such a sweet duo, these two. It’s like they’ve known each other for years with their brilliant chemistry! Except…they’ve never even met. Christopher Postill lives in Toronto and Heather Mauch lives in San Fransisco. As far as North America is concerned, they couldn’t be living much farther away from each other.… Continue reading The Conduits