Erland & The Carnival... and Us

So, a while back we went a seen Erland & the Carnival in Crawdaddy's in what must have been the strangest gig we've been to in ages.



The support band (who's name I can't remember, I'll try and find it out), were good. Very good in fact, although there were 2 minute intervals between songs while the guitarist tuned his guitar in perfect silence. Not even the crowd made a whisper. Which was quite odd as the crowd, who themselves were perfectly silent during the intervals but then proceeded to talk as loud as they could during the performance. There was also a good mix of fans of the band and people who clearly had wandered in by accident.

More importantly Erland & The Carnival played a great set, playing every song from the album. In particular "Love Is A Killing Thing" was even better live than it is recorded. For a band that is seemingly randomly thrown together (I mean, where did they pick up Simon Tong from?!?), they play extremely well together, no matter what the Irish Times say...

In other news, I am quite enjoying the Black Keys new single. The video is especially silly...

Not Farmville, Farm World

Occasionally we get emails from people. We like getting emails from people. We had an email a few days ago from someone professing the greatness of Farm World, the recording name for Michael Armstrong, a man from Madison, Wisconsin. Apparently not craving fame or money from his music (which is a good thing), he has gone largely unnoticed by the world (which is a bad thing).



His music meanders through different styles but it's mostly reminescent of Bon Iver and the influence is clearly heard through his songs. Songs like "Look Up!" and "Eat, Kill, I Want Your Soul" have a very folky sound to them, while "Barn Baby" has an a more rockier side to it. "Dark Room", with it's autotuned vocals could be straight off Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP. Finding his stuff online is near impossible, bar what's up on his myspace page. If we weren't emailed it, I doubt we would have found it. This is very underrated music, and we could only hope that someone, somewhere finds this guy and puts his name out there.

In other non-related ramblings, I'm enjoying Billie the Vision a lot lately. Also, JSC's new album. Still waiting for BRMC's new one which is released here on Friday (hopefully). You should read this too. It's a friend's non-sensicalness. Funny though. And keep mailing us awesome music.