Poptastic

That's right, a blog post. Who would've thought you'd see another one of those, not me for one. But sure, why the heck not.

Givers. A band who's name I had seen somewhere last month and completly forgotten about. A five-piece indie pop band all the way from Lafayette, Louisiana, and my my are they poptastic (my word of the week by the way).

They've been called a cross between Mystery Jets and Vampire weekend, and they certainly look the part. But the more and more I listen to them I can't help I think they're a conventional version of "of Montreal"; cardigans instead of costumes, simpler lyrics, more minimalist songs. Their album "In Light" was released in June of this year and the first song on the record and single "Up Up Up" is as poppy as they come, and sounds like a fusion of a hundred different indie bands, clearly these guys have done their research which unfortunately does pigeonhole them a bit. The video is a bit... well, I'll leave it for you to watch.

Then there's songs like "Saw You First" and "Ceiling of Plankton" (included above for your listening pleasure) with their vocals taken right out of of Montreal's book. It's hard not to like the songs, yet ultimately they don't stand out from the many, many other similar bands out there. Nothing experimental or outstanding, but simple good for what their are, happy poppy indie songs. They'll be playing the Academy in Dublin come August, and you can guess where we'll be. That's right, at a bar, but then we'll be at the gig.

In other news, I suggest you all go and check out New Band of the Day over at The Guardian, a brilliant little daily blog (hats off to them for their stamina), responsible for a good few of my favorite musics lately including this. As well, Idaho indie band/our friends The Very Most, had a new single out in May. If you like happy music head over here to give a listen.

In the key of Black

Ohio band The Black Keys returned with another album, "Brothers", last month.



It made its way into my regular listening for a while, but has failed really moved me. Produced by Mr. Danger Mouse who also helped produce their 2008 album Attack and Release, and as a result it's got pretty much the same stylings. The single "Tighten Up" is quite a good (and the video is also quite excellent), but it stands out as the pop-iest song on the album. Other songs to check out are "Everlasting Light" and "Too Afraid to Love You". On a whole it's not as good as their last one, but still well worth listening. I'll leave it up to you to make up your mind.

Also, Guy Garvey's Finest Hour has been especially good the last couple of weeks. If you've a couple of hours to listen to it, or even 5 minutes to listen to a song or two, you should check it out. My hunt for more music from the band Black Market Radio, has turned up a couple of acoustic albums by a "Carey Sims and Black Market Radio", and is from what I can tell, completely unrelated to the Black Market Radio I'm looking from. Some alt-folk Americana songs, not all that bad, the hunt goes on however. And finally,

Idling

For a band that's been around for ages, Idlewild slipped under my radar for a long time. I had known about them for a long while, but never paid too much attention to them. That is until of course I came across their new album.



Post Electric Blues is a much produced album than their others, losing a bit of their raw sound from earlier albums (call it maturity or whatever... narc). The result is pretty good though. Songs like "Younger Than America" and "Dreams of Nothing" are fine examples of their latest incarnation of their sound, while "Take Me Back To The Islands" and "Take Me Back In Time" (I'm noticing a pattern), are slower more introspective and a little seemingly out of place, but still awesome. As per usual, I'll let you make up your mind, I'm not your mother after all.

In other news, apologies to those who I haven't sent the mixtape to yet (I'll get to it soon, promise), and to those who have got their copy I hope you liked it. Also, I particularly liked this comic today...

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.

Indie Mix Tape 2

I had this on the back burner for a long while... well, since last summer in fact when we came up with the first mix tap. We sure do love procrastinating around here. So here's volume two of our awesome indie compliation. Better late than never. It's a mix of everything we liked back then, stuff we like now and a few other random things we've come across in between, but mostly is bands we've seen and liked.



Side A:

Liam Finn – Better to Be
Passion Pit – Sleepyhead
My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow
The Very Most – Bleess
Tokyo Police Club – Cut Cut Paste
Erland and the Carnival – Trouble in Mind
Billie the Vision & The Dancers – A Beautiful Night in Oslo
Gregory and the Hawk – Stone Wall, Stone Fence
Spoon – Written in Reverse
Oh No Oh My – Walk in the Park

Side B:

Jenny Owen Youngs – Fuck Was I
Iron & Wine – Hickory
Oxford Collapse – Please Visit Your National Parks
of Montreal – An Eluardian Instance
Mirah – Million Miles
Billie The Vision And The Dancers – Take Me to the Boats
The Tallest Man on Earth – The Gardener
Foy Vance – Homebird
Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
The Very Most – April Is The Kindest Month
John, Shelly and the Creatures – Long May You Reign

If you want a copy, drop me a comment or send me a mail to chip@indieawesome.com In other news, can't wait for BRMC's new album next month, and Axe Cop is the best comic ever made. Last week's poll says people have all their music on their computer... Really? All of it? Today's photo is by owlbookdreams... A very talented person from Canadaland.

So Very, Very Most

Ok, again we let our concentration lapse. We go to the gigs, we talk about the musics, and yet we don't write any of it down. Time to dust the cobwebs off the ol' blog, and see if this thing still works.



So, today is new band time. The Very Most. Idaho's best indie pop band, even if they do think all the best bands come from Scotland (they're right though). Happy go-lucky indie pop so make you feel good inside. There's a unique mix of folksy acoustic guitars and funky synths. To quote the Boise Weekly, "Most songs are in a major key and tend to bounce around like a carefree child in an inflatable carnival jumping house".

Oh, the Boise Weekly can be oddly specific at times. A Year With The Very Most, a compilation of their last four EPs was released a few weeks ago. Go listen to it here! If you live in Dublin you can find it in Road Records, or if you live in Boise you can find it in The Record Exchange.

For Conor...

Well, it would seem we neglected the blog again. As happens from time to time. But what's a little time off between friends.




Anyways, here's someone surprisingly good. The Tallest Man On Earth, Swedish folk singer Kristian Matsson's solo stage incarnation. Best described as like a Swedish Sun Kil Moon, he songs are a brilliant example of that lovely folksy sound that just captivates you. Having recently seen him in Whelans, I was surprised by the number of people who were there (and knew the words to sing along too), so this is definitely something to look into. There's a good few of his videos up on last.fm and on the myspace, so check them out.

Today's lovely photo is by Karl Gunnarsson, Icelandic man living in Sweden. I bet you're all jealous of him.

Note To All Orchestras, You Should Sound More Like This

I was going to continue talking about The Times today, but I've something much more important... A new band!

All the way from Atlanta, Georgia come Manchester Orchestra, indie rock with a bit of everything else thrown in. After hearing about these guys from a friend, and missing out seeing them playing, I went out and got their album. I ended up buying their newest one, Mean Everything To Nothing.



Their sound is a strange mix of almost everything, but it stays together with a sense of continuity. Formed in 2005, we're clearly dealing with proper music fans here... You can hear influcence from Grunge, Shoegaze and Folk, all thrown together, all expertly performed, and the end result is something that will amaze you.

The photo is by a mysterious man called only "Brady" and who has an interesting photo blog. I wonder if it would be possible to do our blog using only photos and still get our style of semi-coherent music reviews across...?

Better the second time around?

Well after a month off, we're back and more indie than ever I suppose.

In The Times newspaper, in which the music reviewers attempted to be "hip" and "with it" in discussing The Horrors new album, they raised an interesting and valid question... How many times has a band's second album better than their first?



Sure, there have been great examples of bands crashing and burning. The more commercial the band, usually the worse they do. There's a ton of bands today, that are favorites of the critics, that aren't going to make an album as well received as their first. And it'll be compared to their first, and they'll be assumed to have lost, whatever it is they had. This is the doom I foresee for bands like MGMT.

The more subtle version of this is when a second album is despised by critics but then goes on to be well received by fans and eventually by critics many, many years later. Good examples of this are Weezer's Pinkerton and BRMC's "Take Them On, On Your Own". Taking this to it's logical conclusion, you get Elbow, who's first album, though not hated by critics, went mostly unnoticed, then 14 years later they come up with The Seldom Seen Kid.

So, what bands do you know who out did themselves the second time around?

Oh, and today's photo is from Jurriaan Persyn, who's a bit of a jazz enthusiast it would seem. And according to last month's poll, radio is dead. I'll go tell those pesky radio presenters to pack it in finally.

Children! To your keyboards!

Here's a band that impressed me a long time ago... We'll like 3 months ago, when they were supporting of Montreal, but seeing them at Oxegen jogged my memory.

Casiokids are a Norwegian indie-something band. Not quite pop, or as last.fm might describe them electronic. Whatever it is it's very experimental.



They're something different to see live. There's lots of things going on, on stage. People on keyboards, guitars, extra drums, and shaking little maracas and the likes. I can't really describe their music properly with words. It's a mix of rock, pop, electro, shoegaze. I'd just call them a Scandinavian Explosions In The Sky.

Check their stuff out on Myspace and Last.fm. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Thanks to Jon Reksten for the awesome photo

Autumn Hibernation leads to...

Pick a style of indie... Let's go with Rock. Then Pick an indie country. In this case, we'll go with Canada. Then pick the indiest city in Canada. A contentious topic I know, but we'll go with Halifax. If you put all that together you get my new favorite band.



Wintersleep are all of the above and more. Together since 2001 (a good year for music), they've been making albums just as long. And they're even part of an indie label/collective. Oh, and they make good music too. I saw them at Oxegen, and I was pretty impressed. From Rock, to shoegaze and back, these guys will take you on a lovely musical adventure, and you'll be pleasantly surprised methinks. They're supporting Editors on their UK tour at the moment, so if you can get out and see them.

I needed to listen to some good music, since U2 are playing in Croke Park, just down the road from my house (where the streets have no name?) and it's pretty much all I can hear right now. Today's photo is courtesy of Labwork Music. Making Canada an indier place...

Indie Jesus!

I found this thing in some back room on the internet.. guess it means that Sam Beam is going to need to find some apostles fast!



not sure, but I'm willing to bet he's wearing sandals:

A Story For Little Indie Folk

i've always objected to fairy tails that encourages children to accept other people's differences in some sort of mutual respect thing.
Why not a story where one idiot.. let's call him Colin the mango. Gets talking to Kevin the microwave. Colin says
"hey there, have you heard of Lady GaGa, she's makes great music". "nope your confusing music with contrived bullshit" says Kevin who walks away never to have to listen to Colin's shit ever again.

it may need some fleshing out, but the content is probably about right. anyway for people who are interested in a story with a lovely indie life lession, one that perhaps isn't quite harsh enough, but it's a good start, take a gander at this:



it was created by an american guy called Dimitri Frazao, who has other stuff to watch here. keep up the good work

An Indie Chart For Indie Music!

There has never been an official indie chart that properly represented indie music. You might find they have some Fat Cat Records band or Asthmatic kitten show up in there but they're generally swamped in main stream marketed indie, bands i dare not even name... so it's about damn time that an effort has been made to kick the big 4 labels out of Indie.


As of today, the first truly official indie charts are being published in the UK. these do not contain any artist on any of the big 4 and more importantly no record lable that is any less than 50% owned by an independent source. we may actually see the first time when the big 4 can't buy themselves into a chart!

The Independents Breakers charts as they are known will rang both singles and albums, and as i said the first charts will be released today. sadly they appear to have a non-existent web presence. which will change i hope after a little while, so do your best to support that newest way to find great indie music, and perhaps finally kill off the major label monopoly

Remember The Distillers?

I sure do, and how I loved them. And after their 2006 demise, they left a bit of a gap in the music scene. Trust Brody Dalle and Tony Bevilacqua to come up with something, and something good at that. Now add Jack Irons (former drummer of Pearl Jam, amongst others) and Alain Johannes (one of the many former guitarists of Queens of the Stone Age), and the result is Spinnerette.

I only heard the album last week, and was quite impressed, though looking at my desk there's a copy of Kerrang from March which raves about these guys (note to self, clean my desk). Incidentally, never trust anything anyone says in any magazine, it's just nice to read though.



But back to the music, just think of Queens of the Stone Age, with a female vocalist (who incidentally can't sing as high as Josh Homme, though that says more about him than it detracts from her). The music is quite well composed, heavy distorted bass, heavy drums, and very, very grungy guitars. Brody's voice suits the music perfectly.

The one negative thing I will say is that some of the songs (namely "Geeking" and "Sex Bomb") seem a bit long and repetitive. If they were a bit shorter, they'd be perfectly fine. That being said I'll let it go, the rest of the album is brilliant. The best songs have to be "Ghetto Love" and "Baptized By Fire" both available on their Myspace for your listening pleasure.

A few unrelated things... A review of Gregory and The Hawk in Whelans will be up on my last.fm page soon. It was pretty awesome.

A belated thanks to our friend Robin at Forward Music for his kind words earlier in the month, who's blog is now year old and who's new website puts ours to shame (stay tuned for a whole new design soon. I'll get around to it eventually).

And thanks to something.from.nancy for the awesome picture of Spinnerette today. She's Female, she's taken, and she sells clothes on ebay. So check her pictures and the clothes out.

God Help Belle

Well Belle and Sebastian have been pretty quite for a long while the last thing they released was just an album of stuff they did with the BBC. Turns out Stuart Murdoch has been writing songs for a girl group he decided to create. which makes a lot of sense, Belle and Sebastian has always been a bit let down by the range of their female vocalists. So what God Help The Girl seems to be is a load of songs Stuart wrote as an excuse to hang around with 3 beautiful women. Good for him. They have a nice little sample playing on their myspace page, Come Monday Night is a lovely little number here's the video


If i was to be cynical about it i would say that it's basically just Belle and Sebastian being re-branded with some added sex appeal. But i'm not cynical, just jealous that i could never go around asking girls to be in a new band i'm forming without coming across like a bit of a weirdo.

A Last.fm Alternative

It may be finally time to leave last.fm. It hurts me to say it, but it's true. Unless you are one of the lucky few who live in the UK, the US or Germany (those lucky few numbering in the several hundred million), you may have noticed you have to pay now to listen to music on last.fm.

This trend was started last year when Pandora decided to block all non-US listeners. Pandora was quite the useful tool in finding new and interesting bands, but since it didn't have the social aspect to it, never had the same appeal to me as Last.fm did.

In fairness, last.fm are only charging €3 a month to listen, so it's not that bad, but that's still infinitely more than free. Though all the rest of the site (the charts, the gig listings, the whole social side of it) remains free.

One interesting alternative, is Deezer. Deezer seems to be quite similar to last.fm in many ways, except it's a little flashier (There's a pun in there for all you web nerds). Although I like it, it just doesn't have the ease of use that last.fm does and although I'm not sure, it doesn't have half the cool awesome indie people.

So I might just stay with last.fm anyway. It mightn't be free, but it's home. And home is where the indie is after all.

Dying to be heard

Alight, after a few weeks off fighting for indie in the Irish elections we're back and here to inform you of the next band you should already know about.

The Dying Seconds are Electro-Indie-Pop band from Dublin. It's a very experimental sound, which I won't even bother to attempt to describe. Now in their second year together they'll be releasing their second EP, "Some Grand Romantic Gestures" next Tuesday in Whelans.

Their last.fm page has all the songs from their first EP "Seconds" available for free download, which already puts them in my good books. The fact the music sounds awesome makes it even better. So get yourself their music, and get yourself to the gig. I know I will.

The Easy choice...

Summer means more time, later nights and lots of gigs. Time to start looking in our favorite place in town to go, Whelan's. The next few weeks of gigs wasn't looking too promising until I stumbled across these guys...

Ezio are a British Acoustic-y Rock indie band from Cambridge. They're similar to Elbow, in so far as they've been going since 1990 and have yet to make it into the mainstream. It's always good to see bands going for that length of time without the desire to get rich/famous and sell out into the popular music scene.

The songs they write are quite varied, with interesting influences from classics like The Stones or The Who mixed with a good bit of originality. Head over to their Myspace page. The songs to listen to are "Higher" and "Woohoohoo (Song for a fired waitress)".

They'll be playing upstairs in Whelan's, on Sunday 24th. I think you'll know where we'll be. Today's lovely photo comes from someone, known only as Rachel.