photos, writings and little nothings from someone who never fails to keep it real
Artist: The Decemberists
Album: The Crane Wife
Song: Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
Had a long drive over the holy weekend, which gave me a chance to revisit old tunes I haven’t heard in a while.
Here’s one of my favorite Decemberists songs for you (part of the Holy Weekend Roadtrip play list I had). Happy Thursday, because it means tomorrow’s Friday!!
For the past two weeks or so, I have been (as I’d like to call it) grave digging my iPod. This is basically me going through my artist list and listening to bands I put in there but never listened to, or re-discovering bands I only did a once over before and forgot about already.
Although Australia has generally produced some pretty decent indie bands like Cut Copy, Empire of the Sun, and Temper Trap, most of these guys are electronic-indie based. So when I was doing my grave digging today, I was surprised to hear Angus & Julia Stone. Folk from Down Under!
Peaking at their bio, this brother and sister duo hail from Sydney and produce pretty solemn, guitar-plucking heavy tunes and a bit of harmonizing when they do sing together. Personally, I like Angus’ tracks better (and to think—from what I read—he wasn’t really into music and performing in the beginning until convinced by his sister). I especially like the track Yellow Brick Road from Down the Way album.
They’re no Fleet Foxes, but enjoyable nonetheless. What can I say, I am a sucker for folk.
Band: M83
Album: Saturdays = Youth
Song: Kim & Jessie
M83 has been releasing albums since 2001, but it barely skimmed the surface of indie rock popularity until the mid to late 2000s. I got introduced to them in 2008, and completely love their 80’s sound. If you’ve never heard of them and like the whole the Cure era of music, I highly recommend you give this album a listen.
Here’s a sample of one of my favorite songs from their Saturdays = Youth album.
I credit Fleet Foxes as the band that truly allowed me to let go of my classic-rock-to-the-bone-music-listening stubborness and finally opened me up to indie music. I have a soft spot for folk, and I cannot stress how these twenty-somethings (yes, twenty!) can sing with so much soul.
I stumbled upon this video a few years back, when they opened up an abandoned building in France and performed Blue Ridge Mountains armed with just a blow piano, a small mandoline, a portable xylophone, one drum, a few shakers and tambourines, an acousitic guitar, some chucks and topsiders, a slouch hat, and a whole lot of talent. This song is probably my favorite from their self-titled album. The acoustics are so beautiful, it can almost make you cry…
Lie down with me, my dear.
Lie down
Under stormy night.
Tell nobody.
If you want music that plays around with your senses, Junior Boys album It’s All True gives you exactly that. It plays around with left-to-right-ear trippy electronica that cannot be done justice unless you have a pimpin’ sound system.
Here’s a sampler of their first track Itchy Fingers. Word of advice, if you want to give it a listen now and experience what I just described, I suggest you use your ear/head phones. Enjoy!
*Thanks to whoever upped this on Romy Boy
Finally, Fleet Foxes is coming out with a new album mid this year. I hold them credible for letting me fully open my heart to indie music. Never has a group of soulful singers made me cry like Joni Mitchell used to. So young, yet undoubtedly with very old souls, Fleet Foxes released this sampler to their new album that got me teary-eyed when I first heard it. They’re in their early twenties! TWENTIES!
