Here’s to another month of recommended listening!
I was linked to Los Campesinos! by Derek Tallon’s blog To Be Determined (he summarizes the video pretty well, with observations about “Big Eared Yellow Shirted Guy With A Fun Singing Accent” and “Shy Guy Who is Probably The Drummer.”) When I first heard them my inner cynic was cringing at the fake cheerleader sounds in the background, an effect that’s really overused in indie rock. Once I got over that, I really enjoyed their debut album Hold on Now, Youngster…, which includes highlights such as “Death to Los Campesinos!” and “You! Me! Dancing!” (it would seem that they’re rather fond of exclamation marks.)
Icelandic band Sigur Rós have had worldwide fame for nearly a decade. I’d probably heard the name bouncing around somewhere before, but never actually bothered to sit down and listen to them until they decided to give away a single from their new album as a free MP3. The song is called “Gobbledigook”, and it has a crazy dream-like quality that I absolutely love. I’ll definitely be digging through their back catalogue in the near future.
The Bird and the Bee got a fair bit of Internet attention this month from a Mac enthusiast’s video that featured one of their songs. I was introduced to them a few months ago by my friend Tiff, and rather enjoyed their eponymous debut LP. Their sound has a certain low-fi charm that’s both catchy and subdued, so it’s great computer background music.
Listening to the same music at work every day is getting boring, so please help relieve my boredom by dropping me a comment with suggested listening.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of 3 Inches of Blood, they’re great if you like metal that exists for the sake of being metal. Also a favourite band of mine, Scar Symmetry, just released a new album. If you haven’t heard them you should check them out. They’re pretty good.
And for something you’ll probably actually like, assuming you haven’t heard it already, there’s a group called Zero 7. Check our their Simple Things album. They’re a downtempo style similar to The Bird and Bee. I discovered them from the Garden State soundtrack (fantastic soundtrack), which you should also check out. I regularly loop it when I need to get stuff done or when I just want to zone out for a bit.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:45 pm
@Skrud: I like the lady singer in Zero 7’s voice, I’ll give the album a shot. Also checked out Scary Symmetry, it was pretty interesting (atypical vocal style for metal.) I think 3 Inches of Blood is a bit too heavy for my current mood, though :P
Thanks for the suggestions!
June 5th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I watched the sigur ros clip, was quite interesting. Interesting enough to convince me to check out another of their videos, Glosoli, which pretty much blew my mind. Check it out, if you haven’t already.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
My first thought was “this is rather mellow” but man, what a crescendo, the ending was incredible. In that respect it reminded me quite a bit of an Arcade Fire song called “My Body is a Cage”, you may be interested in checking it out.
“Takk…” (which Glosoli is off) is supposed to be one of their stronger albums. I do believe I’ll go give it a closer listen. Thanks for the tip, Thomas.