December 2010
6 posts
5 tags
Pequeña Fiera!: Mountains were monsters
Free Download Friday Listen to this. Pequeña Fiera!: Mountains were Monsters 2010, Error! Lo-Fi Recordings This album is available as a free download here. I am intrigued by the bigfoot-looking cartoon character on the cover of Pequeña Fiera!’s record, Mountains were Monsters. I’m intrigued because I wonder whether it is the inspiration for this whimsical collection of lo-fi...
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WatchCaithlin De Marrais is looking for help recording her new record. I’d enthusiastically encourage anyone who can spare the funds to donate to her project.
For those of you who don’t know, Caithlin is the former lead singer of Rainer Maria, a brilliant indie rock band who previously recorded for Polyvinyl Records.
This is a Kickstarter project and Caithlin is looking for $8,500 for...
6 tags
5 tags
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Diego Bernal: Besides...
Free Music Friday. Best New Music Diego Bernal: Besides… 2010, Exponential Records This album is available as a free download here. This album just might be the coolest thing I’ve heard all year. This is the kind of music you would imagine rolling through Danny Trejo’s head while he’s walking into the grocery store or something. And yet, despite this “cool”...
November 2010
2 posts
3 tags
3 tags
October 2010
1 post
3 tags
September 2010
1 post
7 tags
Free Music Friday: 23 Seconds Netlabel Round-Up
Free Music Friday Johan Lundin contacted me a couple weeks ago via last.fm about a release from his label by Azoora. You can’t really know the netlabel world without knowing about 23 Seconds. The label features a diverse set of musicians that doesn’t fit regularly into the electronic-music type mold that usually gets assigned to netlabels. There is a wealth of genres represented, and...
August 2010
9 posts
6 tags
Power und Beauty: The Gnome E.P.
Free Release Friday Best New Music. Power und Beauty: The Gnome E.P. 2010, Peppermill Records This album is available as a free download here. The netlabel world is typically a world of ambient electronica experimentalism. This is not a bad thing, but finding a brilliant little exhuberant acoustic-based E.P. like Power und Beauty’s The Gnome E.P., was a tremendous surprise for me. Power...
IV: last.fm account →
View my playlists on last.fm. While you’re there be sure to add me as a friend.
3 tags
Hanalei: One Big Night
Best New Music Hanalei: One Big Night 2010, Big Scary Monsters Recording Company/Brick Gun In the early 2000s, Chicago was a haven for Jawbreaker-esque punk rock bands that rocked. Out of the scene came no less than the Alkaline Trio and the Lawrence Arms. People forget the contributions of the other bands affiliated with the scene. One of the contributing acts was Brian Moss’ ‘The...
4 tags
The Strait of Anain: This Wandering Winter
Free Release Friday. Best New Music. The Strait of Anain: This Wandering Winter 2010, Qunabu This album is available for free download here. Precision is the logical complement to delicacy. It is the choice to be precise that reveals sensitivity to environment, which reveals what the artist is delicate about. It is only in environment that truly delicate choices come through, because the...
4 tags
Doug Burr 12" Vinyl Event
Saturday, August 14 6pm, Good Records, Dallas O Ye Devastator, the current release from Doug Burr, will be released on vinyl at this event at 6pm at Good Records in Dallas. Details are mostly above, but it would be wise to go and pick up Burr’s current release. Recently I was able to see a solo show with he and Glen Farris, both of Spune Productions, and have been pleasantly awaiting this...
4 tags
Socket Science: Ephedra
Free Release Friday Listen to this. Socket Science: Ephedra 2010, Astor Bell Free Download Socket Science’s second release, Ephedra, is a study in themes and hooks. Each of the album’s three tracks study similar territory—poppy, danceable, moderate-speed electronic music that begs to be in rotation in most people’s iPods. There are few complaints that I have with this...
3 tags
Samantha Crain: You (Understood)
Listen to this. Samantha Crain: You (Understood) 2010, Ramseur Records / Thirty Tigers Samantha Crain’s voice is a star. She doesn’t sing in your typical Billie Holiday-faked warble, though she does have a throatiness that might remind you of that cliché. She also doesn’t bubble and brim with bubbly glee, the other major trend for most female singer-songwriters at the moment. ...
July 2010
7 posts
1 tag
Suns: The Howl and the Many & Close Calls in the...
Free Release Friday Suns: The Howl and the Many & Close Calls in the U.S. Space Program 2010, Self-Released Available as a free download here. Rating: 8.3 / 7.5 The only appropriate adjective for Suns would be ‘savage.’ And while the term is appropriate enough, it wouldn’t do justice to the absolute immensity that embodies the intensity of the band on these two releases. ...
6 tags
How to Destroy Angels: How to Destroy Angels
Best New Music How to Destroy Angels: How to Destroy Angels Self-Released Available as a Free Download Here Rating: 8.8 I am of the opinion that Trent Reznor is and remains a genius. At the same time, I believe him to be an auteur, an artist with a highly developed aesthetic that essentially defines his work. Reznor is an enigma. At one time he was essentially a recluse, hiding himself from the...
Free Release Friday
ZOE.LEELA: Queendom Come
2010, Rec72 Download Here
Rating: 5.0
Dance music. Yes, and not just any dance music, German dance music. And what’s to say that hasn’t already been said by an American about their European counterparts? Nothing. Which begs the question, why dig this mine any deeper?
ZOE.LEELA is an emerging voice in the German dance music scene, and she plays...
Kings Go Forth: The Outsiders Are Back
2010, Luaka Bop
Rating: 6.5
In the late 1990s, a ska revival began to sweep across the United States. Like the years prior with punk, this seemed to be the time that America let ska break into the mainstream. Enter Moon Ska Records, a record label via the Moon Ska record store and ska band the Toasters. Moon Ska was a legendary ska label that put out...
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Kings Go Forth: The Outsiders are Back
Kings Go Forth: The Outsiders Are Back
2010, Luaka Bop
Rating: 6.5
In the late 1990s, a ska revival began to sweep across the United States. Like the years prior with punk, this seemed to be the time that America let ska break into the mainstream. Enter Moon Ska Records, a record label via the Moon Ska record store and ska band the Toasters. Moon Ska was a legendary ska label that put...
6 tags
Adam & Alma: Back to the Sea
Free Release Friday Adam & Alma: Back to the Sea 2010, 23 Seconds Netlabel Download Here Rating: 7.8 Adam & Alma are a deceptive electronic duo. They are equal parts American indie rock, European trip-hop, and 80s electronic pop nostalgia. The group sounds like a thesis statement of all that is good about electronic music over the last 10 years. The only problem is that they...
Free Release Friday
Adam & Alma: Back to the Sea
2010, 23 Seconds Netlabel Download Here
Rating: 7.8
Adam & Alma are a deceptive electronic duo. They are equal parts American indie rock, European trip-hop, and 80s electronic pop nostalgia. The group sounds like a thesis statement of all that is good about electronic music over the last 10 years. The only problem is that they don’t...
June 2010
6 posts
Free Release Friday
why (performed slapdash by the paper cups): THE SOUNDTRACK TO why’s (poignant) guide to ruby
self-released Download
Rating: 8.2
I love lo-fi. I count Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted and Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand among my favorite records. I can get past the nastiness of the recording style, and no, it doesn’t bother me. That being said, I do not make this...
why: THE SOUNDTRACK TO why's (poignant) guide to...
Free Release Friday why (performed slapdash by the paper cups): THE SOUNDTRACK TO why’s (poignant) guide to ruby self-released Download Rating: 8.2 I love lo-fi. I count Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted and Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand among my favorite records. I can get past the nastiness of the recording style, and no, it doesn’t bother me. That being said, I do...
Broken Bells: Broken Bells
2010, Columbia
Rating: 8.3
Bands like the Shins have to be completely unforgiving for gifted songwriters. You have a band that evokes a time, place, and aesthetic so skillfully that when they don’t execute the form, the album just feels flat.
The Shins’ 2007 effort, Wincing the Night Away, didn’t impress me because of this very fact. I was one of the many caught...
3 tags
Broken Bells: Broken Bells
Broken Bells: Broken Bells 2010, Columbia Rating: 8.3 Bands like the Shins have to be completely unforgiving for gifted songwriters. You have a band that evokes a time, place, and aesthetic so skillfully that when they don’t execute the form, the album just feels flat. The Shins’ 2007 effort, Wincing the Night Away, didn’t impress me because of this very fact. I was one of...
Free Release Friday
Kaneel: Here is a heart so you can remember how much I hate you
2010, petite&jolie Download
Rating: 8.7
Here is a heart so you can remember how much I hate you is an amazing gem of an electronic record. It doesn’t flash the listener with deep bass, pounding sound textures, or sugary-sweet pop hooks. This is a record for the pure examination of melody and textured...
4 tags
Kaneel: Here is a heart so you can remember how...
Free Release Friday Kaneel: Here is a heart so you can remember how much I hate you 2010, petite&jolie Download Rating: 8.7 Here is a heart so you can remember how much I hate you is an amazing gem of an electronic record. It doesn’t flash the listener with deep bass, pounding sound textures, or sugary-sweet pop hooks. This is a record for the pure examination of melody and textured...
March 2010
1 post
Passion Pit: Manners
2009, French Kiss/Columbia
Rating: 2.75
I encountered Passion Pit much later than most music fans. My world had already been filled in the past year by poppy, intelligent synthpop through the top-40 enchantments of Lady Gaga and the incredible cool of Justice. And so, coming to Manners left me with an ill taste that I wonder whether it would have been felt the same way if...
February 2010
2 posts
4 tags
3 tags
January 2010
1 post
1 tag
This is "Bits and Grooves"
Welcome to Bits and Grooves, a mish-mash of original Blog posts about music from Louis Korom IV’s blogs.
The goal of this blog is to explore the intersection of analog and digital music. The way that this happens is that this blog’s posts will pay special attention to music (new and old) in various formats (digital and analog) played on devices (personal and public).
Watch for...