eashfa
Head is alive. Hence the sound of music.Archive for indie pop
Bubbles of urgent youth: Stuart James
Getting us back to spoken wit and guitar banging for a bit of a beat, here’s Stuart James. This is quite long overdue, and I have some other myspacians for you to check out, so come back, and come back often. Well maybe not that often.
Standout track: City On A Roll remix (mp3)
more on the hype machino
Pod 01: “First One Out The Door”
Hello everybody,
Why you’re just in time for my first ever podcast which might not happen a second time (maybe a third,we’ll see).
Boy do you ever want to!… subscribe to the eashfacast (it has a page of its own, there was no other way)
Playlist
Aoki Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko - 26th Floor
Bacanal Intruder - Jazzy Rendered
The Third Wave - Wave’s Lament
Georgia Anne Muldrow - Speakervision
Y Pants - Favourite Sweater
Danny Breaks - Astral Vibes zoostrumental
Zahara - Con Las Ganas
Pretty good for a Sunday - except the Favourite Sweater, that’s Saturday night’s praise bit.
UPDATE
I’ve tweaked the feedburner feed for eashfa, so it now should include mp3s I post delivered directly to your RSS reader. Eashfa feed w/mp3s, soon enough
The Bishops
Whatever’s going on in the UK, it’s all very thrilling. There’s a crop of talented people that are bending genres, giving melody and story-telling a new lease of life and while some are more indie than others, I can’t ignore the pop!
The Bishops really are the Bishops - a set of brothers, that is, Mike and Pete Bishop, and a lad called Chris McConville, drumming an eager drum, who they met in a local bar. Since they’re so catchy in this first phase of listening, and they sound like the 60’s-style pop Yang to The Pipettes’ Yin, I’m trying to decipher if they’re a one-trick pony, but I’ll have to wait until October to hear out their LP for that. If you like The Kooks, you’re going to like this too.
The Bishops - The Only Place I Can Look Is Down mp3 (right-click and save)
elsewhere: The Hype Machine
Mumm-Ra - a roar and a hush
I rarely champion bands here more than once or twice, which just means there’s so much music - or only so much music you’ll listen to time and again; (sort of) fact: people only listen to around 23% of the songs on their iPods habitually.
Mumm-Ra, as of now, are among the 23% of my listening habits.
Sounds menacing doesn’t it.
Ginger pieces for my Little Red Riding Hoods
I’m out until the 12th or the 13th, depending when or if I choose to come back from Open’er. But before I go, here’s some of my favourite music to smoke, eat, shower, walk, imagine driving, drink a nice bevvie to, this darkening side of 2006.
Love Is All - Make Out Fall Out Make Up mp3
Nouvelle Vague - Ever Fallen In Love mp3
Larrikin Love - Downing St. Kindling mp3 (6 Music - BBC Session)
The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way mp3
Conrad Newholmes - Noonday night mp3
Beirut - Rhineland (Heartland) mp3
The Radio Dept. - Why Won’t You Talk About It mp3 (via Labrador)
Sunset Rubdown - A Day In The Graveyard mp3
Herbert - Something Isn’t Right mp3
and a remix - Wolfmother - Woman (MSTRKRFT remix) m4a
Sigur Ros you’ll just have to buy. Or take a look here.
Right, now go and check out some of my fave blogs on the Further music page. Although some of them might be on hiatus too, they’re all worth a try, especially bigstereo. My main inspiration, although it might not look it.
Oh and wolf! Don’t let’s be snarky.
blogs, pringles and crack were all made by the Devil
hrsh
That's creativity for you. I love the martian pringles. The crack - who knows, I haven't gone down that line - though black is no darker than white. But who dunnit? Who made Christina Aguilera?
I don't know how i feel about this. i'm… i'm confused.
Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man mp3 (via sintalentos)
shoegaze? for sure. soft radiohead without falsettos (no matter how lovely they are- for real, thom's falsettos make me twinge with delight) and a female singer surfing on an emo-jazz wave? yeah. i'm in lov. Sara Lov's voice is amazing. Romantic but not mushy - this is a discovery I want to gorge myself with. Free download from betterPropaganda, where you also get the facts on the band - oh and, yes, the band has a name, it's called Devics. Too many angels here? Go hear them, no regrets.
[now.. there is something about that Aguilera track]
oh cam!.. has writer's block and a .. beautiful, of beauty full mix from her brainwaves. we're all DJs here dontcha know. The Cinematic Orchestra, Wilco, Deltahead, Built To Spill, this just put the p in perfect - as opposed to - i don't know (for my mood anyway).
[ah, yes, i played the instrumental version in my head. it's quite nifty]
for some strange reason it reminds me of a track i love with the vocals on it - a Lauryn Hill at-the-decks mix of a Whitney tune. It goes "I was born in New York…". The hell you say
m4a download for that - yeah, it's not an mp3. sue me
Eskiimo
the word mixtape as you know by now, avid reader (or not) , conveys to me a complex act, involving to several degrees of inner torment both passion for music and placement skills. it's an entrepreneurial endeavour almost, an act of friendship, narcissism because you can't wait to see the reaction. music can only say so many things for you. then again you can't rattle on too much about it. and you can't prevent others from talking all over it when you play it for them (fools).
the mixtapes i used to do for myself were thus moulded: listen to radio preferably between 10 pm and 2 am on Mondays for classic rock, Friday nights for indie rock, Wednesdays for leftfield electronic; press record; pay attention to the song's curvature and predict if that lame-ass dj will step in with his tongue all over my music. No rest. I'd have the radio on, studying, reading, drinking, being idle. Waiting. whenever i run into an old tape (I don't throw them away even though I have most of the songs in mp3) i get a whisk of something, something specific like a smell, or a book i was reading, or a colour. so, accidental and lonely-late-night-radio-driven as they may be, mixtapes can mean something.
i don't like people that bring me something in sweaty hands (when you choose to forge a determinist destiny for yourself, you're usually nervous), i rather like a nice throw then a ceremonious gifting. Dear Eskiimo threw me a link (an provided inspiration for my preamble). Dear Eskiimo are Simon, Katie and Jules, they make pop music that on occasion cavorts with a propensity for "technicolour musicals". their music is stripped of snobby references and it's perhaps simplicity that attracted me to it.
Dear Eskiimo - Pretty mp3
Dear Eskiimo - Jo mp3
Mancunians of mortal descent, higher beings in happy-go-lucky mixtape realm.
what starts off all powerpuff-girls-in-a-30's-style-ad (redundantly harmonic vocal arrangement- or maybe i just forgot how euphony hears like) rapidly decants into a mesmerizing joyous mixtape for days both sunny and rainy. a tribute to their influences - the likes of Eels, Eminem, Depeche Mode, Phoenix, PiL, Gwen Stefani and a bit of Frank (I wasn't too happy about the Eminem, it's the only detail that seems a bit out of place); very little self-indulgence. harmony yes, harmony i love. it's exceptional because it's become so rare in something else than mainstream music, and there it's heinously lacklustre and disengaging.
myspace is misused by many an artist. They slack off creativity, information is scarce and so is humour. Dear Eskiimo know there's a job to be done, and they're driven. If they're not, it certainly looks that way. These are people who can make a near-flawless pop mixtape that doesn't force a highlight; a bucolic landscape for my ears. It's like riding a train instead of an aeroplane. You can relax, move around, feel the earth, talk to your neighbours, solve a murder mystery. I don't know if I make myself understood very clearly (probably not.. clearly; I know I can twirl subjects sometimes). OK here's the link.
Dear Eskiimo mixtape (mp3, 17.5 Mb)
A mixtape that rings true. With a plan, but still spontaneous.
And I hope that was an accurate portrayal of someone I don't know based on a mixtape 
And I hope my radio story made me a complete buffoon to everyone, god bless.
