New Mixtape - The End...?

It's ironic that I return from a long hiatus to talk about a mixtape I made centered around songs about endings. I submitted it for the Yewknee Summer Mix Series, and you can view the tracklist and download it here. It features a wide variety of musicians new and old, including a handful (Jeff Hanson, Sparklehorse, J Dilla) who are sadly no longer with us. This mixtape is dedicated to them. Enjoy.

Free Album from Greensboro's Workday/Schoolnight

One of the big surprises I received at the Cucalorus 14 launch party back in 2008 was a performance by Greensboro experimental rock band Invisible, a group that utilized ingenious homemade devices that produced beats from a variety of found objects. It was a fascinating performance, one that preceded a screening of a documentary made about the band, and kept me interested in what Invisible would do next.

Well, one of the members, Bart Trotman, has just delivered a free album under the moniker Workday/Schoolnight entitled Plastic Ocean. It's a sprawling work, combining minimalist glitch-pop with sound collages utilizing dozens of thrift store cassettes, including "self-help tapes, self-hypnotic tapes, daily affirmations, and vocabulary lessons." The songs alone are fairly interesting to listen to, but it's the ludicrousness of the samples Trotman uses to bookend each song that keeps me listening. I will say that the length of the album (70 min.) left me wishing some more editing had taken place before its release.

Still, it's hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that gift horse has such a wide variety of interesting samples at his disposal. You can get the whole album for free on Megaupload or Mediafire, but only for a limited time.

New Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves"

People who've already gone out and purchased Sufjan Stevens' new movie/soundtrack, The BQE, have probably already stumbled across a couple hidden tracks shortly following the film, a noisy instrumental and this plaintive choral piece featuring Stevens back on vocal duties:

Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves" (MP3)

According to this interview from The Quietus, Stevens had originally intended "The Sleeping Red Wolves" to be included in The BQE, but "there just wasn't enough time, so I just threw it in at the end."

The BQE is out now on Asthmatic Kitty, in a myriad of formats.

Get Unbunny's Black Strawberries Reprinted!

Ryan Catbird has been working hard to get people to pledge money to his project on Kickstarter, which involves getting the long out-of-print release Black Strawberries by indie stalwarts Unbunny reissued on 180-gram vinyl. Take a listen:

Unbunny - "In a Way" (MP3)

It's a wonderful example of fans directly financing the release of music. $5 or more gets you a high-quality download of the album, $20 or more gets you the LP, and $40 or more gets you the Deluxe Version LP, which promises to feature "special extras, additional artwork and/or customization, hand-numbered and signed by Jarid Del Deo [leader of Unbunny]."

He hasn't reached the $3,500 goal yet, and there's only 53 days left, so if you haven't chipped in, please consider it. Oh, and just so you know, all donors will have their name listed in the liner notes!

Coldplay's Christmas Wish (with Simon Pegg)

Coldplay gave their fans an early Christmas present with a free download of the Thin White Duke remix of "Viva La Vida," as well as this video of the band performing "Jingle Bells" with dueling harmonicas by Chris Martin and special guest Simon Pegg:

Explorers Club Debut LP This Tuesday

I've been singing the praises of the Most Likely to Win a Beach Boys Sound-Alike Contest band, The Explorers Club, whose debut album, Freedom Wind, drops on CD and LP this Tuesday. It's a beautiful summer soundtrack, and one I will definitely be picking up when it comes out. For now, though, not only can you grab a couple free MP3s from the album, you can stream six tracks as a muxtape!

Dead Oceans Sign Explorers Club

I occasionally get mass mailings from indie labels advertising new bands and stuff, but rarely will I be inspired to write a blog post about them. This one I received earlier today, however, deserves some talking about.

The Explorers Club, a Charleston, South Carolina, based sextet have signed on to Dead Oceans, and I am already looking forward to their debut release. While their sound is definitely in the realm of The Beach Boys, their songs sound fresher and catchier than other bands that have tried the same formula. Listen to this free track and try not to start tapping your feet to it.

The Explorers Club - "Last Kiss" (mp3)

NPR Rocks! Also, McSweeney's Guide to the Presidential Candidates

If you have not yet subscribed to NPR's All Songs Considered podcast, I advise you to do so right away. Not only can you listen to new music from the White Stripes, Feist, and others, but every other week, they have excellent-quality concerts by artists like Andrew Bird, Ben Gibbard, and Björk! We're talking the whole shebang, too. The Andrew Bird concert alone is an hour and 50 minutes long!

In other news, online literary website McSweeney's has, for your convenience, lists of The Pros and Cons of the Top 20 Democratic and Republican Candidates. Prime candidates from both lists include Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Jimmy Carter, Ira Glass, Zombie Ronald Regan, Bigfoot, Robotic Super Bees, Optimus Prime, and my personal favorite in the Democrat list, Dick Cheney in an Elaborate Latex Disguise That Takes Five Hours to Apply.

New Free Music from Adult Swim

Despite the fact that all five of Adult Swim's new pilot episodes that aired last week were ten times better than both Tim and Eric Awesome Show and Saul of the Mole Men, only one shall be made into a new show. (Please, let it be Drinky Crow! Please!)

Still, one aspect that Adult Swim always excels on is their generosity, and to prove it, they've just released, for FREE, a new full-length compilation entitled Warm & Scratchy, featuring brand-new tracks by TV on the Radio, The Rapture, Broken Social Scene, Sound Team, Liars, and The Good, The Bad, & The Queen. Plus, there's a really sweet video for "Me-I," the TV on the Radio track, featuring bird costumes, dancing trees, and a knife-wielding sandwich. What could be better than that?

UPDATE: I got rid of the streaming player 'cause I couldn't figure out how to keep it from automatically playing when I opened the blog. Still, you can listen to the whole thing here.


UPDATE 2: Check out some really cool production stills from the making of the TV on the Radio video.

New Grizzly Bear Sessions at Daytrotter

Daytrotter continues their impressive series of in-studio sessions with a trio of revamped tunes by Hall of Awesome inductees Grizzly Bear. Among the offerings are a sparse, yet powerful, cover of the controversial Crystals tune "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Hit)," along with a drastically reworked version of Yellow House centerpiece "Little Brother." Get 'em while the gettin's good.

Need more sweet Daytrotter sessions? Try the archives where you'll find, among other things, sessions by Dr. Dog, My Brightest Diamond, The Elected, Mates of State, Of Montreal, Cold War Kids, Maritime, Sunset Rubdown, Harry and the Potters, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

New Listening Station

So, I officially got tired of embedding Amazon.com links in my music sidebar, so I decided to mix things up a little bit. Now, when you click on any one of the albums in the new "Listening Station," you'll either get a link to a free MP3 from the album, a music video, or a link to where you can stream the entire album! So far, the Of Montreal link is the only one that provides a full stream, but if there are any other links I should know about, send me an e-mail and I'll add it to the list.

New Apples in Stereo - "Energy"

The Apples in Stereo are one of those bands that I've caught glimpses of all throughout my music listening career. In 1999, I heard the distinctly Lennon-esque "Strawberryfire" when they were featured by MusicMatch Jukebox (remember them?) as an Artist to Watch. Then, a couple years later, the Apples returned, appearing in a music video for their Powerpuff Girls track "Signal in the Sky (Let's Go)". And, just recently, lead Apple Robert Schneider appeared on The Colbert Report, singing his new song "Stephen, Stephen" before the Decemberists vs. Colbert Guitar Solo Contest.

I'm finally getting to the point of this post, and that is to say there's a new Apples in Stereo album, entitled New Magnetic Wonder, that's coming out on February 6, and the first single off it, "Energy," is pretty freakin' awesome. The band has never tried to hide its Beatles influence, and this song is most certainly no exception. That doesn't mean it doesn't stand well enough on its own. Have a listen:

The Apples in Stereo - "Energy" (MP3)

Thanks Stereogum, for posting the track.