I played Exitmusic‘s “The Sea” on my KSVR radio show a few weeks back. I found the music to be somewhere between the haunting melodies of Beach House and the hushed whispers of Still Corners. The band consists of New York duo Aleksa Palladino and Devon Church. And if Palladino looks familiar, it’s because she also plays a character in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

Gardens & Villa has a new video for “Black Hills” off their recently released self-titled LP and, in a way, it reminds me a bit of E.T. You have the young kid on a bike with a foreign object in the basket. He’s being chased by the enemy, which in this case is a few crazy blokes in a pick-up truck. But unlike the Spielberg flick, this one is much more artsy. Typical, of course, for a music video; the concept is anything but and definitely …

Night Falls Over Kortedala was one of my favorite releases of 2007, topped only by Fishboy’s release that year. It’s hard to believe that it’s been four years since that album, and that it’s taken so long for Lekman to follow it with new material. Wait no longer; Lekman is back with a new EP dubbed An Argument With Myself and we have been given the title track to enjoy as a little taste of what’s to come.

For a song so dreamy and seemingly pleasant, it’s hard to realize without seeing the video for “Casual” by Here We Go Magic that the song is actually quite disturbing. In a makeshift hospital room, the band waits. The singer has a nasty gash on his arm and in obvious pain sweats and winces. A woman sits with blood on her neck. A man has a neck brace and a second woman sits gowned in a chair.
At first the viewer will think the video …

Songs like “Young Sensualists” and “Yucatan Gold” off Throw Me The Statue‘s debut LP Moonbeams were, in my opinion, far greater in depth and personality than the song that initially garnered them fame: “Lolita”. Thus is often the curse of the first single; luckily their sophomore follow-up to Moonbeams debuts with “Ancestors”, a song that has just as much character as the aforementioned greats off Moonbeams. The new release is dubbed Creaturesque and will find a comfortable home yet again on Secretly Canadian.

It’s hard to believe that my first live show of 2009 didn’t happen until mid-April. Then again, with the extent of travel over the past six or so months, maybe it isn’t. Add to that the fact that I’m getting older, and that it’s getting harder and harder for me to stay up late. Still, it was fitting that the first show took place at The Crocodile, recently remodeled and reopened with new decor and fancy marble-sinked bathrooms.

Written by Fense
There’s something profound about a nude album cover. I guess this isn’t necessarily a ground-breaking statement, but it catches the eye. You’re seeing something you’re not supposed to, and that’s naughty and exciting and… yeah, maybe a little weird. To be honest, I like nude covers. And I don’t mean that in a creepy sexual way.

After Antony Heggarty’s involvement in the phenomenal Hercules And Love Affair release from earlier this year, one might expect his more personal project to perhaps alter course. But Another World, for the most part, continues down the same path as earlier works, like I Am A Bird Now and the groups self-titled release. And that commonality is the stripped-down Heggarty on vocals with a melodramatic backing piano and string accompaniment.

Written by bob_vinyl
Just because an artist has done all that can be expected of him and has earned the right to rest on his laurels, doesn’t mean the work he started is done. So it is with Bob Dylan, and The War on Drugs (MySpace) has picked up the cause and put their own spin on it with Wagonwheel Blues.

Do you want to know something I completely object to? Of course you do—if you’re a regular reader you probably long for me to go off on a rant about something negative. So… listen up: I strongly believe that those who say Oh, nothing good has been released this year have a vastly distorted vision of reality. Their folly is that they don’t expose themselves to that which is new. Take, for example, A Certain Feeling by Bodies Of Water (MySpace)—this album is absolutely brilliant!!!