Sorry, goodbye.

Yeah, ok I'm a lazy motherfucker. I haven't written or even compiled a list of my 2010 favorites. So sorry about that.

More importantly however, is that I'm abandoning this blog for good. Yep.

But fear not! I've thought about it and I think I'm gonna start up a new blog on tumblr.

It'll be sorta similar to this one but without all the piracy and stuff. Also I won't be posting about music exclusively (at least that's the plan). I think I'm gonna use the new blog for all kinds of personal venting and creative input/output. Not sure if that makes any sense to you, but whatever.

I haven't started it yet, but I'm eager to, considering how fucking sexy everything tumblr-related looks. I like it.

So yeah, we'll see how this turns out and I will get back to this post to give you the name of my new blog (I'm hoping most of you readers are going to follow my new one).

Edit:

HERE IS MY NEW BLOG

As a consolation, here's a short list of my top 10 albums of 2010:

1. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor (Epic indie rock/punk with the greatest guitar riffs and solos you'll ever hear. Think Arcade Fire meets Desaparecidos.)
2. Beach House - Teen Dream (Amazing, unique and hauntingly beautiful dream pop.)
3. Bonobo - Black Sands (Jazzy, laid-back electronic masterpiece. Indescribable with words.)
4. The Tallest Man On Earth - The Wild Hunt (The Swedish god of American folk. Truly dylanesque.)
5. Autechre - Oversteps (Masterfully crafted, beautifully melodic and wildly experimental. The modern masters of electronic music have done it again.)
6. Caribou - Swim (Great album art, greater music. A Ph.D in mathematics apparently equals exquisitely crafted and sophisticated dance music. A must-listen.)
7. Fang Island - Fang Island (They describe their music as "everyone high-fiving everyone". Couldn't have said it better myself.)
8. Liars - Sisterworld (Grower of the year 2010. Experimental rock for the music aficionado.)
9. Aloe Blacc - Good Things (Funky soul for the soul. 50 minutes of brilliance.)
10. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (You've heard it. It's very good. Yes.)

You can find download links for most of the albums if you search for them here. Example: "bonobo black sands" (without the quote marks, of course)

I've had a good run, hope you've enjoyed all the music. Goodbye and a happy new year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! Sorry I haven't been very active, but my top 10 of 2010 is on the way. I will post it some time before New Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, enjoy my favorite Christmas album: A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio. It's a beautiful jazz interpretation of some classic Christmas carols, and also a couple Charlie Brown songs (this is the trio that made all the music for Charlie Brown). It even features a boys' choir!

Very good album, definite check out if you like jazz/Christmas carols (or both!).

OH DOWNLOAD LINK, OH DOWNLOAD LINK

Password: HlK531m

Postponing

Holy shit, I just remembered I have blog to run. Seriously. Okay, whatever.

As you may have realized, at this pace my "best of the 90s"-series thingy won't get done by 2043 or something like that (might be a slight exaggeration). So, therefore I have decided to postpone it for a while and sort of post the next album in the list every once in a while between regular posts.

I realized that making and album of the year-list for 2010 before 2011 is more important than finishing a list of albums made over a decade ago.

So I hope that you're not too disappointed or anything (highly doubt that you are, I mean it's hard to be disappointed when the standard quality of the posts are lower than the average 12-year old 4chan lurker's awful attempts at forcing his new stupid meme).

But um.....be on the lookout for more quality music, I'll try to post more when I'm not busy doing nothing. Yeah. That's all.

BotN #15 || Oval - 94 Diskont

Okay, so first post in my amazing "Best of the 90's"-series thingy (BotN = Best of the Nineties). It's taken a while to get going, I know; mostly because I've forgot, but frankly also because I am very lazy. As you might have noticed in the title, this is the album No. 15 out of 15 (meaning the least awesome of the 15).

Now that the boring informative stuff is out of the way, let us get to the actual music:

A groundbreaking album by a not-so-silly man with a silly name (but that's just my opinion), Markus Popp released this album with his group Oval in 1995 and in the process practically created a new sub-genre of electronic music in the process.

So called glitch music has since then grown pretty popular and terms such as IDM and glitch are thrown around whenever some dude on Warp releases a new single.

Most stuff that gets called glitch is in actuality not what I would call glitch. This, however, is undisputably delicious glitchy ambient.

The album is centered around the 24 minute masterpiece Do While, which was composed from short clips and sonic fragments from scratched and mutilated CDs, sampled and rhythmically organized into a single flowing, (surprisingly) organic and melodic drone. It's so watery and constantly mutating, hypnotizing and with subtle percussion it still manages to retain the true spirit of ambient as Eno meant it to be; background music.

Sure, the other songs are great too. But none are as mesmerizingly beautiful as Do While.

94 Diskont is one of those albums that has become so hugely influential, but was largely ignored at the time of its release, like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (practically single-handedly created noise music).

This might not be the best nineties album, but it sure is one of them.

7/10

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IF YOU HAVE SHIT ATTENTION SPAN

Password: OFmK7Z9

Buy

When you were young you were the of King of Shadowboxin', and how you would hold this thread as I walk away.

Heya. Thinking about making something like a connected series of posts, like a theme you know?
I'm pretty sure I wanna make a list of my 20 or so favorite albums from the 90's.

But, what do you think? Some input would nice (for a change). I'm probably gonna do it either way, but if anyone for some strange reason absolutely despises all 90's music (or have better suggestion), please speak up; I might reconsider it.

Stay tuned for 90's album #25/20/15/whatever!

Props to whoever gets all three references in the post title. No cheating! (Cheating=google, wikipedia, etc.)

Wingnut Dishwashers Union - Burn The Earth! Leave It Behind!

Late post, but it's a post. Today I'm writing about Wingnut Dishwashers Union, the project Pat the Bunny (from Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains) started after he decided to stop being a depressed junkie.

It basically consists of him singing and playing guitar, along with his friends (I think) playing other cool intruments.

He has now entered a year long rehab program and is out due December this year. However, it is unclear if he will keep making this kind of music after he gets out.

Now, to the album. First off, it has better production (I think he actually has a little money for stuff besides drugs now). There's even electric guitar in one song, holy shit.

The material is pretty much more of the same (which is in no way bad of course) and the lyrics are similar, except without drugs and less misery.

I mean, it really sounds like an actual band most of the time, you know with drums and everything.

But I still can't decide which of his projects are better.

WDU is more folky most of the time (which I love), but it doesn't have those "anthems" that made Johnny Hobo so great. But whatever. I'll leave that decision to you.

8/10

DOWNLOAD

Password: m7gPJCs

Myspace

Busy, busy, busy...

Yeah, so, I've been pretty busy and haven't had any time to post a new album, but I'm working on it and maybe I'll try to post two albums before the end of the week, as a little bonus. So stay with me.

Just though I'd post this to make sure you don't lose faith in me.

Stay tuned!

Nyseius - Militiae

Alright! First post of the fall, first post of "the comeback".

And it's a black metal album, perfect for the cold, grim winter ahead of us. Now, some of you might not like black metal. But as you probably know, I post a wide variety of music here and if this isn't your cup of tea, maybe the next one will be (or the one after that).

Enough smalltalk, let's get down to business. I very recently stumbled across this brand new album by obscure French black metal act Nyseius. I haven't listened to Peste Noire (shame on me), but I imagine they sound something like this; i.e. awesome.

Putting this record on for the first time was a pleasantly surprising experience as the production is unbelievably good for a black metal album. If you're at all interested in black metal you probably know that it's somewhat of a tradition to make it sound like the whole album was recorded with one of those karaoke mics, burned to a CD which is then scratched with rough sandpaper, ripped back to digital form, burned to a new CD and then sent to mastering.

Such is not the case here. This actually sounds good.

The instrumentation is really nice; great riffs, great drumming and great vocals. It is a short album, but that's probably because there's no filler. It sounds like they've put a lot of work into each and every song to create a hauntingly dark atmosphere with short dark ambient pieces and long black metal epics clocking in at around 8 minutes.

This is a start-to-finish blacktastic metal fest.

7/10

DOWNLOAD

Password: I6N7t7I

Myspace

Buy

I'm back in the game, baby!

Hooray! The blog is back! Yes, I've decided to start posting again, as of yesterday (I hope you see this as a good thing).

In a sense, this is the beginning of a new, slightly better era of Music is ok I guess. For example: from now on all uploads will be of excellent quality - almost always in either 320 CBR or V0 VBR mp3 format. Oh, and no fucking lossy-to-lossy transcodes. This was something I could not guarantee before because I did not exactly have the most reliable source. Which I now have (obviously).

I will also begin putting passwords on all uploads, as I want the music posted here to be a privilege to the readers of this blog. However, if you feel this is too much of a hassle, please let me know and I'll stop doing it.

Other changes: numerical ratings for each album, specific email address for the blog, new fancy layout and color scheme (!), neater header, links to myspace/place to buy album in each post, and maybe some other stuff.

Stay tuned for the real post tomorrow!

Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.1

What up peeps? (This is how cool people talk, right?) It's been a laawwwng time since I posted anything worthwhile now. So here it is; on the 1st of July, a new beginning (sorta).

The blog has been on a bit of an (is it 'an' or 'a'?) hiatus for a while now, mainly because I've been really, really busy doing nothing.

Okay! So, Alva Noto is this German (or something; look it up yourselves, jeez) dude who's real name is Carsten Nicolai, which actually sounds a whole lot cooler than Alva Noto in my opinion.

I found out about him by browsing through the artists last.fm deemed similar to Pan Sonic (Fun Fact: The spectrogram in the background is from an excerpt of their song Maa, off of A. Really great album, maybe I'll post it some time).

Considering how Pan Sonic's music sounds, I expected this to be minimalistic, experimental and atonal electronic music as well, but boy was I in for a treat! Sure, Alva Noto is pretty minimalistic and experimental too, but he sure as hell doesn't make atonal music. Xerrox Vol.1 features (to my great surprise) some of the most beatifully melodic ambient I've ever heard. It kind of sounds like Oval's legendary 94 Diskont meets 90's Autechre.

Either it was Oval and Autechre who was very avant-garde, or Alva Noto's music is just heavily influenced by 90's experimental electronic music (Xerrox Vol.1 was released in 2007).

What's important though is the music, and it is a-fuckin'-mazing. If glitchy, minimalistic ambient is your thing, that is.

TRANSFER ALBUM TO YOUR COMPUTER *BEEP-BOOP-BEEP*

ATTN: I seem to have accidentally written "Xerrrox Vol.1" to the ID3 tags instead of "Xerrox Vol.1", so it's mistagged. Just noticed it yesterday, not a big deal but you may want to fix that yourselves (especially if you scrobble to last.fm).

A little update

What's up guys? As you may have noticed, I haven't really been active with the blog lately and honestly, I was considering taking a bit of a break from it all. The reason I haven't been posting is well, to be frank, because I'm lazy goddammit.

But when I decided to check how my blog was doing on its own, I noticed all these new blog templates or whatever and I just couldn't stop blogging when it looks this nice, right? (Do you like it? Please say you like it).

So I guess try to start posting on regular(ish) basis again pretty soon. Stay tuned!

Edit: I've also changed the "LinkWithin"-thingy so that it displays four albums instead of just three now. It looks nicer with this new, wider layout.

Existensminimum - OK Boys

What's up guys? Long time no post (funny, right?).
Yeah, so I've been real busy lately and haven't had the time to post anything, to be honest I haven't really felt like it either. But now I'm back, at least for this post. I just had to let you know about this awesome dude.

He's from the same country as me (Sweden), and he just makes amazing music. He seems to be pretty obscure (on last.fm at least, with less 3000 listeners).
OK Boys is his second album I believe and it was released last year. It's gotten lots of great reviews in Sweden, and I can really see why. His songs are melodic and catchy, yet complex and intricate. Like a mix between indie/dream pop and krautrock. And that's pretty much what it is. Lots of freaky synths, hard, driving rhythms, complex composition, psychedelic/progressive rock elements + melodic and upbeat catchiness of indie pop + a little bit of the ol' dream pop.
So that's why I thought krautpop would be an adequate name for this eclectic genre he plays.

This is the kind of album where every song is great. I love those kinds of albums.

I strongly recommend that you check this shit out, he deserves some more attention.
Premium super-awesome download below:

DOWNLOAD, BRO

If you wondered about the name, existensminimum is in Sweden, in layman's terms, the minimum amount of income a person should have to live a 'decent' life, so to speak.

The Comsat Angels - Waiting For A Miracle

Heya! Kind of a late post (well, later than usual) today.

Today's album is a little something I stumbled across at a local used record store yesterday. I'd seen the cover before and I was pretty sure that I'd heard someone say nice things about it, it was in nice condition and cheap too, so I picked it up.

I listened to it today and yes, it is good.

To be honest though; it's pretty formulaic British, new wave post-punk, but it's still damn good. These guys really know what they're doing and it's nice to listen to as they do their thing. Cheesy keyboards, clean but slightly dissonant chords, prominent bass, repetitive drums; it's all in here.

What I especially like is their smooth blend of spastic, artsy Talking Heads-like post-punk with typical British, Joy Division-esque (maybe not as moody) clean-cut post-punk.

It sounds at times very similar to The Sound, whose fantastic album Jeopardy I highly recommend you to check out if you haven't already.

So yeah, this is nothing special, but still a very good and solid post-punk, and pretty underrated too.

DOWNLOAD

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

Yup, Ol' Flylo is back with another album. It just got released today, you can buy (you know, with money) it on here on Bleep, I'm probably gonna get the double gatefold vinyl. But let's cut straight to the chase shall we? Yeah.

This one's a bit "crazier" - I would say - than his previous works, but it still has it's trippy, laidback hip-hop moments.

It sounds very, very chaotic at times, yet you always kind of have this feeling that he knows exactly what he's doing. Some of the songs are extremely inctricate, with what sounds like a billion tiny little sounds jumping all around your ears, quick to arrive and even quicker to leave.

He's madly mixing all kinds of genres; including funk, hip-hop, psychedelia, trip-hop, IDM, and whatnot. Some songs are just smooth, chilled-out trip-hop - you know, typical Flylo - and others are either batshit crazy or wildly experimental.

What's also nice about this album is that he's collaborated with a lot of other musicians for this album, including - but not limited to: Ravi Coltrane, Laura Darlington (with whom he's collaborated with on his previous albums) and Thom Yorke, of Radiohead.

However I feel that there is no better description than the one on Bleep's page for this release:

''In his second full length release for Warp, Flying Lotus has taken his craft to bold new levels, new conceptual depths spun together for a psychedelic, genre melting trip. Bringing together collaborators such as former Suicidal Tendencies bassist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruno, Rebekah Raff, Dorian Concept, Ravi Coltrane, Laura Darlington and most strikingly , Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Cosmogramma bristles with a maximal energy, crossbreed innovation and distorted beat-bass funktions. A beautiful fever-dream of an album that variously resonates with the ghosts of Dilla, Parliament, Hendrix, Sun Ra, Love plugged into the kind of next-level bass waves that are crashing across continents right now. Destined to be lauded as a future classic...''

DOWNLOAD

Me - Lovebox

What's up people? Been a while since I posted anything; thought it was about time. I'm gonna try to post a little more often.

This album - Lovebox, by Me (not ME literally, the artist is called Me) - I found yesterday at one of my local record store's really cheap. They have this shelf where they put out all kinds of obscure, bad-selling albums really cheap, so you pretty often actually find quite a few gems.

And so yeah, I found this, bought it, got home, ripped it, and listened to it. I do not regret buying (partly because it was incredibly cheap for an entire album, a CD by the way, but mostly because it is GOOD).

Alright, so the album cover and the song titles kinda suggest that it should be a very gloomy, depressive album. But once you get listening to it, it's actually kind of upbeat and cheerful at times. I find that the man has a pretty nice and unique voice and the instrumentation (the actual music) is really nice too; kind of indie pop/folk with subtle influences from german folk music (which is not too surprising, considering he is from Germany).

I have some more stuff that's pretty underground/obscure in store for you - It's perfect for anyone looking to boost up their indie cred and brag about it to your hipster friends.

Oh and quality-wise, it will be some pretty premium shit, since I ripped it with EAC straight from the CD to 320 kbps mp3 (I'd do it in V0, but LAME is fucking with EAC, or vice versa, I don't know).

DAWNLAWD

Celeste - Morte(s) Nee(s)

Yup. Celeste's latest, peeps. You may or may not have heard of Celeste, but if you have any kind of interest in sludge, neocrust, extreme metal, etc. then pay attention now.

If you have heard Celeste before, then this won't be a surprise for you (I'm not saying it's bad though). If you haven't, then boy are you in for a treat.

Celeste manages to pull off the amazing combination of (neo)crust/sludge and black metal. Does it sound awesome? Of course it does! And it is. This shit will rape your ears (in a good way).

If you've heard Fall Of Efrafa or Alpinist, whose albums I've posted earlier, then you will be familiar with this soulcrushing brand crusty sludge (or sludgy crust, if you will) that seems to be on the uprise nowadays, except this leans more towards the metal side of things, most of the time it's a lot faster than pounding doom-riffs of Fall Of Efrafa's Inlé, but still slightly slower than Alpinist's blisteringly fast, sludge-tainted crust/hardcore.

If the album's goal was to cause a feeling of despair, then it does it's job well. Throughout the album you are filled with despair and terror in fear of the horrifying, grinding and devouring (figuratively, of course) wall of sound which is made up of angular and dark yet melodic sludge riffs backed up by furious blast-beats and crushingly slow kick-snare combinations. And on top of it all are the screeching, terrfying harsh vocals which definitely adds to the "despair-factor".

This album may make you uncomfortable, but I think you'll enjoy it a whole lot anyway.

P.S. Sorry if you're disappointed with the album, I may have hyped it a bit too much.

DOWNLOAD IF YOU DARE

Foals was fake

Okay, so apparently Foals' new album Total Life Forever which I posted recently was a fake leak, and I apologize for that.
I was unaware that it was not a legit leak, and I was told by a very kind person on last.fm that it was merely a collection of Foals B-sides.
I will however try and get you the real album as soon as I can, but that may not be until its official release.

Isaac And Hilltop - Before The Flowers Bloom

What up people? Got some new musics for you.

Here's the description of today's album:

Okay, so Isaac and Hilltop is incredibly obscure indie folk band (obscure enough to impress most of your hipster friends). But the obscurity is a shame, really. These guys are SO good and they deserve more attention.

The recording is very lo-fi, so it's kind of hard to hear what they're singing, but most of the time it seems that the lyrics are great.

If you wonder what they sound like, it's kind of a cross between Bob Dylan and the Mountain Goats (but not lyrically of course, that would be insanely good beyond belief).

This little album or EP or whatever it is is truly a gem that shouldn't miss out on, so download and listen to it now. You won't regret it.

DOWNLOAD THIS FINE PIECE OF MUSIC

By the way, most of their music is freely available on their bandcamp page, though not this release.

Astrobrite - Crush

Hey everyone! I'm going to Egypt tomorrow and I'll be gone for a week, so I thought I'd post a little something before I left.

This here is pretty, pretty, pretty nice album. Real fuzzy, dreamy post-punk/indie pop or something. You know, shoegaze.

It's real good and stuff, whatever. I don't feel like writing much right now, so just check it out, really, it's awesome, you won't be dissappointed.

See ya guys!

DOWNLOAD

Silly cat! You can't eat that cheeseburger!

HAHAHAHAHA ISN'T THIS THE BEST PICTURE EVER?

Lync - These Are Not Fall Colors

Sorry about the slightly smaller than usual album cover, I couldn't find any bigger. But hey, look on the bright side of things; considering how obscure it is, you could drastically increase your indie cred with this album

Hey guys, what's up? Finally updating the blog after a little hiatus; I think I'll keep this whole "only post a few times a month"-thing up for a while, I just don't have the will nor time to post like 4 or 5 times a week.

Yeah, anyways, here's the music part of the post:

Okay, today I'm posting what has quickly become one of my favorite albums, very recently. I actually found this by accident while lazily browsing through my grossly oversized (at least for me) music collection (I'll be reorganizing and removing some stuff soon, though).

It was tagged as "indie rock" and the cover looked appealing somehow, so I just thought "All right, I'll check it out".

And I'm fucking glad I did. This album is awesome with a capital everything.

Maybe it's just because I absolutely adore all things old school emo and have a perversion for anything that's really noisy, lo-fi, 90's indie/garage rock, but I think this album is fucking amazing.

I can't explain what makes it so great, really. But I guess it something about those noise/lo-fi guitars mixed with the emo chords/mood/whatever.

Every song (yes, every song) is awesome and by the end you just wish it'd lasted twice as long.

Maybe you won't like it as much as I do, but I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy at least some degree as long as you have an open mind. Maybe it'll be another favorite album of yours as well; either way, I hope you like it and even if you don't, I still will.

DOWNLOAD GODDAMMIT!

Btw, my last post was the 100th post on this blog. Yay for me!

Motohiro Nakashima - We Hum On The Way Home

Hey. I haven't posted in a while, and I think I'm gonna keep it this way from now on; not posting every day, but every once in a while when I have time and feel like it. Hope that's okay with you.

Anyway, this album I accidentally found when I stumbled over this guy's website and I really liked the music in the video on the drip sessions page, which was by Motohiro Nakashima. So I checked him out and downloaded this album. I'm glad I did.

This album is seriously the most beautiful album I've heard. It's like some sort of acoustic ambient or something (post-classical?). Amazing melodies and incredible soundscapes created by tons of instruments, including acoustic guitar, piano, brass instruments, and more surround you at all times.

He succeeds to constantly create the same atmosphere and evoke the same feelings that Boards Of Canada's songs do, but in a more cheerful and happy mood.

He's just one of those artists which you think it is a pity that they're not more famous.

Download this and listen to it. Then buy some of his stuff (if you like it, which you probably will) or support him in some other way.

This dude makes the most awesome music ever.

NOTE: The last song is missing, and I can't find anywhere so you'll have to do without that one I'm afraid.

DOWNLOAD YOUR NEW FAVORITE ALBUM

Burzum - Belus

FUUUUUUCK. FUCK. THIS ALBUM IS THE SHIT. VARG IS BACK IN A BIIIIG WAY.
I WILL WRITE THIS ENTIRE POST IN CAPS TO EMPHASIZE HOW PSYCHED I AM.
THIS ALBUM IS A MASTERPIECE. ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2010 GUYS. THIS IS LIKE HVIS LYSET TAR OSS + FILOSOFEM + A LIL' BIT O' ULVER OR SOMETHING TIMES AWESOME.
IT MAY JUST BE BECAUSE I'VE WAITED FOR THIS ALBUM FOR AGES, EVEN BEFORE IT WAS ANNOUNCED, BUT THIS IS AWESOME.
HE' S KEPT HIS OLD SOUND, SKIPPED THE BORING AS FUCK "AMBIENT" SONGS, ADDED A BIT OF EXTRA FRESHNESS AND RECORDED IT REAL LO-FI, SO IT'S ALL TRVE AND KVLT AND SHIT.
OH AND THERE'S FUCKING CLEAN VOCALS TOO ON SOME SONGS, MIXED WITH THE HARSH VOCALS (THAT'S KIND OF WHAT I MEANT WHEN I MENTIONED ULVER).
SERIOUSLY, WHEN THAT AWESOME RIFF IN THE BEGINNING BELUS DØD CAME ON I ALMOST CRIED TEARS OF JOY.
MANLY TEARS, OF COURSE.

DOWNLOAD OR GET SODOMIZED WITH A SCREWDRIVER

(also buy it, I'm going to. It comes on two awesome white vinyls, 2LP fuck yeah)

toe - Songs, Ideas We Forgot

Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted anything lately, but I've been pretty busy so you'll have to excuse me.
Anyway, I've got this debut EP by a really cool japanese band named toe (no capitals) for ya today. They play a kind of really awesome instrumental math/post-rock or something.
It's pretty chilled out and laid back, feels like their just jamming at times, improvising you know?
So check 'em out, I don't really feel like writing anything more about them; my words won't do them justice. Just listen to it instead and be amazed.

I just watched a documentary about the hardcore punk scene in the early 80's today, so expect to maybe see some hardcore or something posted soon. The documentary was called "American Hardcore" by the way. It was just decent, but very interesting. Now I'm gonna go listen to Bad Brains.

Oh, and I might not post a lot this week, but I'll try and post every day next week.
Unless the blog gets shutdown by Google, that is. But I doubt that would happen.

DOWNLOAD

Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten The Hatches

Why, hello everyone! Today I've got something completely different from what I posted yesterday, you know how I like to mix it up.
So, Jenny Owen Youngs is this young (unfunny pun intended) singer-songwriter I first heard when she was opening for Regina Spektor a few months back.
She's a lot better live, but her studio recordings are not by any means bad at all.
Later I found out that Jenny and Regina are in fact friends and that shows in her vocal style. At times it's so similar to Regina's that it's almost a bit scary. She's got the same jazzy, quirky kind of voice and a pretty big vocal range.
As for the rest of the music, the instrumentation, it's mostly her acoustic guitar that is the "center" of her music (besides her voice) with some additional instruments that vary from track to track.
Pretty, pretty, pretty good album, check it out.



Trivia: On the track "Voice On Tape", it's Regina Spektor talking on the voicemail message in the beginning.

DOWNLOAD

Shining - Blackjazz

Hey there. Weird (but awesome) album for ya today. Shining is this band from Norway and they've been pretty much been playing experimental jazz with electronic elements and other stuff their entire career.
But on this album they just went nuts. It's sounds like some sort of crazy mix of Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, industrial, jazz and metal. Seriously crazy shit. And really good too. This is just about as avant-garde and experimental metal gets.
It's gotten quite a lot of hype recently, and it deserves it (most of it, anyways).
Not much more to say, just check it out for yourselves, as it's pretty hard to describe this musical madness/genius with only words.

DOWNLOAD REMOVED DUE TO DMCA TAKEDOWN NOTICE

Norma - Book Of Norma

Yes, yes, yes. Late Saturday update comin' at ya (at least late where I am). This album is an album I actually found at my local library some while ago (very big library by the way, and they have a nice habit of purchasing obscure, yet very good albums which you can then loan for free. Awesome right?).

Norma is a post-punk/shoegaze/indie rock/whatever band straight out of the Argentina underground. How exactly the people at the library got a hold of this I'm not sure, but that's not really the important thing here, the important thing is that this album is pretty fucking good.
I only picked up this album because I thought the cover looked cool and the name sounded interesting. But then it turned out to be really good too.
The first song is a little weird and noisy, so the first time I listened to it, I thought: "What the hell is this shit? Should've never borrowed it" or something along those lines.
But then the second song wowed me (probably the best on the album, or at least second best).
Their sound is really cool, like a fresh take on the classic post-punk/shoegaze sound of the late 80's. It's sounds retro, but still modern and up-to-date.
Yeah, it's an awesome album and I think you should check it out ASAP.

DOWNLOAD

Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain

Hey people, here's some jazz for you. I'm not much of a jazz man myself (but I'm trying to be), but I just had to listen to this after reading a short description of it.
It went something like: "Davis taking a piece originally written for guitar and transcribes to be played by a trumpet, backed up by a minimal orchestra". I think it was something like that.
Anyway, that pretty much describes it very well. You can hear the guitar-like passages from time to time, with a bit of flamenco influence backed up by minimal orchestration/backup band.
I, for one, very much liked this, especially the last song, and Davis' trumpeting is as always amazing. A true legend.
If you're a jazz fan and haven't listened to this yet, you should probably check it out.

LINK REMOVED DUE TO DMCA TAKEDOWN

Aves - Demo

Hi. This is a rather unusual release. Aves' 2009 Demo is a very nice mixture of post-punk/shoegaze, black metal and a bit of post-rock. These guys are part of the so called blackwave movement that has risen in the latest couple of years.
And it's instrumental. You may have already heard it, and you may have not, but this is still a great demo.
I specifically love how they manage to blend these quite different styles seamlessly and still making it sound great.
It's instrumental, which is good because it lets you focus entirely on the instrumentation, which is quite awesome.
It's been quite humorously referred to as "twee black metal", due to the fact that Aves incorporates black metal elements into their upbeat, twinkly and melodic post-punk.
The black metal influences are most notable in couple of songs, for example the beginning of the second song.
Also, there's this badass 70's hard rock/heavy metal-ish guitar solo being played while the drums are doing insane black metal-style blastbeats. Does it get more awesome than that?

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KuroiOto - 7 Days Of The Breaks

Ok, I'm gonna be straight with ya here. I haven't listened to this entire album. In fact, I've only listened to the first two songs. But I'm gonna go ahead and post this anyway, partially because I felt the blog needed some change from the double punk-posts, and partially because I didn't know what else to post.
However, as for the music, I've only heard the intro and the first song, "Monday".
The album is about what the dude who made this, KuroiOto, felt about each day of the week and
he expresses this musically on this album. Also, all the drum loops are supposedly sampled breaks, hence "7 days of the Breaks".
Oh, and if you haven't guessed yet, the genre here is hip-hop of the instrumental kind.
Now, you may ask yourself (you probably won't though): "Was there really nothing else to post? Why did he pick this album?". Well, I'll tell you:
It's because the moment that the alarm clock rand and the drums kicked in on "Monday", I instantly felt that KuroiOto had perfectly captured the mood, the feeling of an average monday when you're on your way to work or school, in musical form.
That's why I decided to post this, because it connected with me on a kind of semi-subconcious, emotional level without speaking any words, only through music. And that is, according to me, what music should be all about, more or less.
Of course I will listen to the entire album (hopefully soon), and I'd like to think that the rest of the songs are at least as good as "Monday".
So I really think you should listen to this, and I hope you get the same feeling from this album that I got.
Oh, and it's awesome (I hope).

You can download the album for free on his bandcamp page.

DOWNLOAD AND BE AMAZED

Various Artists - Angels With Dirty Faces (Side Two)

Ok, got the second side of Angels With Dirty Faces for you, same shit quality as the last one.
I'm sorry I didn't post anything yesterday even though I said I would, so to make up for it, I'll post another album besides this.
And yeah, the music is pretty much the same genre and stuff as the first side, and just as good (if you like punk).
So check it out, it's pretty cool.

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Various Artists - Angels With Dirty Faces (Side One)

Yes, I took the picture with my cellphone

Rejoice! I have returned!
Yes, I know I said I was going to post something like four days ago, but I've been real busy and so I haven't had time to give you guys an update. But now I'm back, and this time with an unusual treat.
This album is an album I got from my uncle. It's on vinyl, and since it's pretty much impossible to find a download for it, I had to rip it myself.
Now, the sound quality of the recordings is horrible. I tried to make it better by doing a rough remaster, but it still sounds kind of shitty (if you think it sounds bad, you should hear the original).
It may be partially due to my turntable, but not that much (I don't have the best turntable in the world, but it's not THAT bad either).
Anyway, it's a really good album actually, and according to the back of the sleeve, the record label (No Future Records), it's a compilation of some old EP's and singles that they picked out and put on a single LP instead of putting out small quantities of 7-inches and stuff.
All of the songs are good old, British Oi!/punk songs with a nice, raw and lo-fi sound to them.
It's seems to be relatively obscure too, so it'll be great for boosting your punk-cred!
But seriously check it out, as it was a long and cumbersome process for me to rip these tracks (since I don't own a USB-turntable). Also it's a cool album.

I will hopefully have side two of the record up by tomorrow.

DOWNLOAD OR ALL MY HARD WORK WILL BE IN VAIN!

Two albums tomorrow

Ok guys, I won't have time to post an album today, so I'll just go ahead and post two tomorrow instead.
Sorry about that.
In the meantime, you can check out some of my older posts or something.

Gorillaz - Stylo (Single)

Pictured: Gorillaz during studio recording

Hey guys, too lazy to post an album today, so I'll just post the latest Gorillaz single.
It's really good, definitely check it out if you haven't heard already.
It's got a nice 80's feel to it, and it features both Bobby Womack and Mos Def laying down some awesome vocals.
So yeah, check it out while you're waiting for the album to be released (going to be awesome).
I'll probably post another album tomorrow, so stay tuned and peace out!

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Fall Of Efrafa - Inlé

Well hello everybody, I'm back once again. Today's album was recommended to me in the blog's CBox (which you can see on yout right) by a very nice person who goes by the name of "flex".
I'd heard of these guys before and I'd been meaning to check them out, but I'd never gotten around to it.
Now I wish I'd listened to them earlier, because this is one amazing album. Absolutely stunning.
Probably my favorite album of 2009, but they're not in the AOTY-list because at the time of its writing, I had not yet listened to "Inlé".
Inlé is a sludge masterpiece. I don't want to constrict it to a single genre, but overall it's sludge. It reminds me strongly of bands like Neurosis and Cult of Luna with their epic, post-rockish build-ups, soul-crushingly heavy doom riffs and agonized, screamed vocals.
This album is 80 minutes long, but it feels like it's over in no time. That's how good it is. Every song is great, beautiful and well-performed.
Fall of Efrafa broke up last year, so Inlé was their last album. But the members have moved on to other project and hopefully we'll soon hear something as grand as this.
Awesome album, download NOW.

DOWNLOAD, MAN.

You can find FREE and LEGAL downloads of all their albums on their website.

Black Uhuru - The Dub Factor

Hello everyone. Got something a little bit different today, namely some dub.
Now, I'm not a big fan of dub (in fact, this is the first dub I've ever listened to), but recently I got a bunch of vinyls from my uncle and this was one of them. It looked interesting, so I decided to check it out. It turned to be pretty awesome.
If you don't know what dub is, it's pretty much just reggae with a fuckton of delay, reverb and stuff like that.
This album is actually a remix album containing dub remixes of various Black Uhuru reggae songs. The songs are almost entirely instrumental too, with the occasional vocals.
I haven't heard any of Black Uhuru's material besides this, so I can't really give a comparison, but at least I can that it's good.
I don't really know what more to say, if you like reggae, dub or maybe even dubstep you'll probably like this. It's a good album.

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Algernon Cadwallader - Some Kind Of Cadwallader

Hello. Time for some more good music. I hope you enjoyed the last album I posted, I sure did.
Now, if you've been following the blog for a little while you probably know that I'm a sucker for emo (especially 90's) and screamo, and so it is time for some more emo.
This is a good album. Very good. But unfortunately I just recently discovered this and so it's too late to put it on my aoty 2009 list. But what the hell, I'm posting it now.
What I love about these guys are that they sound just like Cap'n Jazz, and since Cap'n Jazz split-up quite early they didn't have time release a lot of material. So this kind of like a reunion in a way, I guess.
And when I say they sound like Cap'n Jazz, I really mean they sound like Cap'n Jazz. I actually checked their MySpace to make sure that it wasn't in fact Tim Kinsella doing the vocals, because they sound scarily similar. Same goes for the instrumentals; nice 90's emo revival guitar work, very "twinkly" and melodic, kind of like a mix between Cap'n Jazz and American Football (minus the sad/depressing stuff). It's really upbeat and happy sounding stuff, so none of that gloomy American Football-esque kind of emo. These guys are Cap'n Jazz 2.0.

They've got a new 7" coming out soon with an included CD containing 6 previously unreleased tracks. I'm thinking about pre-ordering it, and if I do and you like this album, I could rip itfor ya and upload it in flac or v0 mp3 or whatever. Here's a link if you're interested in ordering: http://www.banquetrecords.com/search.jsp?query=algernon

Honestly, the first tiem I listened to this I didn't really like it, it just felt kinda "meh", you know? But the second time around...wow. I guess you could say it was love at....umm....second listen?
Anyway, check it out, amazing stuff.

Oh, and I almost forgot; it's awesome.

DOWNLOAD, PEOPLE!

The Sound - Jeopardy

Hey everybody, I'm back! Hooray!
No, but seriously, I decided to keep blogging (obviously) so today I'll have another album for you to enjoy.
As for the "albums of the decade"-list; I probably won't be making one any time soon because it's just too much work and I don't have time for that.

Alright, now onto the music. The album I've decided to post today is an album I stumbled across about a week ago and have benn enjoying quite a lot the last few days.
This is, in my opinion, probably one of the most underrated albums (and bands) of the 80's, maybe even one of the best.
The thing that I love most about this album is, well, everything really. The drums in the background playing all kinds of variations of that classic post-punk beat, the wonderful vocals, the wonderful, melodic yet at times dissonant guitar chops and the fat, creeping basslines.
The bass on this albums is kind of special in a way that it's just as prominent as the guitar, maybe even more. While the bass is playing just about all the time, the guitar really only "pops in" for quick chops and some short riffs here and there, mostly during the choruses. This is especially evident in the first song, which also happens to be my favorite song of the album, along with "Missiles" and the title track, "Jeopardy".
So if you like new wave, post-punk and/or other stuff like that and you haven't already heard this album, now is a damn good time.
Because this right here is fucking awesome.

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Top 20 Albums of 2009!...in alphabetical order

Ok, I think I'm done with my list for the top 20 albums of 2009, but then I realized I couldn't really decide which one was better than the other, so I just decided to list those 20 in alphabetical order. Plus, it'll be a new, revolutionizing and interesting twist to AOTY-lists (ok, maybe not revolutionizing).

So, I've written a short description for each album, and there's a download link in each post. Just click the links below.

Absu - Absu
Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse
Alpinist - Minus Mensch
Andrew Jackson Jihad - Can't Maintain
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
The Antlers - Hospice
A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Baroness - Blue Record
Clark - Totems Flare (old post)
Converge - Axe To Fall
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Kylesa - Static Tensions
Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind
The Protomen - Act II: The Father Of Death (old post)
Regina Spektor - Far
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns (old post)
Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
Tegan And Sara - Sainthood (old post)
TwinSisterMoon - The Hollow Mountain (old post)

And if you wondered about the AOTD-list, I most likely won't be making one.
I mean, I haven't really decided yet, so there's still a propability.
The reason why, exactly, is that I've been thinking about "quitting" the blog. Of this I am not sure yet either, we'll just have to see.
The main reason is because it's feels more like a chore most of the time than something I do for fun. It's hard to maintain a blog by myself and I just don't feel like I would want to entrust someone else with posting on my own blog.
Either way it goes, I'll make a (last) post when I've decided about everything.
But for now, just enjoy the music. After all, that's what this blog is about.

Feel free to leave comments.

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

Monoliths & Dimensions is the latest album of the refrigerator-duo Sunn O))) consisting of doom veterans Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson.
Jokes aside, this is by far Sunn O))) most accessible and in my opinion their greatest album.
They've nearly abandoned the strictly bass/guitar drone doom formula and incorporated other elements such as choirs and classical instrumentation.
At first this sounds like their old stuff; droning mindbendingly low drone doom riffs with Attila Csihar as their vocalist/gibberish mumbler. But as you progress through the album, you realize that they've changed their style, most notably on the last song, which has close to none of the old drone doom elements.
So check it out and be amazed.

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Regina Spektor - Far

Ah! Yes, yet another wonderful album from my all-time favorite artist, Regina Spektor.
Far is (in my incredibly biased, fanboy-opinion) an incredibly good album.
It's not nearly as good as her early work (pre-Begin To Hope), but it's still amazing.
The reason why it's not as good as her early work is that these new albums are over-produced.
She should just have stuck with her piano instead of incorporating cellos, drums and electronic elements into her music. She's gone from anti-folk to indie pop.
With that said, this is still one of my many favorite albums and Regina is still my favorite artist.

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Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind

There's nothing like a little post-rock whenever you're feeling gloomy or just want to relax.
And this right here, is a great, great post-rock album. Just amazing.
It's so fragile and beautiful, yet majestic and powerful. Not much more to say than that.
It's an awesome album. Listen to it.

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Mastodon - Crack The Skye

I'll be honest with you here. At first I considered not even including this a lbum in the list.
It had gotten terribly boring and everytime I listened to it, I felt nothing. It wasn't special anymore.
But then I remembered what it was like the first times I heard it, before I'd listened to it too much.
And I recall it to be an amazing experience. The vocals twisting and intertwining with each other, the delicate, yet heavy and technical riffs that shook the world by it's foundations, the drum work by Brann Dailor that was so flawless, technical and intricate that it would make you believe that this album was descended straight from heaven and the creeping, thick basslines that would make any challengers of Mastodon's might cower in fear and shame.
This is a masterpiece. And I'll be damned if Mastodon ever makes an album that surpasses Crack The Skye's greatness. For that, ladies and gentlemen, would indeed be an admirable feat.
This album will send you to another dimension.

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Kylesa - Static Tensions

There are bands that play this sort of pseudo-sludge, it sounds like sludge but has a whole lot of other stuff and it's a bit "watered down". Bands like Mastodon and Baroness play this kind of sludge.
Then there is the proper sludge, a clean fusion of crushing doom metal and furious hardcore.
Kylesa are one of these "proper sludge" bands.
And on this album they sure show it. It's a full-length of pure sludge carnage where the masterfully fuse the heavy, chugging doom riffs together with the fast paced aggressiveness of hardcore and create something amazing.
This is awesome. Download it.

DOWN-FUCKIN-LOAD, MAN

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

This is another "indie pop" masterpiece of 2009. Got a lot of hype, deserved most of it.
It's just insanely catchy and well-though out. Nice vocals, good instrumentation, just a great album really.
They're also a bit new weird america (and apparently quite experimental, according to all the indiefags over at last.fm), so they sound kinda like Grizzly Bear and other bands like that.
I'd write a bit more if I wasn't getting a bit tired of all this writing (I making all these AOTY posts today). Download it and fall in love.

FUGGEN WEBSHERIFF'D

(new megaupload is in the comment section below)

Converge - Axe To Fall

FUCK YEAH IT'S CONVERGE Y'ALL! Converge, the world's most solid (hardcore) band is back with yet another album.
And you know what? I'm not gonna waste my time by writing a long description. Just download it and once you hear THE RIFF in the first song (you'll know which one I'm talking about), you will literally shit you pants. That's how awesome it is.
This may not be as great as Jane Doe, but it's pretty, pretty, pretty fuckin' good.
Oh and there's also this awesome folky song featuring Steve Von Till that ends with a epic Neurosis-like part. Sound good enough for ya? Thought so.

FUCKING WEBSHERIFF'D

Baroness - Blue Record

I can start off by saying that this is probably the best album art of 2009. It was made by Baroness' frontman (whom I can't remember the name of right now, so whatever).
Constantly I hear people complaining about how Red Album was far better and that Blue Record was a big disappointment. I firmly believe that these people are all fucked in the head.
This album is godlike. From the sweet, melodic riffs reminescent of Thin Lizzy's twin lead guitar setup to the strained, raspy hardcore-like vocals that all fall together into one big, wonderful and undiscernable mess of sludge and prog.
This album is awesome. FUKKEN DOWNLAOD IT MAYNE

DOWNLOAD

A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

80's revival, fuck yeah! This album is filled with amazing shoegaze/post-punk and VERY NOISY guitars.
It starts out with a hard-hitting and poppy (yet kind of depressing in a no wave kind of way), post-punk/industrial beat and a lot of noisy instrumentation (as is the tradition with shoegaze).
This album feels like it came straight from the eighties, but still feels new and fresh.
Every song is great and as a whole this album is just wonderful.

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