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.

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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.

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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.

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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!