NEED NEW MUSIC TO LISTEN TO? ON THE HUNT FOR THE BEST SONG EVER? WANT TO PROMOTE YOUR BAND FOR FREE? EMAIL ME OR COMMENT ABOUT ANYONE, EVEN YOURSELF, AND I’LL WRITE ABOUT IT. STAY UNDERgROUND!
ISMFOF’s sound – shall we call it Electronica-influenced Screamo-core? Post-hardcore meets Club Pop? I can’t classify it, so I love it. I won’t say how I got the cd, but I’m sure glad I stole it!
There are two main guys in the band, and a third guy drums for them when the drumming isn’t programmed. They started with a cover of “Crank That” on MySpace, got over a million views, and ended up on Epitaph Records. Fu<k yeah!
Acquire the music. The CD is (I think) named for a t-shirt on t-shirthell dot com. It’s called YOU CAN’T SPELL SLAUGHTER WITHOUT LAUGHTER.
The Cinematic Orchestra combines jazz and electronica, and they do it so well that they can’t really be labeled. They employ saxophone, piano, drums, guitar, and double bass, along with synth and turntablism, and are characterized by a soft, chillout-jazz sound. Their music has appeared on Grey’s Anatomy and the TV series Friday Night Lights, and they have also played at the Director’s Guild Awards, performing when Kubrick won a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.
More recently, and especially on their latest release, Ma Fleur, they have begun using vocals. By clicking here, and listening to the track Channel 1 Suite, you can hear their more recent approach. For a taste of old, more electronic TCO, play this video and listen to the song… there is no video, but this is what I could find. This song is called “Burn Out,” and it’s off their 2002 Release, Every Day. Listen:
They’re labeled as prog-rock, but they’re more like psychadelic screamo, and they are unafraid to dabble in electronica… their first album has four musical acts, with interludes between all of them, and the interludes are all electronica. Mainly though, they play highly technical, fast-paced prog-rock, utilizing two singers who can each both sing and scream. The first time I heard TSOAF, I called my friend Matt so I could show it to him, and he likes them now. He doesn’t like emo, and neither do I. He doesn’t like metal, and I do, but the point is that TSOAF are maginificently creative, and very very very fun to listen to. SO LISTEN!
Rjyan Kidwell, otherwise known as Cex, is an experimental artist who incorporates IDM, glitch and trip-hop. Please read more about him here, and then listen to the song “Not Trying” after you click here. More recently, Cex has begun to experiment with his singing voice. Check out this video for “Kill Me,” his latest track:
Another band hard to label, Gatsby’s American Dream mixes pop, punk and emo with post-hardcore and alternative, to create intelligent emo-core. Their 2003 release “Ribbons and Sugar” is loosely based on Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” and the song I want you to listen to is the last track, “Counterfeit Language.”
I thought since I mentioned Squarepusher in The Tuss’ blog, that I would post about Squarepusher himself today. Real name Tom Jenkinson, Squarepusher is perhaps the best glitch/drum n’ bass artist ever to record. His eclectic and highly technical work has been categorized as electronic jazz, drum n’ bass, glitch, experimental musique concrete, and even elctronic funk. If I had to sum Squarepusher up in one word, I would have to take a course in etmyology and make one up. I can however show you the video for his song “The Exploding Psychology.”
Listen intently, and hold on tight. This gets extremely intense.
Ratatat makes guitar-based electronica music, and consists of just two members, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast, who met at Skidmore College, a school not far from the town I grew up in! You don’t care, but it’s awesome! Their music is loaded with emotion, and yet maintains a sense of care-free humor. Stroud plays a creative guitar, and synth-player Mast adds a sleek sort of techno, all the while producing the music.
This is the best pop band I have heard since the early 90s. Lead singer Max Bemis is a genius songwriter for today’s hyper music listener. This song, “Alive with the Glory of Love,” is about lovers torn apart due to their being in a concentration camp. Say Anything is a very creative band, and Bemis’ lyrics, always stark and intelligent, occasionally promote self-reflection, and the band does a good job of keeping the listener involved. One of my top 20 favorite artsts… (And I listen to over 1,000) Watch the video:
Four classically-trained cellists that play heavy metal. OK, that bears repeating… FOUR CLASSICALY-TRAINED CELLISTS WHO PLAY HEAVY METAL!!! They’re from Finland, they’ve covered Metallica, Pantera and Faith No More, and they’re simply amazing. They’re Apocalyptica. They have over 15 albums, with plenty of (awesome) original material, but their true ability lies in their covers… I really hope you love Metallica as much as I do, because then you will see the sheer talent required for this:
Even if you don’t love Metallica, know that this is a Metallica song played on four cellos: one for vocals, one for bass, one for guitar and one for drums. Enjoy!
During the Automattic company meetup, Team 21* holed up in a cottage outside Québec to create a new set of features for a blog near you (literally!). Have you ever wondered where in the world a blog post was written? Where a commenter was located? If there were other WordPress.com bloggers near you? If so, [...]
This weekend, November 14-15, a whole bunch of the friendly faces from Automattic and WordPress.com will be in New York City to attend WordCamp NYC. If you’re a NYC area local (and really, with Acela service being what it is, doesn’t that almost mean anywhere from Boston to D.C.?), we hope you’ll join us at [...]
November 9th 2009 is Firefox’s fifth birthday. Firefox and WordPress have grown up next to each other so we’ve always felt a brethren spirit with their team as we work toward the same goal, making the web a better place, from opposite ends of the spectrum. Just out of curiosity, I wondered how Firefox was doing [...]
