The Lotus Eaters- Silentspace (2000) MP3 & FLAC

Cherry Red ~ 2008/2001

Tracklist/Info

Silentspace (Expanded)

Download in FLAC

Download in MP3 (320kbps)

Mark Lanegan Series, #3: Mark Lanegan Band- Here Comes That Weird Chill EP (2003) MP3 & FLAC

Beggars Banquet ~ 2003

Tracklist/Info

Here Comes That Weird Chill EP

Download in FLAC

Download in MP3 (320kbps)

Additional Mark Lanegan Series Posts & Related

Nikki Sudden- Treasure Island (2004) MP3 & FLAC

Secretly Canadian ~ 2004

Tracklist/Info

Treasure Island  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

The Church Series, #4: Marty Willson-Piper- Hanging Out in Heaven (2000) MP3 & FLAC

Heyday ~ 2000

Tracklist/Info

Hanging Out in Heaven  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

Additional Church Series Posts & Related

Epic Soundtracks- Good Things (2005) MP3 & FLAC

DBK ~ 2005

Tracklist/Info

Good Things  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

The Triffids- Beautiful Waste and Other Songs: Mini Masterpieces 1983-1985 (2008) MP3 & FLAC

Domino ~ 2008

Tracklist/Info

Beautiful Waste and Other Songs  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

Juli@n C0pe- Citizen Cain'd (2005) MP3 & FLAC -For dj-

Head Heritage ~ 2005

Tracklist/Info

Citizen Cain'd  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

Jim White- "10 Miles to Go on a 9 Mile Road" Video (2001)

hmmm, this says it all for me, but I do want to thank everyone for your support. It does help...

~v

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter- Reckless Burning (2002) / Oh, My Girl (2004) MP3 & FLAC

"Pretty thing, I've got you, right where I used to be. We ride across this city, 
starting fires recklessly."

Jesse Sykes: "I met Phil Wandscher in 1998 in a dive bar back when Seattle still had dive bars (how I miss those times!). I think I knew instantly upon meeting him that my life would change forever- just a gut feeling I guess, but I was right!" At the time of this fortuitous meeting, Sykes had just seen both her music career and personal life take a dark turn, as Hominy, the band she had started with her then-husband Jim Sykes, quickly dissolved following the release of their eponymous debut album, and it wasn't long before their marriage suffered a similar fate. Wandscher was best known as one of the founding members of Whiskeytown, the brilliantly combustive Alt-Country band from Raleigh N.C. that also featured Ryan Adams, who, during a legendary 1997 meltdown at a show in Kansas City, fired the entire band, including Wandscher, telling the stunned crowd, "You've just saw the last fuckin' Whiskeytown show!" before proceeding to smash his guitar and storm off stage. Ousted from the band he had helped create, Wandscher, thoroughly disillusioned, drifted to Seattle and was working in a restaurant when he crossed paths with Jesse Sykes. Both nursing emotional wounds, a romance sparked immediately, but their musical partnership was something that evolved at a more measured pace. Sykes: "Phil was really reluctant to work with, well, his girlfriend [....] But it just kinda morphed anyway; it was inevitable. People will warn you, but I like working with someone you're in a relationship with. There's a greater level of intimacy and trust [....] and when you're sleeping with someone, it's actually a lot easier to say 'fuck you' or 'that's a shitty song.'" After initially gigging around Seattle as a duo, Sykes and Wandscher decided to assemble a full band, and, after doing so, quickly garnered enough critical praise for their languidly dark approach to psych-laced Americana that they were soon signed by indie label Devil in the Woods, allowing them to immediately set about recording their debut LP, Reckless Burning.

Jesse Sykes

 Sykes: "I like to refer to that time of my life as 'the reckless burning years.' It was less about making that record than it was learning how to just 'be.' Two estranged people going into lonely dark places- beautiful places. All we had was each other. We didn't even talk that much but somehow we just knew each other's story. That record was our story." Powerfully conveying the bitter pain and foggy, desolate spaces of emotional loss, Reckless Burning is clearly indebted to certain aspects of traditional Appalachian music, but the laconic darkness of Wandscher's noirish guitar-work and Sykes' bewitchingly distinctive alto subtly and quietly push the music into dreamy regions more commonly associated with psych-rock. Nowhere is this more evident than on the stunningly mournful title track, a song often compared to The Cowboy Junkies, but in truth, walks fifty paces further into unmitigated darkness than anything the Timmons siblings would be capable of committing to tape (okay, maybe with the exception of "Sweet Jane"). And while the song charts a slow descent into the numbness of emotional resignation, conveyed unforgettably through the lyrics and Sykes' world-weary vocals, it ends where such pain always ends, in abject ambiguity, as an equally dreamy rendition of "Goodnight Irene" brings "Reckless Burning" to its conclusion. Another standout track, "Don't Let Me Go," uses a slightly brighter country-influenced arrangement to counter-balance the song's dark emotional subject matter, weaving a subtle sense of irony into the song's overall tone. Sykes: "When I sat down and started playing some of the original songs that later became Reckless Burning, it just felt like he [Wandscher] was building the house that the songs lived in [....] He gave them the visual, cinematic aspect that they needed. He would create these little vignettes within the song- that other character answering back to my vocals [....] It's almost like I never had to articulate my vision to him; it became intact and fully realized as soon as he started playing on the songs. We're just hard wired into the same muse." As in the dream-state itself, Reckless Burning and its equally gorgeous follow-up, Oh, My Girl, take familiar elements and by re-arranging and re-imagining them, create something uncannily meaningful, a sound that charts the darkest interstices of the human heart while managing to feel both timeless and new.

Girls- "Hellhole Ratrace" Video (2009)

Fine S.F. indie band that sounds a little like Elvis Costello fronting Spiritualized. They just released a new LP yesterday , Father, Son, Holy Ghost. More on Girls coming soon...

1r0n & Win3- The Cr33k Dr@nk the Cr@dle (2002) / The Se@ & the Rhythm EP (2003) MP3 & FLAC

"Love is a scene I render when you catch me wide awake. Love's a dream you enter though I shake and shake and shake you."

Until a homemade tape made its way into the hands of Sup Pop co-owner Jonathan Poneman (with an assist from the editor of Portland-area art mag Yeti, who had previously included an Iron and Wine song on a Yeti compilation CD), Sam Beam was the perfect embodiment of the "bedroom artist": working as a Miami-area Professor of  Film & Cinematography by day, by night writing hauntingly beautiful folk songs as equally grounded in the Delta-Blues as they were Nick Drake. He had been writing songs for the better part of a decade when a friend lent him a four-track recorder, and it was from these homemade demos that Beam's Sub Pop debut, released under the moniker Iron and Wine, was culled. While it's tempting to compare The Creek Drank the Cradle with other contemporary, feathery-voiced, folk-based singer-songwriters (there is a seemingly endless supply of them out there), Beam's debut sounds unique, not only due to the meticulously constructed yet lo-fi pedigree of the songs, the way the album as a whole reaches back to influences that pre-date folk music's 1960s-era heyday in addition to displaying an affinity with idiosyncratic Tahoma artists such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho, but also lyrically, as his use of imagery and symbolism, especially relating to animals, lends the album a singular and affective emotional tenor. On the loping opening track, "Lion's Mane," Beam's hushed, lullaby-esque vocal delivery provides perfect accompaniment to the gentle, woody-sounding acoustic guitar arpeggios and slide guitar accents that dominate the song's minimalist arrangement. Lyrically, Beam tends toward impressionistic images of love's allusiveness, perhaps suggesting, with lines such as, "Love's like a tired symphony to hum when you're awake," that is is inevitably so. Yet, as is the case with many of his songs, an animal symbol, in this case, a lion's mane, is used to interject a particularly ambivalent sense of hope into the narrative. Beam's Delta-Blues influence steps forth loud and clear on Southern Gothic tales such as "The Rooster Moans"; with its plucked banjo and slide guitar, it taps into the creaky mystique of an old 78, which serves as the perfect backdrop to its narrative of a young man's journey toward perdition. Another aspect that sets The Creek Drank the Cradle apart is Beam's astonishingly effective use of over-dubbed vocal harmonies. For example, on the achingly dark "Upward Over the Mountain," he over-dubs additional vocal tracks sung at a higher pitch but buried deeply in the mix; the ghostly effect that results is largely responsible for the song's considerable emotional impact. On his follow-up album, Our Endless Numbered Days, Beam, now with a professional recording studio at his disposal, left behind the charming austerity of his debut, and while the more polished results are often equally impressive, Beam's early songs possess a hazy timelessness that no studio could hope to replicate.

Robyn Hitchcock- "Devil's Radio" (2001) from Storefront Hitchcock

Here's a warm-up for some Soft Boys just around the corner:

John Maus- We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (2011) / Love Is Real (2007) MP3 & FLAC

"And this is the time to gather at tables aloud with memory of our lost play
and silent pageantry."

A brief glance through some of the critical reviews of John Maus' three albums, and it becomes clear that he is a polarizing figure, inspiring either condescension or adulation with very few reviews falling in between. While some describe the music as featureless or derivative, others characterize Maus' sound as opening new vistas of possibility in pop music. In actuality, Maus embraces a gloomy, Lo-Fi aesthetic, which is largely constructed with vintage analogue synthesizers; however, he is not shy about introducing conventional pop elements into the mix, but does so in a way that refuses the glossy seductions and easy resolutions that straightforward pop deals in. On his second LP, Love Is Real, Maus approximates the overly bright yet wafer thin sound of eighties synth-pop but strips it of all its clarity by throwing it down a well of hazy reverb and by using his sometimes clumsy and often exaggerated doom-filled Ian Curtis croon to lend the songs a dark, claustrophobic feel. For example, on "Love Letters from Hell," a cheap drum machine and strangely funereal synth-based organ effect conspire to create a context for Maus' Dubby Post-Punk vocals that is equal parts Vangelis, Joy Division, and Lee Perry. While Maus' third album, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, does not stray far from its predecessor in terms of inspiration, it does demonstrate greater sonic depth, superior song-writing, and a slightly better drum machine. "...And the Rain" offers an interesting study in Maus' method; taking the most banal elements of cheesy eighties synth-pop, burying them in layers of foggy reverb, and juxtaposing them to his throaty vocals dripping with both sentimentality and irony, Maus approximates what Stephin Merritt might have sounded like fronting B-Movie in 1983. Nevertheless, there are moments on We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves where Maus transcends his deconstuctive retro-mode and points the way toward something new and intriguing. "Believer," the album's lead single, is one of these moments. Sounding a bit more produced than the rest of the album, the song's refracted Gregorian chant-style vocals provide an epic sense of depth, making Maus' stream of consciousness lyrics sound like echoes of something profound, and the procession of indelible hooks makes "Believer" easily the most memorable track on the album. Maus' music may not be as transformational as he wants it to be or, perhaps, as we want it to be, but given half a chance, it becomes clear that he is mining some interesting musical territory here.

Low- Things We Lost in the Fire (2001) MP3 & FLAC

"I don't need a laser beam. I don't need the time. Leave me in the car tonight; 
rest your drunken mind."

Formed in Duluth, Minnesota in the early nineties, Low embody the essence of the Slowcore genre: minimalist arrangements, glacial tempos, and fragile, achingly beautiful vocals. On second thought, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Low embody everything so-called Slowcore bands wish they could be. Taken as a whole, Low's considerable discography (they've been issuing records for 17 years now) can seem a little samey, but with proper care and attention, each album reveals a subtly different personality while not straying far from what makes this band so special. And what makes Low special is their masterful use of space as an additional element in the song arrangements and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker's breathtaking vocal harmonies, which often manage to convey by turns (and sometimes simultaneously) an icy despair and an epic warmth that make the songs sound timeless in the way certain old folk songs do. Things We Lost in the Fire is considered by many to be Low's masterpiece because it marks a juncture in their discography where they began to occasionally experiment with different rhythms and a slightly harder sound, the latter being something that would become a little more prominent on future albums. In many ways, lead track "Sunflower" is a quintessential Low song, as it combines darkly-themed lyrics (a tale of murder) with a beautiful minimalist melody that creeps out of the arrangement like a ghost, and then is chased out into the open by Sparhawk and Parker's sweetly melancholic harmonies. In contrast, "Dinosaur Act" introduces a harder edge to Low's sonic palette while still retaining their trademark tempo. Perhaps the most impressive song on Things We Lost in the Fire is one of the most minimally arranged, "Laser Beam." Comprised of little more than Sparhawk's arpeggios and Parker's stunning solo vocal performance, this song exemplifies what sets Low apart from the Slowcore pack: they use the spaciousness and the simplicity of the music to give voice to the silences, thus breathing a sense of emotional authenticity into the recording that would have been lost through a more conventional approach such as drenching the song in pathos-drenched strings. Truly, there is no band better at creating epic emotions out of slightly skewed simplicity.

Shearwater- "Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five" (2006) Live, KUT's Retread Sessions, Austin, TX

Water birds have always been a favorite of mine. It has something to do with their ability to adapt to radically different conditions as well as their grace and beauty. A shearwater is a majestic long-winged migratory sea bird. Shearwater is a majestic, multi-talented Austin-based indie band.

Sigur Rós- ( ) (2002) / Live at St. Andrews United Church, Vancouver, CA (2001) MP3 & FLAC

Sigur Rós' third album is, in many ways, an attempt to re-define the band's glacially sprawling sound after the breakthrough success of their previous album, Ágætis Byrjun, a lush, often string-drenched affair that garnered the band, among other things, their first significant exposure in Europe and America, which culminated in an opening slot on tour with Radiohead. Three years later, the cryptic ( ) appeared giving every indication Sigur Rós had no desire to chase mainstream Indie success (at least not yet). First, there is the title: parentheses surrounding empty space, suggesting not just the absence of a title, but absence as interlude, which, of course, hints at the music itself: silence as an interlude between notes and/or the note as an interlude between silences. Then there's the artwork, which is both lovely and noticeably free of all the liner material one usually expects with such lavish packaging, save for the band's website address. Musically, ( ) represents a more "stripped-down" approach relative to their previous album, trading in the strings (well, most of them), enveloping melodies, and recognizable song-structures for more atmospheric Post-Rock arrangements, an emphasis on guitars and instrumental loops, and a good (and welcome) dose of dissonance. Whereas Ágætis Byrjun allowed some warm textures and rays of light to intermingle with the glacial Sturm und Drang of the song arrangements, ( ) sustains a more funereal tone while avoiding the kind of emotional dynamics that made the previous album so affecting and in places irritatingly overwrought. As with the album itself, the songs comprising ( ) bear no titles; the effect of which is to render the songs unidentifiable except for their order and what differentiates them musically. On the opening track, things begin with a deep, somber, almost dissonant electronic hum, which lays the foundation for the basic melody that repeats, as if on a loop, throughout the entire song. Soon the electronic effect is mimicked by icy piano notes and Jon Thor Birgisson's highly-treated cooing vocals, thus creating a slow, dirge-like movement that is both achingly beautiful and hopelessly adrift. The sixth song features some lovely vocals by Birgisson backed by thumping percussion amidst a surprisingly spare arrangement until things build toward a dramatic crescendo of guitar chime and distortion. There is no denying that ( ) is not as accessible as Ágætis Byrjun; however, the album's darker inclinations lend it a different kind of emotional depth that makes it one of the more memorable recordings of the Post-Rock genre.

Bark Psychosis- ///Codename: Dustsucker (2004) / Game Over (1997) MP3 & FLAC -For Carlos-

"Blood disappears where deeds begin."

Saddled with one of the oddest album titles in recent memory, Bark Psychosis' ///Codename: Dustsucker, Graham Sutton's first non-comp release under the Bark Psychosis moniker in ten years, stands as a sometimes-worthy successor to the band's groundbreaking debut Hex, an album credited with creating the Post-Rock genre in name if not in style. Sutton began working on this follow-up after spending most of the post-Hex nineties focused on his Drum 'n' Bass project, Boymerang, and truth be told, //Codename: Dustsucker is a Bark Psychosis album in name only, as Sutton is the only connection to the band's earlier work, save for some "found drumming" contributed by the band's original drummer Mark Simnett. Despite the decade of silence, Sutton offers no radical deviations from the beautifully sculpted, dynamic sound of the earlier album, although it could be argued that ///Codename Dustsucker is slightly more conventional in approach, as it tends to rely far more on vocals and percussion than is generally the case within the Post-Rock genre.  On "The Black Meat," one of the more Hex-like tracks, Sutton offers layer upon layer of sonic detail, creating a lovely sense of aural space while using trumpet and harmonica to undermine its own Ambient undertow. Perhaps the best track, and one that seems to effectively build on Bark Psychosis' past, is lead track "From What Is Said to When It's Read"; with its hypnotic groove, whispered vocals, and strange electronic effects, it rides in on a wave of calm before descending into a well of eerie guitar hum. While the album is by no means as groundbreaking as the band's peerless early nineties work, Sutton is by no means simply paraphrasing his past, as he manages to explore some new and intriguing vistas within the genre he helped give birth to.

Menomena- "Wet and Rusting" Video (2007)

Great indie band too few have heard:

The Horrors- "Mirror's Image" Video (2009)

From side project (Cat's Eyes) to main gig (The Horrors): Goth is definitely on an upswing

The Antlers- Hospice (2009) MP3 & FLAC

"You return to me at night just when I think I may have fallen asleep. Your face is up against mine, and I'm too terrified to speak."

The hardest part of dealing with death is its incomprehensibility, the way it lifts the curtain on our quotidian lives and forces us to stare, if only momentarily, into an abyss of ineradicable absence. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows this disorienting feeling intimately, a stark sense of finality that no amount of preparation and emotional adjustment can soften. In a certain sense, The Antlers' debut Hospice is about how we engage with, and sometimes hopelessly struggle against, this incomprehensibility. Hospice, with its concept album ambitions, stands as something of an anomaly in this age of micro-genres and iTunes, but it wears its narrative well and is bolstered by Peter Silberman's dynamic but never flashy vocals. Lyrically, the story is ostensibly about a cancer patient, Sylvia, bitterly struggling through her last days and a hospice nurse who, despite the hopelessness of the situation, falls in love with her. Some have compared this album to Lou Reed's harrowing masterpiece Berlin (although Magic and Loss also comes to mind), and the comparison is apt; both albums are unblinking in their examinations of trauma, and both albums manage to integrate story and music masterfully, making them well-worth returning to despite the uncomfortable subject-matter. And this is something to remember about Hospice, concept album aside, it contains some wonderfully lush (and sometimes creepy) Chamber-Pop whose expansiveness can verge on Post-Rock at times. Coupled with Silberman's memorable voice, it all makes for a very distinctive and emotional listening experience.