The Oedipus Project
Tamaryn is a New Zealand born vocalist now residing in San Francisco. Rex John Silverman joins her as guitarist, producer and collaborator.
Tender New Signs is their 2nd album. Layers of sound and haunting vocals give them a shoegaze connotation.
“Heavenly Bodies” and “The Garden” are two featured tracks.
“Heavenly Bodies”
“The Garden”
∆, pronounced in this case Alt-J, just won the Mercury Music Prize.
The award is given annually to the best album from the UK and Ireland.
(The band’s name derives from pressing Alt-J on a Mac keyboard to achieve the Delta symbol. Delta is used to denote “change” in mathematical equations. )
“Fitzpleasure” is from An Awesome Wave, Alt-J’s winning debut.
The American Indie folk band The Mountain Goats released their 14th album, Transcendental Youth just last month.
Not quite an album a year but prolific nonetheless.
Last year we featured “Damn These Vampires”. This year it’s “Cry for Judas”, free from Merge as well.
Local Natives, the quartet from the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles will release their 2nd album Hummingbird in the new year.
Rich and lush with their trademark harmonies, the song “Breakers” is the teasing first single.
More timely than ever, to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman, Rage Against the Machine), Tim McIlrath (Rise Against), and Serj Tankian (System Of A Down) have released the song “We Are The 99%”.
According to Tom: “We Are The 99%” is a song inspired by the global Occupy movement. I wanted to capture the excitement and energy of people fighting for change and make sure the song was free to anyone who wants it. Brothers in arms Tim McIlrath and Serj Tankian lent their amazing talents to the song and we incorporated chants from the original Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park as well. It’s my hope that songs like this will provide a rocking soundtrack for those who have a vision of a more just planet and strengthen their resolve to fight on.”
The song is free on the Axis of Justice website, an organization formed by Tom and Serj in 2002 whose purpose is to bring together musicians, music fans, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice.
Ty Segall is a prolific musician out of San Francisco who has release numerous songs and albums both solo and with a variety of bands.
Slaughterhouse came out this summer, an intense album he recorded with his touring band, simply called Ty Segall Band.
“I Bought My Eyes” is a song that I have been blasting for months. (Free download as well.)
The 3rd Bat for Lashes album, The Haunted Man will be available later this month.
We have featured her blissful voice here in the past in podcasts and with her cover of Depeche Mode and her duet with Beck.
“All Your Gold” is the new single.
The always stunning and brilliantly talented Aimee Mann has recently released Charmer, her 8th studio album.
An icon to female musicians and independent artists, Aimee has always charted her own course and continues to create very personal and deeply heartfelt songs.
The title track is a free download from Noise Trade.
Grizzly Bear released their 4th album Shields in September to critical acclaim.
This Brooklyn quartet opened for Radiohead in 2008 and Jonny Greenwood declared Grizzly Bear to be his favorite band.
“Yet Again” is the current single.
The intense electronic duo Crystal Castles is set to release their 3rd album, Crystal Castles III in November.
(We loved their collaboration with Robert Smith from Crystal Castles II in 2010.)
They gave us the blistering first song “Plague” earlier this year, and now follow with “Wrath of God”.
Both are free downloads here and here.
Plague
Wrath of God
As we await the 4th studio album from Frightened Rabbit sometime in 2013, the boys with our favorite Scottish brogue have just released a 5-song EP to tide us over.
State Hospital is the title and also the title track.
A.C. Newman, the founding member and leader of The New Pornographers, will release is his 3rd solo album next week.
He utilizes the wonderful vocal talents of Neko Case, another member of The New Pornographers, on much of Shut Down the Streets.
“Encyclopedia of Classic Takedowns” is a free download.
Wild Nothing is Jack Tatum.
He tours with a full band but Wild Nothing is the project of multi-instrumentalist Jack Tatum.
Between albums he released the stellar one-off single “Nowhere” at the beginning of the year.
He now offers his 2nd album, Nocturne, and the exquisite single “Paradise’, available as a free download from Pitchfork.
River City Extension is an eight-piece ensemble out of New Jersey.
They released their 2nd album, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger, in June of this year.
I’ve been fond of a song from this record “If You Need Me Back in Brooklyn” all summer long and feature it today.
