los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster

.:: Recorded in Canada and produced by David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene) the album is a frenetic mix of Indie Pop inspired by the likes of Architecture In Helsinki, Pavement and Bis. It's been a hugely eventful year for the band: a right-of-passage, roller coaster, massively exciting kind of year, that's seen them make an impressive dent globally, experience an avalanche of 'firsts', and subsequently proved their mettle as a Pop collective of huge potential...and all before they've even released their debut album! 11 tracks.

Few bands have made as much out of this ideal of enthusiast-as-artist as Los Campesinos!. Formed two years ago at Cardiff University in Wales, the indie-pop septet first grabbed attention on MySpace, but their music embodies some the best elements of the past 30 years of indie music.

It's not just the superficial connections, like their Ramones- or Pastels-style surnames, band-made zine, or the cover of Pavement B-side "Frontwards" on last year's slept-on Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP. With boy/girl exclamations (!) befitting a punkier Heavenly/Calvin Johnson collaboration (!!), the lavish instrumentation of Broken Social Scene (whose Dave Newfeld produces), childish glockenspiels, and exuberantly buzzing guitars, debut album Hold on Now, Youngster... is a giddy, tuneful love note to individuality, pathos, smarts, silliness, and everything else indie pop built its name on.

There's even the requisite ironic self-mockery-- nobody actually thought this stuff was cool, did they?


download: los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

1000 hours of staring - co-operative thread

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.:: '1000 Hours of Staring' is the alias under which Mike Ramsey and occasional collaborator Mike Bigel record music. Here is an EP of elegant instrumental music, crafted from guitars and farfisa organ, field recordings and layer upon layer of dense sound, sound that is alive with energy and purpose.

Now I'm not much of one for over-complicated genre naming, honestly, but I can't help but file this one in my mind under psychedelic post rock folk. Phew. It is at times gritty and raw, and other times drifts over the listener as if void of any cares or concerns. That the sounds were recorded using a video camera is perhaps a fitting tribute to an EP that sounds so personal, a lo-fidelity gem if ever there was one.


download: 1000 hours of staring - co-operative thread

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

forbidden planet (original soundtrack) - louis & bebe barron

.:: The movie's innovative electronic music score (credited as "electronic tonalities", partly to avoid having to pay movie industry music guild fees) was composed by Louis and Bebe Barron. MGM producer Dore Schary discovered the couple quite by chance at a beatnik nightclub in Greenwich Village while on a family Christmas visit to New York City. Schary hired them on the spot to compose the film music score. The theremin had been used as early as 1945, in Spellbound, but their score is widely credited with being the first completely electronic film score. The soundtrack preceded the Moog synthesizer of 1964 by almost a decade.

Using equations from the 1948 book, Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine by mathematician Norbert Wiener, Louis Barron constructed the electronic circuits which he used to generate the "bleeps, blurps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums and screeches". Most of the tonalities were generated using a circuit called a ring modulator. After recording the base sounds, the Barrons further manipulated the material by adding effects, such as reverberation and delay, and reversing or changing the speed of certain sounds.

As Louis and Bebe Barron did not belong to the Musicians' Union, their work was not considered for an Academy Award, in either the soundtrack or special effects category. Curiously, MGM avoided producing a soundtrack album when the film was first released. However, film composer-conductor David Rose released a 45-rpm single of his original main title theme, which he had recorded at MGM Studios in Culver City, California in March 1956. This theme had been discarded when Rose, who had originally been contracted to compose the film’s music score in 1955, was discharged between Christmas 1955 and New Year’s by Dore Schary.


.:: just for the record:

The soundtrack for Forbidden Planet (1956) is today recognized as the first entirely electronic score for a film. Eerie and sinister, the soundtrack was unlike anything that audiences had heard before. Music historians have often noted how groundbreaking the soundtrack was in the development of electronic music.

On the album sleeve notes of the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, Louis and Bebe explain:
We design and construct electronic circuits which function electronically in a manner remarkably similar to the way that lower life-forms function psychologically. [. . .]. In scoring Forbidden Planet – as in all of our work – we created individual cybernetics circuits for particular themes and leit motifs, rather than using standard sound generators. Actually, each circuit has a characteristic activity pattern as well as a "voice". [. . .]. We were delighted to hear people tell us that the tonalities in Forbidden Planet remind them of what their dreams sound like.

The producers of the film had originally wanted to hire Harry Partch to do the music score. The Barrons were brought in to do only about twenty minutes of sound effects. After the producers heard the initial sample score, the Barrons were assigned an hour and ten minutes of the rest of the film. The studio wanted to move the couple to Hollywood where most of the film scores were produced at the time. But the couple would not budge, and took the work back to their New York studio.

The music and the sound effects stunned the audience. During the preview of the movie when the sounds of the spaceship landing on Altair IV filled the theater, the audience broke out in spontaneous applause.

Not everyone was happy with the score. Louis and Bebe did not belong to the Musicians' Union. The original screen credit for the film, which was supposed to read "Electronic Music by Louis and Bebe Barron", was changed at the last moment by a contract lawyer from the American Federation of Musicians. In order to not upset the union, the association with the word music had to be removed. The Barrons were credited with "Electronic Tonalities". Because of their non-membership in the union, the film was not considered for an Oscar in the soundtrack, or special effects category. --wikipedia


download: forbidden planet (original soundtrack) - louis & bebe barron

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kalashnikov - songs about amore and revolution

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.:: Under the drunkenness of the heavenly libertarian nectar and rejecting the ruling alternative thrash music, Kalashnikov are created with the wish to put together their own utopias and passion.

Through the years there were many changes either in the line-up, or in band's music and lyrics, but anyway some features have lasted: Kalashnikov have always played a concentration of melodic and fast music with high libertarian spirit, following the path of DIY.


download: kalashnikov - songs about amore and revolution

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dios (malos) - dios (malos)

.:: California based indie-pop band Dios is joyful and weird, but not too weird.

The songs on (Malos) are nice songs that seem like not a whole lot is happening in them, just some unexpected yacht rock sensibilities creeping subtly into pleasant genre-morphing exercises. Then you find yourself listening to the album for the seventh time that day and you realize this stuff is really, really good.

They have some of the overreaching ethos of Olivia Tremor Control and Super Furry Animals, but not in any crippling way. They're not afraid to experiment, but they're not Wolf Eyes either, you dig? If you love the Move, Grandaddy, the Shins and the Radar Brothers, then this is probably already your favorite band and you know that this is thus far their best record, and all is right with the world.


download: dios (malos) - dios (malos)

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the inventors of aircraft - unknown language

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.:: Unknown Language is the debut release by South London based 'The Inventors of Aircraft'. A name which might suggest multiple members, but which is in fact the sole invention of one Phil Tomsett.

These obscure symbols lend themselves well to the music, for 'Unknown Language' has very definite leanings towards the world of science and indeed science fiction. The album has a vast, almost monolithic sound that builds relentlessy. On the track 'Passing' it is not difficult to imagine that the title may be a reference to some gargantuan satellite, a slow paced yet immovable object casting a shadow over some desolate alien landscape far below.

The pieces meld into one another flitting between earthy and organic soundscapes to more overtly electronic and droney pieces. In the lead up to its release, the album has increasingly been one I turn to late at night. The opening track 'All, nothing' being the perfect introduction to the hypnotic underworld The Inventors of Aircraft so deftly weaves. Do not miss.


download: the inventors of aircraft - unknown language

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brtlmn - come closer please

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.:: Come Closer Please is BRTLMN’s fifth piece in his series of EPs that he’s been sprinkling over the net on various labels. you can expect to hear a massively varied palette of sound with all of BRTLMNs works, but this EP goes just about everywhere.

Come Closer Please is made up of unnerving film quotes, psychedelic bleeps, shifting moods, surreal, ever changing atmospheres, and unexpected, yet, strategically placed abstract melodies.


download: brtlmn - come closer please

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

muhr - anthèmes pour les regrets

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.:: The stunning artwork for "Anthèmes our les Regrets" is based on three paintings by Portland-peintre Eric Adrian Lee. His textural works beautifully resemble the Muhr music and bring forth a new level of interpretation to both aural and visual components. Like Vince, Eric accepts (and facilates!) elements like dirt, noise and error in his producing. Like him, texture and detail are more important than sheer tangibility.

Equally influenced by various forms of electronica, film music, Folk and Postrock, Muhr is about organic Ambient music. Vince' compositions and improvisations fathom the space between synthesizer oscillation and guitar delay, they focus on background noise and the spatial hiss of his lo-fi recordings.


download: muhr - anthèmes pour les regrets

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

plaistow - do you feel lucky?

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.:: "Do You Feel Lucky ?" gathers 4 tracks recorded last february in Geneva. As usual, it will be freely downloadable, and two collector CD editions are proposed, the first one directly from Sven Swift and his netlabel, the other silk-screened by Thomas Perrodin.


.:: The Plaistow music goes through all extremes. Sometimes close to silence, sounds and gestures slackened, an idea of calm and contemplative meditation might form. The feeling to be able to compose with a slow progress of time. And then, at some point, a kind of anger is given voice, just like in a brief scratch or a long howling.

Forms are neglected, there is a will to get out of style and decency, a will to adopt an attitude both offhanded and intense. Up to now, the repertoire consists of original compositions solely. Arrangements are made during an intense collective work, the trio creating a tentaculary soundscape as concerts and residences go along...

Words by Johann Bourquenez


download: plaistow - do you feel lucky?

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gustav holst - the planets

.:: Music derived from astrology is surprisingly rare. The ancient Greek philosophers, whatever their intellectual attitudes towards astrology may have been, were certainly not ignorant of astrological teachings and ideas.

It was they, after all, who put forward the idea of the "Music of the Spheres", the idea that these vast objects, twirling and whirling about through space, must have hummed a tone as they went along their courses, much as a ball spun on a string will whistle. They knew of seven planets: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Not surprisingly, Western music evolved with seven-tone scales.

Music and astrology come together again in this suite devoted to the seven planets, though the luminaries of Sun and Moon are displaced by Uranus and Neptune. Gustav Holst (1874--1934) was well-acquainted with astrology and mythology, as well as the Greek idea of the Music of the Spheres, and he drew heavily on this knowledge in his composition of the Planets Suite.

It was first performed in the autumn of 1918.


download: gustav holst - the planets

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entertainment for the braindead - hydrophobia

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.:: Fragile lo-fi folk music by 21 year old singer and songwriter Julia Kotowski aka Entertainment for the braindead (Eftb). This release is published with cooperation of aaahh records, a brand new German netlabel with georgeous music and Aerotone.

“Hydrophobia” is full of colourful sounds and melodies. Ukulele, guitar and flute are ever-present instruments, just like Julias wonderful voice and her unconventional percussion that consists of jars, cans, boxes, drawers and peppermills. Her intimate songs are detailed snapshots of thoughts and feelings - sometimes filtered and reflected, sometimes pure and transparent.

All hydrophobia songs are about drowning, are written and recorded between April and July 2008.


download: entertainment for the braindead - hydrophobia

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

osvaldo golijov - ainadamar

||| This unique, 80-minute opera must be heard |||

.:: The one-act opera Ainadamar was composed in 2003 and revised in 2005. The plot centres on Federico García Lorca and his tragic death; the Spanish author was executed by Fascist soldiers early in the Spanish Civil War in a place the Moors called Ainadamar, or “Fountain of Tears”. As in the song cycle Ayre, the female title role is interpreted by Golijov’s muse, Dawn Upshaw.

The title means "Fountain of Tears" in Arabic and refers to the place in Granada where Federico Garcia Lorca was executed by Fascist soldiers in 1936. The work opens in a theater in Uruguay in 1969. As the actress Margarita Xirgu, who collaborated with Lorca in the 1920s and '30s, is about to go on stage, she recalls memories of him and his death and the survivor's guilt she feels.

Musical images take us back as well. The sounds of hoofbeats, a fountain, and gun shots punctuate the otherwise beautiful, tonal, highly Spanish-influenced score, filled with flamenco and rumba rhythms. The vocal lines are all highly singable as well as dramatic. The work is mostly scored for women's voices: Margartita, sung by Dawn Upshaw; Lorca himself, sung by Kelley O'Connor; Nuria, Margarita's student, sung by Jessica Rivera.

There is also an ensemble of women's voices that do most of the work. Margarita dies just before going onstage. The trio for her, Nuria, and Lorca is about as beautiful as anything you'll ever hear. "What a sad day it was in Granada / The stones began to cry" is a refrain that recurs throughout the opera, and the whole piece is sheer poetry. This is stunning.


download: osvaldo golijov - ainadamar

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

converge - no heroes

.:: What can i say about Converge… they're beyond tags like: emo, screamo, post-hardcore, metalcore, mathcore, etc.
These guys ROCK !!!

If LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 is good Nike-sponsored running music, No Heroes is what boot-wearing non-joggers use at a punk-slapped punching bag to reach fighting weight. It's pretty amazing to think Converge has been around almost as long as some of you have been alive, especially considering this sixth full-length is packed with some of the most ferocious moments in the Boston quartet's 15-plus year history.


download: converge - no heroes

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

morgen - morgen

.:: "ABC Record's valiant attempt at the 'hip/youth' market, Probe, released many memorable LP's by such groups as Saint Steven and The Litter along with debut offerings by Zephyr, Soft Machine and Rare Bird, but none generate the frenzy at this late date quite like the quartet led by guitarist/vocalist Steve Morgen, first unleashed in 1969.

Even before dropping needle on groove, the stark black-and-white sleeve with inset Edvard Munch lithograph, in contrast to the multicolored hues so prevalent then, makes an immediate statement. And then the music makes another immediate statement... A foreboding bass riff and staccato drumming introduce 'Welcome To The Void', and for the next thirty-eight minutes one is hurled headlong into a vortex of dual-guitar overload, lyrically woven with romantic and Victorian imagery residing on a tab of microdot.

World Psychedelia has at last given this near-perfect album a proper presentation, reproducing the original insert with new transcriptions of the handwritten lyrics and, for the first time, including the rare 7" mono versions of 'She's The Nitetime' and 'Of Dreams'. Radio stations didn't bite on the single, Probe closed up shop, and the world became a decidedly sadder place."


download: morgen - morgen

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

islands - return to the sea

.:: Hailing from Montreal, Islands is a 7 piece band, a fantastic conglomoration of melody, blips and beats brought to you by front man Nick Diamonds and drummer J'aime Tambeur's new crew (formerly of indie faves The Unicorns). Following the untimely disbandment of the Unicorns right as they were on the cusp of breaking through, this highly anticipated debut release by Islands entitled Return to the Sea, with its quirky sounds and refreshing, catchy melodies, contains collaborations with members of Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and Beck.


download: islands - return to the sea

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com

ash ra tempel - ash ra tempel

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.:: Ash Ra Tempel were one of the most notable German Krautrock groups of the 70's and 80's. Led by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, and also included former Tangerine Dream drummer Klaus Schulze at various points. Originally founded by Manuel Göttsching, Ash Ra Tempel released their first album (''Ash Ra Tempel'') in June 1971… read on


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neurosis - times of grace

.:: While the term "progressive" might elicit groans from diehard headbangers, it's entirely appropriate when describing the evolution of Neurosis's sound. Songs like "The Doorway" and "The Last You'll Know" build an inescapable sense of oppressive dread with their walls of crushing, droning guitar, but the band has far more than that to offer.

With a band like Neurosis, every song is going to be strenuous. If you don't listen closely, you may miss out on the subtle sections of the album that make it so unnerving and worthwhile. This album and A Sun that Never Sets is Neurosis' progression from the insanely dark, Through Silver in Blood to the more mellow The Eye of Every Storm.

The large amount of ambient tracks can be bothersome and the repetition is the same. If you can come to a point where these characteristics don't bother you or if you are already a fan of Neurosis/sludge/doom/post-metal then Times of Grace can be a great album to listen to. The guitars are heavy, the tribal drumming sounds great, and the atmosphere is scary, that is Neurosis in a nutshell.

Art-metal heavyweights Neurosis have been steadily perfecting the balance between heaviness and symphonic grandeur, and they may have gotten things one hundred percent correct with Time of Grace.


download: neurosis - times of grace

khonnor - handwriting

.:: Khonnor, the 17-year-old US-based wonderboy, first came to the attention of many through his cult internet-only EP releases as "Grandma" and "I, Cactus". With this, his long-awaited debut album "Handwriting", two years in the making, he has produced a record which is sure to bring an important new voice to the emerging "indietronica" movement.

Taking influence from Jim 'O Rourke, Fennesz, Sonic Youth, The Smiths and David Sylvian, 'Handwriting' shows both reverie and intense originality. Khonnor manages to make music with a rare endearing naivity which combines a dark sense of humour with a keen uncynical eye. Everyone has been through similar experiences, but Khonnor documents his with startling originality and finesse.

Dreamlike digitally manipulated guitar noise and wavering synths form the foundation for most of the tracks, complimented by Khonnor's frank and open lyrics throughout, breathing life into his tracks with an ease and unforgettable beauty as he charts the ups and downs of teenage love, pocket change and lost hazy nights.

After releasing his first EP at only fifteen years of age, Connor Kirby-Long had an early start to the music scene. What resulted from his early experimentations was an exceptionally original and unrestrained mixture of guitar strumming, twisted lyrics and abrasive electronic noise.

Using only an old PC, a microphone from a 'Learn Japanese' boxset and a single low quality PC speaker, Connor Kirby-Long had created something fresh and original, and will be sure to give the sometimes tired electronic scene a much needed adrenaline boost.

Not long after this he embarked on 'Handwriting' which slowly began to take hold of his life. Connor put his heart and soul into his music, often to the detriment of his everyday life. After nearly getting thrown out of school on numerous occasions, narrowly escaping rehab, appearing in county court and eventually graduating, the now seventeen year old used this album as a marker pen to sign a release form on his teenage years.

In a year when electronic music has been striving to make the ever-elusive leap into pop, where indie-electronic albums are no longer an oddity, Khonnor's music has something different. The punk rock attitude, the fresh and heartfelt emotion, the unhidden fragility and anticlimaxes of adolescence. This seventeen year old from Vermont, in his debut album has compiled something so personal and original that many would fail to achieve in a lifetime. -- text: www.typerecords.com


download: khonnor - handwriting

the reuploading process

hello everybody,

as you've noticed many of my links are dead and some others are reborn… well, i've been busy trying to repost the whole blog as soon as possible, in the meantime i've reuploaded august, july, june and i'm currently working on may posts. i'm trying to post new albums either and i'm using several host services such as: rapidshare, uploadjockey, rapidspread and some others. so if these services work for you or if they just dont, please let me know about it.

i just hope that any of these hosting services dont f*** with me again just like gigasize and shareonall did (they're on my black list hahaha)

thanx