A few notables today, some of ‘em from old favorites…
Todd has already pointed out the hotly anticipated arrival of Kompakt, so I won’t spend too long on that. For those of you who are like me, and have difficulty making heads or tails of electronic music, this excellent Dozen by Philip Sherburne will help to put things in perspective for you. His use of the words “dandy,” “melancholic,” “gloomy” and “scarf” made me want to hear Superpitcher as soon as possible.
My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges: This is today’s other biggie. I have to confess, I’m not a big MMJ fan, but from what I understand Urges represents a bit of a stylistic departure. eMusic’s Andy Beta has this to say:
My Morning Jacket strike a precarious balance on Evil Urges, being still familiar to longtime fans while also reaching for extremes in their sound. The opening title track swoops in like something beamed down from Radiohead’s OK Computer, anthemic guitars amid spacy keyboard washes, as the conflicted James realizes that “It ain’t evil, baby, if it ain’t hurting anybody.”
Sexy!
Justice, †: The breakout electronic record of last year is here. Super accessible for electro-lunkheads like me, Justice aren’t afraid to build wide-and-clear roadways into their songs. Our own Todd has this to say:
There’s a delicious moment of silence in nearly every Justice song. You know the one I’m talking about: those few milliseconds right before everything explodes in a mess of filtered funk. The precise moment when tension becomes release. But, like fellow French dance duo Daft Punk, the secret to Justice’s success is that underneath all the obfuscation — the tension, the release, a warbling Uffie on “Party” — are beautiful pop songs.
Adele, 19: Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: she’s white, British, young, and she sings R&B. You were supposed to stop me. I kid, I kid: like Duffy, Adele is also being touted as the second coming of Amy Winehouse, the kind that can actually keep her shit together and not end up singing racist school chants in crack houses. That description doesn’t fully work for Adele; her voice is plenty soulful, but the songs are a little more of the Quiet Storm variety.
Joan as Policewoman, To Survive: More quiet longing, a little more direct than previous efforts. eMusic’s Terry Staunton says:
The passing of her beau Jeff Buckley informed much of her debut, Real Life, while her mother’s death from cancer last year was plainly the catalyst for the emotional nakedness of To Survive. At times, her voice recalls the chilling detachment of Nina Simone or Billie Holiday, like on “Honor Wishes,” its funereal pacing, augmented by an understated back-up vocal from David Sylvian. It’s an album heavy on atmosphere and understated instrumentation, which serves only to compound the impact of words that refuse to pull their punches. Some of it may initially sound discomforting, but repeated exposure reaps rich rewards.
Joseph Arthur, Vagabond Skies: An EP from JA, this one finds him mining quiet, Sparklehorsey terrain. Fans of that tweaked-out acoustica will find plenty to love.
Styrofoam, A Thousand Words: And you thought Justice were pop-tronica? Styrofoam is more so — think Postal Service, and you’re on track. Josh Rouse shows up on a track here, as does Blake Hazard from Submarines and Jim Adkins from Jimmy Eat World, a band I not-so-secretly love.
From Sweden, the MMJ album and the Adele album are not available at the above links. They are, though, available here and here. I guess this is because they are on different labels in the US and Europe, but would it be possible to consolidate the entries somehow, or at least augument the error message (”This album is unavailable [...], but another one, named just like it, is, click here!”)?
The MMJ and Adele albums aren’t available for European users at the links given, but they are available on other URLs if you search. Would this be possible to fix? Also, the CAPTHA images when posting are broken.
Good to see Styrofoam getting some attention!
I was hoping this would show up - found the title track online a few weeks ago and it sounded great. The other samples sound much poppier than I expected but I think it’ll still be an essential download.
don’t download alla “es tiempo”! I wasted 12 downloads on it, and it’s the wrong album! The actual album looks good, influenced by Mutantes, Gal Costa, Can and Beach Boys…
I’ve been an eMusic subscriber for a while and am getting a little frustrated with the arrival of some new releases being delayed on eMusic. New CDs are now available by John Hiatt, the Old 97’s (both on New West), and Sloan (on Yep Roc). Both labels have distribution with eMusic, but none of these are available to subscribers yet. Will these be available? And when?
I just wanna rock.
Eric, I too share your desire to rock.
On the message board yesterday, Yancey said regarding the new Sloan: “Yes we are getting it in the US. Technical problem with the batch from that label. Soon!”
As far as New West is concerned, they haven’t added an album since February of last year. I can’t say officially, but I expect that will not be adding anything new.
In lieu of official comment, I hope this helps.
Eric, we want you to rock, too! In terms of those records, I have to echo what Autoclamp says. We’re working on it!
hey penumatic -
i’m looking into the alla issue now!
UPDATE: An Alla fix is in progress — it should be a-ok by tomorrow. Sorry about that!
Does anyone know if emusic will get El Guincho? I read somewhere that he may have a deal with XL, but so far he seems to be on his own label.
We don’t know, Adamm. Whenever a date gets announced for the XL album, we’ll find out.
Also, I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this before, but Adamm, we were impressed by the discs you sent us. Good stuff! Thanks so much!
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
For anyone who’s interested:
http://www.myspace.com/sunshineflowerfish
and one of the above-mentioned discs available for download at:
http://www.mediafire.com/?f1ktygmdfjf
(sorry, I don’t know how to do links)
And I just relaized that it creates links automatically.
si vamos a tener El Guincho cuando XL lo edita!
Eric, Many of the Labels that deal with eMusic are on a delayed release plan with the majority of their releases because they want to milk as much of the CD sales as possible before going to a (roughly) 33cent per track model.
We should be glad these labels want our eMusic money at all and aren’t trying to force $19.99 CDs and $0.88-$0.99 downloads like some of the big names try to do. Yes the bands you reference are great sellers on eMusic (Old 97s esp) but it is the labels not eMusic who do this.
In reguards to the Sloan thing: it sounds like, a lot of the time, labels send crapped up versions of the cd to eMusic to upload. This i think is what causes so many of our favorite (and not so favorite LOL) releases to have problems (skipping , wrong track listing etc).
I love eMusic for the fact that although some labels choose to delay other labels choose to Advance. Ok enuff of what should be forum talk and not 17dots thread.
Thanks so much, Joe!