na: she keeps bees, army navy
We can’t let a little holiday weekend get in the way of a great day of new arrivals, can we?
She Keeps Bees, Nests: Let’s start things off today with an artist that most of you have probably never heard of: She Keeps Bees. She Keeps Bees is a woman named Jess who lives in Brooklyn who I have badly wanted to be a part of eMusic Selects since early summer (alas it could not work how we wanted, but we’ll be doing something together in the future). Anyway, Jess’ music is very tough, very raw and a bit bare-knuckled. And yeah okay, I’ll get it out of the way: it sounds like early Cat Power, Jess’ vocal sharing that smoky quality, and the music stripped of all artifice and left with only emotion. Nests is her newest album and it’s a great one. Great. Don’t hesitate to check it out.
Army Navy, Army Navy: Out of nowhere this office has turned into a group of dedicated Army Navy fans, and I still have no idea what they sound like except Joe murmuring something about “power-pop” and “you wouldn’t like it.” Which settles that. But still, a lot of folks seem to be swayed, thus I must pass the word along.
Benoit Pioulard, Temper: I have yet to listen to the new one (Alex really likes it), but Benoit has a great track record, from his early stuff with Ghostly to his two kranky albums. It’s soft singer-songwriter stuff but totally warped through some little electronic flourishes and a really dour mood. If you like Fog you are on the right track. Also, when I played for Deastro our next Selects band (coming early November!) he said it reminded him of Benoit. So there’s that, too.
Luomo, Convivial: For a dude who has been king of the music dork electronic scene ever since Vocal City (which is really good), there has been curiously little chatter about Convivial (that I’ve seen anyway). Part of this has to be that Paper Tigers, his last album, was so blah. I have yet to hear a note of Convivial yet, but it’s high on my listening pile today.
Deerheart, Deerheart: I know nothing about this Tunecore release except that the samples sounded a lot to me like She & Him — in particular, the vocalist’s voice was very Zooey Deschanel. Very pleasant.
Frontier Ruckus, The Orion Songbook: I wrote a long review of this album that will be up tomorrow. It’s loosely related to Breathe Owl Breathe — part of why we have it up a full month early — and musically it’s somewhere between Will Oldham and Colin Meloy.
Cut Off Your Hands, Happy As Can Be: Last year at the CMJ festival here in NYC, this New Zealand band was one of the best things I saw, and their first two singles (both on eMu) definitely fulfilled that promise. It’s super-pop post-punk from four young dudes. Very excited to hear this one, and glad to see they landed on French Kiss. That’s a great label for them.
Dungen, Entire Catalogue: As mentioned on the message boards last week, we did indeed get the entire Dungen catalogue up today, as well as the rest of the Kemado catalogue.
Don’t forget Windy & Carl, Songs For The Broken Hearted: Space/drone/psych/ambient by longtime masters of the form. I haven’t listened to it yet, but the AMG review says “while the lush guitar work familiar from past albums feels like a looming wave, there’s a lurking dissonance in many of the songs that feels almost palpable”.
Also of note is Wintersleep’s “Welcome to the Night Sky.” I haven’t heard the whole album as of yet, but “Weighty Ghost” is one of my absolute favorite tracks of the year.
In CA & UK, the M.I.A. “Paper Planes” single came in (w/DFA and Diplo remixes).
and don’t forget the new Dead C album ‘Secret Earth’…
I have to say I’ve got a soft spot for the Secret Machines, and expected their new album today from the “Coming Soon” list on New on eMusic. Is it still coming? Today? Sooner still?
Also, Gojira’s brand new one The Way of All Flesh showed up if you are metal inclined.
http://www.emusic.com/album/Gojira-The-Way-of-All-Flesh-MP3-Download/11287301.html
Oh man! I forgot about that album, WJP. I’m checking for you. Meanwhile, do you have this one already? It’s by far my favorite of theirs:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Secret-Machines-September-000-MP3-Download/11294808.html
I need to profess my adoration for She Keeps Bees. Gorgeous songs, delightfully filthy mouth (at least in live performance). So much to luv.
Thanks, Yancey. I was pretty psyched when eMu reinstated Ace Fu, so (among other things) I could point my friends to that first TSM album. Excellent stuff.
New William Parker Quartet was by far the biggest release of the day for me. Samples sound AWESOME!
i forgot to mention that, porieux! yes, it’s very good.
Any chance we will be getting the new Nikka Costa on Stax Records?
we are supposed to. it was supposed to be up today in fact.
secret machines will be up very soon, btw.
Paper Tigers blah? That was one of my favs of 2006 as it was a damn fine and sexy take on House.
Wow, I never would’ve found Deerheart without the heads-up. Lovely stuff! It’s like what She & Him would’ve sounded like if Zooey collaborated with…hmmm, I dunno, someone more upbeat than M. Ward.
She…. Keeps…. Bees……
Sweet Lord Yes!
Happy about the Emusic Only Advanced free track of Brenda Khan!!
http://www.emusic.com/album/Change-The-Weather-Change-The-Weather-MP3-Download/11294135.html
And speaking of great music for free this week Danielson Alive holding 6 free tracks! Weeee!
http://www.emusic.com/album/Danielson-Danielson-Alive-MP3-Download/11288117.html
Dang, how did I miss Danielson Alive? I was waiting for that for weeks!
I have to give credit to Danielson for blowing my mind with “Smooth Death” way back and launching me into the indie world.
err. . . why is the regular rss feed getting comments? and how can i make it stop?
i would like to just see posts, not comments, in my rss feed if possible. i used to be that way, and i liked it!
Tlr3, This is a known issue since september 12. Please see this thread http://17dots.com/2008/09/12/comments/
The Dungen catalogue deserves more attention. The discs — especially Ta Det Lugnt, see below — are amazing 21st Century prog-rock, but far looser and funkier than 70s prog.
http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/dungen/tadetlugnt?q=Dungen
Ahhh . . . prog-*psych*, I should say.
Agree with Daniel on Dungen, Ta Det Lugnt is a great great album. The emusic version of it also comes with the extra ep that was sold with some copies but not all (i.e. not mine).
Although not new, their first album, on Subliminal Sounds is hard to beat at three tracks:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Dungen-Dungen-MP3-Download/10874770.html
And Chris or anyone else interested in the new Dead C should check out this relatively new Yellow Swans album: http://www.emusic.com/album/Deterioration-Deterioration-MP3-Download/11254113.html
As an more rocking alternative to the artists above this comment, I recommend the new These Arms are Snakes (they finally deliver on this one - it’s flippin’ awesome), the new Dozer (Neil Fallon of Clutch on vox track 3) and it seems Emu re-upped their Kemado Records catalog (Sword, Priestbird, Saviours and Diamond Nights among others). Nicely done! Nearly blew all my d/l’s this week…
This has no connection to anything really but I tried the message boards and got no response so I’ll give it shot here:
This album:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Frochot-Music-African-Roots-MP3-Download/11081157.html
which was one of the free Cantos/Frochot titles that were offered free a while back has an amazing, amazing, amazing song on it called “Kadia Blues.” It’s billed there to “Orchestre de la Payotte” but I think it’s supposed to be “Orchestre de la Paillote.”
Sterns sells a compilation album of Orchestre de la Paillote, and emusic has a lot of Sterns albums; is there any way we could get this album added?
Dude you are preaching to a willing choir with that one. I am going to download ASAP.