Some New Videos Plus Some Album News

Super Quick Post... First up...
MGMT :: Flash Delirium Video
Here's the video for first single off the duo's next LP, due out on the 13th.  It is nothing less than what you would expect from MGMT (Read: Weird Nonsensical Stuff that is fun to watch and will ultimately freak you out a little bit), and is right up there with the video for "O.N.E." by Yeasayer as weirdest video of 2010.


Titus Andronicus :: A More Perfect Union

A More Perfect Union

Titus Andronicus | MySpace Music Videos
Perhaps not as creative as the previous video (and the lead singer has definitely got to do something about that beard... it's definitely pushing the envelope..), but the song is great and makes up for the, dare I say, mediocre? video.  Best line in the song... "Baby we were born to die."  If you can't tell by that line, the fact that they talk about New Jersey in the song, and that there is a song by them called "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ," then I'll just tell you straight up... they're from New Jersey!  Why, you ask, do I mention this? I actually don't know but I thought I would throw it out there... I do have a cousin form NJ who loves them, so I guess they are kind of his patron band... unrelated though...

LCD Soundsystem :: This is Happening

The LCD Soundsystem album I was talking about in my previous post has just received a title, release date, and album art.  It's called This is Happening, which, as James Murphy always does, walks the line between making fun of being pretentious and actually being pretentious.  Same is true of the album art.  It'll be out on the 18th of May.

And Now For Something Totally Different
Geeks, watch and drool!

LCD Soundsystem Blowout (Not Really...)

Another post involving movies coming at you... that's three in a row!  This is starting to turn into a multi-media blog!

LCD Soundsystem :: Drunk Girls, Pow Pow, Greenberg


First up, we got the first single from the new LCD Soundsystem album, which is yet to be titled.  The song is called "Drunk Girls," and is pretty vintage LCD Soundsystem when it comes to the lyrics, although the style of the song is slightly different than what he (James Murphy... he's all of LCD).  He keeps the sort of dry, witty lyrics commenting on hipsterculture (hence forth to be known as hipsterture), in the same vein as "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" or the classic "Losing My Edge," but he changes up the music style a good deal IMO.  He uses more vocal tracks and on the primary vocal tracks, he actually sings a bit more, whereas in most of his "funnier" songs, he is essentially just talking into the mic.  The music itself is pretty upbeat and has a simple drum beat.  It's guitar based, mostly going off just a repeated riff, and it definitely lends itself to a very different sound for LCD that is enjoyable but not wonderful.  I have a feeling the rest of the album, although it may be different from his previous stuff, won't really be like this.  No really HQ mp3s have popped up yet, so I figure instead of making you suffer lowQ I'd just give you the official version, even if it is just a stream.  You can find the .mp3s yourself.


The next song, even though it is only a sample from a song from the album, is certainly back in his old style, really more in the style of the first album.  It has him essentially yelling the chorus of the name of the song over the more complex sounding electronica style drum beat, with a bass line that repeats, and then he goes into just speaking the lyrics in a rhythmic way, and then at the end of the verse repeating the last line in a yell.  I also have a feeling the album won't be like this... my guess is it will be upbeat and poppy.  Here's a minute and a half of this song (it's all that's out).
mp3: Pow Pow

Finally, I just saw Greenberg.  If you don't know, it's a Noah Baumbach (Directed of The Squid and the Whale and Wes Anderson bud) film, it's about some Angelenos (as in LA) who feel they are failures and don't really know how it ever happened, and it was scored by James Murphy, AKA LCD Soundsystem.  To briefly talk about the movie, it is much more of a character study than anything else, centering around Ben Stiller's Roger Greenberg, a nervous, socially troubled, 40 year old failure who is house-sitting for his brother in LA while he is off opening a hotel in Vietnam, or doing something else to indicate that he is successful and has kids, etc.  The story centers around the relationship he develops with his brother's young assistant/babysitter for his kids, played excellently by Greta Gerwig, and how he reconnects with his old bandmate Ivan.  I'm not going to really talk about the movie at all, but I will say that despite getting off to a little bit of a slow start and the feeling that some of Ben Stiller's nervous breakdowns felt a little forced, the movie still did a very good job of showing us a glimpse into the life of a, if not physically then mentally, vulnerable man.

The music did for the most part evoke the feelings desired by each scene, whether it was a day party for adults or Greenberg panicking about making a split decision; it essentially was what you would expect out of a movie soundtrack, not an LCD Soundsystem album, except for perhaps two or three cases, and even then they didn't really sound like traditional LCD.  I think that that was good because it directed the attention to what was going on and did not distract you, and when they were pieces that were essentially songs, they were more in the montage style scenes, so it complimented the scenes perfectly.  Two songs that stood out were piano based, and were in the style of Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up or New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down, but my favorite was "Photographs," an acoustic guitar based ballad.  They all had the melancholy feel to them which contributed to the mood very nicely.  I think as a whole, the score showed a certain maturity from James Murphy in that he knew where to hold back with the score  (as in the part where it was essentially just background music) so that you barely even noticed it and it was just another part of the scene, where to make you notice the score so that you felt you were being indicated that you were supposed to feel something, and finally in that he showed he knew how to create songs that were not what he normal makes and also did not overwhelm a scene.
mp3: Photographs

-- A Teenage Elephant... Be Seeing You (Anybody know what I'm referencing?)

PS
Fellow Canadians Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers each just released singles from each of their highly anticipated upcoming albums.  They're worth a look.

ODDSAC + Congratulations

Hey yall...

So I just got back from a wonderful experience... and yes, that is definitely the write(terrible pun... I don't even know if it makes sense...) word for it; it was an experience.  I saw ODDSAC, the movie/"visual album" made by Animal Collective and Danny Perez.  It was about an hour long, and after wards there was a half hour Q&A.  After that, I talked to Avey Tare for about 5 minutes as I was walking out (that's right... exclusive stuff on this tiny blog)... well, I should clarify.  My mom and I talked to him for about five minutes afterwards... Hey, I'm not old enough to drive on my own yet and it was on a school night so I couldn't go with friends, and I figure if I have a mom cool enough to take me there, then why not...  So, let's begin!

First of all, the event was SUPER indie-ster, but what would you expect?  Animal Collective + "Visual Album" + ArcLight = Hipster/Indie, but I was surprised nonetheless... the hipsterism was greater than the sum of its parts...

The visual album, and that is what I am going to call it from now on, was excellent.  It is part trippy visuals, part strange costumes, part Animal Collective-joyful-playtime-paint fight, all set to (for the most part) sonic joy...  I won't describe the movie itself too much because its style just makes it the type of thing that you sort of have to see/listen to to appreciate and I don't want to ruin it for you by describing parts of it poorly.  There is pretty much no plot, but if you expected there to be plot, then you probably expected there to be plot in Avatar (Zing.... I kid I kid there was plot, albeit recycled, in Avatar); you don't go to a film titled "ODDSAC" to see Citizen Kane, although there did seem to be an antagonist that was featured more in the latter half of the movie.  I thought perhaps he was the namesake for the film due to his skin, but as I later find out the origin of the title is Gummi Bears, so it's all good...  The style of the film is, as you would expect, very psychedelic, and there were sort of two main themes in it.  The first was live action that would have weird visuals cut into it super rapidly that would progress into cuts that are going so fast you feel if you blink you could miss hours worth of material.  The perfect word to describe the aesthetic would be kinetic.  If you've seen Fight Club, which I get a feeling that most of my readers have, you'll be reminded of Tyler splicing in single frames of certain things.. you know what I mean... The other part is more artsy/effects type visuals that sort of slowly (or not so slowly) morph into new shapes.  Finally, there was the music aspect of it.  The way that part essentially worked was there would be sort of songs that would be perfectly in time with every cut, spliced image, what was going on on the screen etc. and then they would slowly break down into more white noise, ambient sounding stuff while some of the trippier visuals played out, and then build back up again.

So... my "analysis" of the film...
I thought it shined most when the more song like parts were playing.  There was one particular moment, about halfway through the film after a long abstract visuals section, when an acoustic song started and you see a boat rowing down an extremely dark river at night that was absolutely extraordinary.  Oh, and of course the movie ended with a joyous fight in which everybody was throwing paint/food around...  And there was a scene in the beginning when there were large amounts of paint like ooze (my favorite credit... "Ooze Girl #1)... I'm telling you AnCo have a thing for acrylics...  At those parts, I felt you were really getting the full experience, what with the bombardment of audio and visuals being juxtaposed perfectly.  As the guys said afterward, the film was almost supposed to be like a final instrument, something that is not separate from the music, just another layer.  Something that interested me when they said that was whether or not they thought the song parts of it should be/could be separated from the movie and listened to as their own experience, and vice versa.  All their responses were different, but not drastically.  Some of them (Geologist, Deakin) were more along the lines of that it was one whole experience that they think makes the best impact when you just sit down and watch and listen to the whole thing.  Avey Tare on the other hand was saying more that part of the idea of it was that when you listened to them separately they created their own unique experiences, while the director, Danny Perez, was describing almost a combination of the two in his always comedic fashion, where music would all music would become a two faceted thing; you would go around doing your daily stuff and be listening to the music, and glance up and see the vampire melting and attacking the people eating marshmallows (from the movie... who knew eating marshmallows could be so creepy...), then  you'd go on just listening to the audiovisual feed from NPR...  It was an interesting discussion I thought that has made me think about where music is going/how it could potentially develop into something new, and also how they have sort of "transcended" (to be pretentious) the genre, what with them doing the movie and the recent art exhibition at the Guggenheim.  More on that stuff in a coming post...

One more thing I was very interested in was what, if anything at all did, came first, the audio or the visuals.  They were obviously made in conjunction, but I was more wondering if the music was made for the movie, or the movie was made for the music.  Of course, the answer was a little bit of both.  They talked about how parts of it were stuff that hadn't worked on albums but they really liked, and parts of it were them just jamming and creating the stuff that then visuals were crated for, and part of it was them scoring the visuals individually.  There was more stuff talked about, but I kind of want to wrap this up.  One final thing that I thought was interesting was that even though there was no plot, the movie started out with a person in this field panicking, and then it ended with everyone in that field joyous, so it was as if the characters had come full circle but changed along the way, as if there had been the three acts of a drama to change them, although of course there wasn't.  Oh, and another thing (they just keep popping into my head...): the very very very first scene was this girl panicking (before she went into the field) because there was this whole in the wall that torrential amounts of ooze started coming out of, and eventually, after being unable to stop the ooze and then writing in the ooze for a while, she seems to go through the hole to where it sort of seems to me like the rest of the movie takes place... the reason I found that interesting was because, even though I don't think it was intentional and it was just me sort of making a mental connection, it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Oh, when my mom talked to Avey Tare (David Portner) she of course instantly came under the impression that he is the coolest guy ever.  She talked to him about synesthesia (hearing sounds triggering seeing colors), then Nabakov, then Philip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi, which I just checked out and is pretty cool and worth checking out.  They were all really great guys by the way; they all seemed down to earth and just like normal guys, except for Danny Perez, who was just a hilarious, sort of out of it, completely comedic goofball guy.  They were in no way describing their thing as some abstract art,  it was just something that they did that was fun and they put a lot of work into, gaining a lot of inspiration from campy horror movies sugary cereals (you have to have been there to hear Danny Perez's explanation for that one...)

Be Seeing You
-- A Teenage Elephant

Also...
The Deadly Syndrome just released their sophomore album - definitely worth a listen.

After MGMT's sophomore album leaked, they put up the whole album for free to stream so we don't all have to suffer low quality.  Check it here.

Vote For Jake C. here... just do it.

Some New Tunes + The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

First up...

Here We Go Magic :: Collector

HWGM is a definitely a breakout band from last year; they hail from Brooklyn.  This new track from their upcoming June release (on the always great Secretly Canadian) sees them (that's actually a change... the last album was recorded on a four-track by just one guy; now he has a whole band, which I actually saw him play with when they opened for Grizzly Bear last June) with a little bit of a more upbeat kinetic sound.  I really enjoyed it... I always like to see bands doing something different than what they have already done.  Oh, and it has some nice art to go with it, which is always a plus for me.
mp3: Collector [Link to Secretly Canadian's site... sorry they took the direct mp3 down... now you can get it for the price of an email]

Fitz and the Tantrums
Just heard about these guys from none other than a commenter on this blog!!  See, it is productive!  These guys are from the LA area, so that's another bonus... They have a very 60s soul sound, which is certianly what they are going for... I mean their name, and the cover art below... it's excellent.  Check it out.

DOWNLOAD THE SONGS FOR AN EMAIL BELOW (they are from a live session the band did at KCRW... also check out the song Breaking the Chains of Love)

  

  

Ariel Pink and the Haunted Graffiti :: Round and Round
This one has really been heating up on the interwebs the past week or two, and for good reason.  I had never really listened to a lot of Ariel Pink up until now, but this track has certainly turned me on.  For those uninitiated, it's a super 60s, maybe even 70s sound that is really generated by the bass used and the echoed vocals.  It's got a nice melowness to it, which maybe even gives it a little bit of a dance feel some how... Horrorshow good stuff if you ask me..
mp3: Round and Round

And Now, For Something Completely Different (Props if you know what I am referencing)... A movie/book suggestion/review (sort of... more of a suggestion)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By now, you have probably read this book or seen somebody reading this book... mostly likely they bumped into you because they were walking around completely engrossed in it... or at least heard something about it.  To sum it up, it is a complex, multi-layered (I find I use those two words in a row a lot when describing stuff on this blog... I should probably practice my writing skills...) mystery novel that will DEFINITELY keep your eyes glued to the book.  I hesitate to call it a thriller, because of a) the fact that much of it is really the story of the main character slowly trying to gather each piece of a massive, multi-generational puzzle, and b) it is not the type of book that I like to call a Roman de'Gare (which means train novel... and is also the name of a French movie that is also the opposite of a train story), i.e. a John Grisham style book, although you will zoom through its 600 pages because it is so good.  Even though it hasn't excellent complexities and twists in it, what I find most appealing about, and what I believe most people who read it find to be most appealing, is of course, the girl with the dragon tattoo.  She is one of the most interesting characters in a book that I have read recently, rivaled only by perhaps (IMO) Alex from A Clockwork Orange (whom I decided to of course throw in a reference to above... did ya catch it?).  She is on one hand the epitome of the cyberpunk (although this book in no way deals with any of those themes); on the other hand, and this is what makes her interesting, she is an introverted, enigmatic character who won't open up to anyone.  I'm not going to really talk about the plot because I think you should just read it for yourself.  I don't want to talk too much about the book at all really though because this is supposed to be about the movie, and I have already started rambling!

The book was originally written in Swedish and was hugely popular in Europe, so of course it was made into a Swedish movie a few years ago, which has just seen a limited release in the US.  Tonight (Friday) was the opening night, so of course my dad (that's right, I hang out with him...) and I had to go.  The movie lived up to the book in almost every sense.  It managed to pack all the twists and turns of the book into 2 hours and 40 minutes excellently, never feeling like it was moving too fast.  It capturedd the solving of the intricate mystery, while at the same time not feeling like anything was left out (of course lots of stuff was cut out, but it is done extremely well).  Even having read it, it still manages to pull you in and be enthralled by the mystery, EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE ENDGAME.  That I think is what makes the movie so excellent.  Well, I know I really haven't said that much about it even though I've written a lot, but I don't really want to give a lot away.  JUST SEE IT JUST SEE IT JUST READ IT ETC.

-- A Teenage Elephant.

So, sorry I haven't had any posts this week... I was incapacitated all week if it is any consolation... I'm not sure why that would stop me from posting but.....

A lot went dooooown this week (including several excellent album releases: Titus Andronicus, Broken Bells, the Morning Benders and more), so here goes it.

MGMT :: Flash Delirium
Definitely the biggest thing of the week, this is the first single from their upcoming album, Congratulations, and I love it.  I think they sort of pulled what Spoon did with Transference in that they tried to go out for a slightly more experimental sound that they almost knew more people wouldn't like it, as if they wanted to reject some of the mainstream success they had.  I would compare its sound most to "The Handshake" from the previous album.  Not sure if I agree with Pitchfork's comparison to the Beatles buttt....
PS Album Artwork Win (I just can't wait to see what is underneath it... more on that in another post).

mp3: Flash Delirium (Yayyy mp3s... they are actually all hotlinked from Pitchfork, thus making it OK with Googlé?)

Light Pollution :: Good Feelings
Some more goodness from the always great Carpark Records.  Anthemic, up-beat, trad indie-guitars... Woohoo!

mp3: Good Feelings

Born Ruffians :: Sole Brother
An enjoyable new release from what I think of as Vampire Weekend replacements... not as great as some of the stuff from their first album but I still enjoyed it.  Slightly slower, a little groovier...

mp3: Sole Brother

Neon Indian :: Sleep Paralyst
Ehhhhh... The track did grow on me though.  Oh and the Wall Street Journal has an article about Chillwave...

mp3: Sleep Paralyst

Yeasayer :: O.N.E.
The new video from Yeasayer is soooo different from all their other videos... it's trippy (*Sarcasm... tone of voice just doesn't come through the interwebs...)!  But yes, it is certainly one of the trippier ones, although it does have a "plot" (but of course the "plot" ends up making no sense).  In a nutshell... creepy guy walks into party, but it looks cool.  Not my favorite song from a very good album (more coming in another post...), but still worth watching.  There is some Tron Chess in it... more on Tron Below


Yeasayer "ONE" By: Radical Friend from ODDBLOOD on Vimeo.





-- A Teenage Elephant


In Other News...
-Stars anounced a new album due out in June
-New Daft Punk can be heard in the epic trailer for Tron Legacy below...
-Also since I put one trailer in, I felt like I would put another in.  If Inception is anywhere near as good as its trailer, it will be unreal.




(Woo, Woo, that's the sound of the Idea Police)

DJ-ing on a Gameboy! Wait, What?

The title says it all, but if you are still wondering, I shall get there shortly.

Last night (Saturday), I went to the Windward Battle of the Bands at the El Rey (for those of you who don't know Windward is a fairly small private high school in LA).  Getting the El Rey for the night was definitely a big plus for the event, so even though there was only around a hundred people there, having the awesome El Rey marquis outside reading "Windward Battle of the Bands" and the crystal glow of the immense chandeliers illuminating the inside definitely made for a pretty cool environment/must have been a really fun experience for high schoolers playing a concert.  Oh, and also, the people playing were from all different schools, although many of the kids were from Windward.

The first band, the Modern Drone, were just meh.  They just sort of sounded like a bunch of teenagers playing music, nothing special. (Don't get me wrong, they are better musicians than me and I give them major props for playing, I just didn't think they were as good as some of the other bands.)

The next band, Range Life, were the band most likely to be seen on my blog on any given day, in terms of their style.  They definitely fit into the LA sound if you ask me.  Clean electric guitar, upbeat, tight drums etc. (so they definitely in with the Local Natives/Deadly Syndrome etc. scene/sound), but they had their own little spin on it too, with really good trumpet (riffs?) giving the song a slightly more complex feel.  Martin Isenberg's vocals remind me a lot of Conor Oberst; slightly raspy, a little bit of a shout, and lots of passion that add up to the feeling that he really cares about his music.  These guys were my favorites for the night, but I do think that band that won (not these guys) deserved it.  If you like these two songs become fans of them on Facebook, I'm sure they would appreciate it.  I also really like their lyrics...
mp3: Piece by Piece (It's only a download)
mp3: Things You'll Never Forget

The Yellows followed Range Life, and were super enjoyable/fun to listen to, but after talking to some of the guys in the band they said they just really came together for this show, so I'm not going to write too much about them (plus they don't have any mp3's for me so there's really no point).  They were a sort of jazzy/swinger/swanky fun mix style that I don't really no how to explain, but whatever (if you are reading this Micah great job).

The next band was not very good in my opinion, nor were they my (or I think anybody who reads this blog's) style, so I will pretty much just skip over them.  I think all I need to do to describe them is describe what the guitarist was wearing - he had super long curly hair, he was wearing a fur coat, which he later took, showing that he had no shirt on underneath, and  tight, black leather pants.  Oh, and later he started walking around with a Motley Crue t-shirt.  'Nuff Said.

Now, for the highlight of the night (IMHO)... DJ Jack Taylor.  So what Jack did was reprogram an ancient gameboy to essentially turn it into a sampler, and then took that idea, and ran.  What ensues from this crazy concept is a techno-y, electronic, 8-bit playground of sound.  It's filled with your fuzzy synth sounds, clear beeps and boops, and more.  Soon I'll get recordings of some of his stuff, I just haven't had time to get it from him.  He is making all the music live and in real-time... it's definitely one of the most creative/fun/interesting things I have ever seen.  Another cool aspect of it was just how the performance worked out; he started out on the stage standing there with just the gameboy and bopping his head up and down with everyone just sort of looking up at him, but then he hopped off the stage and just stood in the audience... it was a very unique performance, that's for sure.  The closest thing to his sound that I can think of is Anamanaguchi (who are really good, if you haven't checked them out).  UPDATE:  Upon just doing some Wikipedia freshening up, this style of using a game chip to create songs is called "Chiptune," and it turns out Anamanaguchi are also chiptune artists, explaining the similarity.  This picture below is just a little spread that I made of a single shot that I thought would sort of be cool... Tell me if you like it/think it's lame and cheeezzy.

Ya like?

But wait, there's more????

Vas Defrans were up next (and yes there band name is part of the testicle... what that says about them I am unsure of...).  They were probably the most skilled musicians, and probably the best performers.  They weren't really my style, but their talent, stage skills, and energy made me like them.  They were super aggressive; everything felt like it was pumped full of energy.  It seemed like they were always on the attack with intense guitar.  The lead singer was absolutely wrapped up in the music; he brought tons of energy... really the whole band did.  I know I keep saying that I just don't really know what else to say.  They had a sort of Mars Volta sound, and upon talking to one of the guys after, it turned out he was actually friends with one of the Mars Voltians (term coined).  They closed with a a cover, Sunburn by Muse.  They turned an awesome song into their own, which is the best thing that can be said of any cover.  I still haven't gotten a hold of any mp3s.

So... they ended up winning.  Time to go home right?  WRONG, there was still the much anticipated DJ set of the duo Treefrog.  It started with the lights completely out (the first time that happened all night) and the curtains drawn on the stage, and then...

The music from the iconic opening scene of A Clockwork Orange came on (that is one of if not my favorite movie and book).  The curtains were opened and on stage were four people, all dressed in all white with white suspenders and black hats, just like Alex and the Droogies at the Milkbar.  Then the other two guys went into the audience and pretty much just danced and the two main guys DJed.  Not much else to say about a DJ set (I don't really know how to review one anyways...).  It ended with most of the people who were still left on stage.  

All in all a good night...

And one more thing...

OK Go :: This Too Shall Pass

Well do these guys have a knack for making viral videos...  After already making an excellent video for the single from their new album, they then went on to make this video, which is essentially a giant Rube Goldberg machine set to music... what could be better...

-- A (Tired) Teenage Elephant

Lots of Album News/Streams!! (And A New Segment)

Hey,

First, some sad news: tragically, a girl at my school was killed in a car accident last week, and of course the school has been absolutely torn apart.  I just wanted to dedicate this post to Julia Siegler.  On that note, and in her honor, I would like to introduce a new "segment."  Once a month, I will pick an old song that I am getting into, or just came across, etc.  I think this first one is really perfect for the occasion, and really captures what everybody is feeling.  It's an incredible song in my opinion, and, especially right now, makes me really emotional.

Bill Withers :: Ain't No Sunshine

The song is "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers, 1971.  It's been covered countless times, but I think this version is just captivating.   My grandfather actually just passed away also, and he lived back east.  On the flight back home from New York to LA, I listened to this song for literally two-thirds of the flight; I listened to this song over and over for four hours - that's how much I like it.

Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withe...

And now, for some news from the sonic world...

This week is a big week for album releases, so let's get right to it.

Morning Benders :: Big Echo

  

I've been blogging a lot about the Morning Benders, so sorry if I am boring you, but... the album, which I have been highly anticipating (if you couldn't tell), is due out on March 9th.  In this week leading up to the album release, the full album is available for streaming from their website, and since they are such nice guys, in the embed above...   They are playing at the Troubadour (the Troooooob) on the 24th or 25th, which I am dying to go to but am unsure of if I will make it seeing as it is a school night (it's a hard knock life...).

Broken Bells :: Broken Bells
Another band I have been blogging a lot about... they will be playing a show in LA on March 14 at the Troubadour (the Trooooob), which I am dying to go to as well.  This will be just their second live show, so you can see why it would be awesome to go to, but... I will have just had surgery a couple of days before, and also it is a school night (it's a hard knock life).  Luckily for me though, they put up the entire album (due out March 9th) on NPR First Listen, so enjoy!



Titus Andronicus :: The Monitor
New Jersey-ites!!!!!!!!!  All that needs to be said... not really.  Their sophomore album is due out on the 9th (what a surprise!), and they put up the whole thing on their MySpace.  Super lo-fi garage rock... I love it.  Check it out.

The Besnard Lakes :: Are the Roaring Night
These guys are pure anthem music if you ask me.  Every song has the feeling of epic scale, and I can see every song at some point in a movie; some songs it's the moment when we first see the main character, silent as they travel through whatever environment they're in, or when the character has the profound realization.  The album has two sets of two part songs... like I said, grand proportions.  Listen to the whole album here.

Band of Horses :: Infinite Arms
Band of Horses are a band that IMHO epitomize the "indie" sound.  When you hear songs like "Funeral," "Is There a Ghost," "No One's Gonna Love You," and "The General Specific," you can't help but being drawn in.  Hopefully their third album, which they have said will be released on May 18th, will continue to capture that (again, IMO) iconic sound.  The big question is though... which label will it be on?  It is unclear whether it will be released on Sub-Pop, who released their first two albums, or another label.  It will be interesting to see if being on a different label makes a dramatic difference in their sound, etc.

-- A Teenage Elephant

Rest In Peace Julia Siegler