Tag: song embed

No comments

Two Songs From: Jeffrey Martin

  By

Earlier this week I was, once again, noodling around Soundcloud looking for one thing when I found something else: Dogs in the Daylight by Jeffrey Martin.

Old Good Friend was the first song I heard, and I’ve been sitting with it these last few days, letting it simmer. Thinking about some of my old good friends, and olive branches, and whether I want to extend them. Whether I can extend them. I still haven’t decided.

Dogs in the Daylight is the title track. It’s less of a gut punch than Old Good Friend but really that’s like saying aged whiskey is smoother than new.

Most of the rest of the record is available for test-listening at Soundcloud; I say “most” because it was recently re-issued with four additional songs. It’s excellent, and all y’all should go and listen to it.

No comments

We Were Strangers, I Believe

  By

I Believe, by We Were Strangers: This one is easy to sink into and get lost in. I made it through twice before I paused to wonder what, exactly, was going on here – were the rich piano tones and lush strings disguising a dark tale of love and kidnapping? Or being kidnapped by love?

The answer, as it turns out, is somewhere between “maybe” and “kind of,” depending on how you feel about settling on one person; per singer and chief lyricist Stefan Melbourne, it’s about “letting yourself commit to someone, and sustaining that.”

Also appearing on this track: James Kenosha (drums and piano) and Lins Wilson (cello). Kenosha, who initially heard the songs when Melbourne posted them under the name The Works of Isaac, also acted as producer. The band is from Manchester, but their first show will be at the Bedroom Bar in London on February 25th; check it out if you’re in town.

No comments

HT Heartache, Sundowner

  By

Sundowner is the second record from HT Heartache (Mary Roth), of Los Angeles, CA. And, for a record named after a biker gang, it’s surprising mellow. It’s also awesome: there isn’t a single song that’s filler, not even one note out of place.

I like to put it on in the evening and sink into it like a warm bath.

Ok, a warm bath with strong noir undertones that – just to totally mix metaphors here – if it was a person, very likely wear red lipstick and would regularly be asked to surrender all of her knives. She wouldn’t, of course, she’d just hand over the ones people can see. But they’d try.

The first song is Trenton, and it sets the tone for the whole record: meditative, melancholy, sharp and lovely:

These next two are just my favorites.

Soft Rain, for the velvety texture of the interplay of her voice and the melody:

And Darkside, because it’s the most up-tempo tune on the record, and fun to sing along to:

No comments

Video: Jameson, Breathe Your Last

  By ,

This is the video for Breathe Your Last, by Jameson (Jameson Burt), from his new EP Carnivore.

It considers, visually, the battle between artist – writer, in this case – and demons, and artist and self, and contains some weird Fight Club-style bloody violence and Blair Witch-style shaky footage of one man’s mind coming apart at the seams. There is one extended scene with words melting off a blackboard that is seriously the stuff of nightmares for anyone who keeps little piles of scribbled chunks of story and notes-to-self laying around. On the plus side: our hero does climb out of the nightmare pit at the end and presumably lives to fight (and scribble) another day.

Jameson Burt - Breathe Your Last - Official Music Video - TV Edit

Some thoughts about Carnivore as a whole: I’ve been listening to it on loop for the last couple of days, and it is the kind of record that 1) will stand up to that kind of test – I have yet to get bored with it and 2) blooms under that kind of scrutiny. Breathe Your Last has a distinctly Americana sound, but the rest of the songs don’t really; they shimmy all over the indie rock spectrum, borrowing from a variety of genres including art rock (for lack of a better term), world music, and whatever we’re calling what Don Henley was doing in the early ’80s.

You can listen to more of it at his Soundcloud, but I’m especially fond of Liar:

No comments

Two Songs From: Junkie Thrown

  By

Junkie Thrown (Sanna Holmstr̦m) is from G̦teborg, Sweden, and she combines crystal-sweet vocals with delicate guitars and the occasional heavy hypnotic beat. I spent most of last night listening to her YouTube uploads on endless loop; that includes her tunes as well as one by a friend РSun Lions Army, by Sea Lion Рand you can replicate that experience if you like, or you can listen to just her stuff, below.

Fairy Christmas Day is . . . not your typical Christmas song. It’s Christmas through a haze – a haze of what, who knows – disappointment and alcohol, maybe – but it’s also somehow soothing.

And then there is Circus of Our Misery, as an example of her non-Christmas fare, which has a delicate melody over a dark, thudding undertow.

No comments

Split: Joyce Manor, Tame and Toys That Kill, Times We Can’t Let Go

  By

November has come to a close. Novels have been written; moustaches, of various degrees of amazingness and horribleness, have been grown and shaved; turkey has been eaten; in some locations, the first snow has fallen.

Here at NTSIB, I’ve been doing NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. I’ll do a masterpost later, but: there’s been a lot of music. Go back through the archives and see what you’ve missed.

To finish out, here is the Joyce Manor/Toys that Kill split, set to be turned loose upon the world later this week, via Recess Records. If you like Ramones-style punk, these bands are for you.

Joyce Manor, Tame:

Toys That Kill, Times We Can’t Let Go:

They’re also touring the West Coast together later in December.

No comments

Late Night Listening: Two Songs from Tei Shi

  By

A home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

Tei Shi (Valerie Teicher), from Brooklyn via Argentina, Colombia, Boston and Vancouver, gives her genre as “mermaid music”, and this strikes me as an accurate assessment. It’s subtle, complex, seductive and a little bit otherworldly.

See Me is one of two new singles; I’m most fond of the trance-y hiss-click beat that periodically expands into something light and airy, as well as the dark wubble-bubble echoes floating beneath her crystalline voice:

Bassically is a little more up-tempo, and has a little more fuzz-grit, and is just delightful:

New Yorkers: She’s playing at Glasslands on Dec. 8; everyone else: check in with her frequently, there will be more music coming, and be sure to explore her back catalog.

No comments

Late Night Listening: Industrial Love, Casper Cult

  By ,

A home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

Industrial Love from Domesticated by Casper Cult is, I think, the aural equivalent of sitting inside a Zen rock garden with a rain-noises machine and a warm fuzzy sweater. Some part of me thinks something called “Industrial Love” should be louder, clangier, with more screech and holler, but a larger part thinks no, this perfect, this is sitting in an empty warehouse and communing with the silence and the stillness of machines not in use.