This Is The Last…

I think Jason’s taste for avant-garde metal has finally started to rub off on me. I have recently fallen in love with Youthmovies. They are an Oxford quintet, influenced by post-rock. After a series of EP’s, Good Nature is their first full-length album.

I am normally a sucker for britpop and indie folk, but it can kind of start to all sound the same after a while. I can’t praise Youthmovies enough for their inventiveness. Its been almost impossible for me to categorize their wide array of sounds. Its hard to digest in just one listen, everytime I play this album I notice something else beautiful that they’ve done.

Archive it Everywhere (mp3)
I love the soft, then heavy, then back to soft. This whole song is perfect.

“If there’s dust in the breeze and your alveoli,
Those cauliflower, as sea anenomes contract,
To make your visited breaths become narrow,
I’ll tap tap the barnacles of your back”

The song, Something for Ghosts, goes from soft to psychedelic, to a Broadway musical (I swear) and then to something that reminds me of Morrissey. I also really loved Cannula. It has acoustic guitars and strings, and yet at the same time has a middle eastern dance beat.

Here they are performing on Channel M Music…

Its Youthmovies’ willingness to experiment and shake things up that has given them the respect they deserve. This glorious cacophony is way ahead of its time.

I just remembered how much I used to love this song. Even though it came out over a decade ago, I still find it so beautiful.

Common featuring Lauryn Hill - “Retrospect for Life”

People in Planes’ new album came out this week. Its entitled “Beyond the Horizon”. They’re also going to be doing a slew of North American dates.

One lucky winner will receive the new album, a People in Planes iPod cozy and a hat. I flew to Austin on Wednesday to visit my sister Sommer who just moved here. To enter this contest please leave in the comments the last time you were a person in a plane, where did you fly to?

We’ll announce the winners next Wednesday.

You can stream the whole album here.
Here are a couple videos of them performing live.

Good luck!!!

Zookeeper is the latest project from former Mineral and The Gloria Record frontman Chris Simpson. Its no surprise to me that they’re from Austin, considering the plethora of great music coming out of there.

Where Mineral was a pioneer of Emo and The Gloria Record was a little darker and a little sadder; Zookeeper has gone off in a total different direction. Western indie rock mixed with soft folkiness. I love it. I loved Gloria Record and I love Zookeeper.

You might think that its pretty silly that I’m reviewing an album that’s been out for nearly a year, but good music is good music. I won’t hop on the bandwagon for any new band, just because its getting a lot of hype. This album is too good to pass up.

This is a happy album with lots of harmonica, piano, banjo, and violin. A few of the songs were recorded with a 20-person choir. The results are magical.

Ballad of My Friends.mp3
This is the song I would play if I’m having a bad day, and am trying to pull myself out of it. This upbeat song has piano, trumpet, and chorus of happy voices. What’s not to love?

Boy & The Street Choir (video)
This video starts with Simpson explaining where he got the idea for the song. This song is a little slower and a little softer with beautiful harmonies. This is easily the best song on the album. I really love the lyrics for this song…
“This river bends until it breaks,
This heart of darkness just one spark is all it takes ”

Snow in Berlin.mp3
This song has a nice relaxed feeling, like you might be sitting in a bar with your friends and you’re all loosened up and happy. The horns in this song are really nice, too.

I’ll leave this review with what Chris Simpson had to say about making this album…

We have recorded everything live in a room together in one take, with anywhere from 4 to 11 people playing, and even with a 20-person choir on a few tunes. The results are raw and at times seem barely held together. But there are truly magical moments that usually function as a pay off for whatever flaws our warts-and-all approach is yielding. I am overwhelmingly proud of the work, and feel they are all very strong compositions.

In the last week of August, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster.

(Click the pictures to enlarge)

You can see the rest here.

(Via Boing Boing)

Finding a good YouTube cover is like finding a needle in the haystack. Most are pretty annoying. Enter two Swedish girls covering Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” in the forest.

This video will leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling. Their voices harmonize so beautifully. I’ve been playing it over and over again.

(Via Stereogum)