duggup

The Calculus Affair appeared on my MP3 player some weeks back as part of the NPR Second Stage podcast (which I can highly recommend as a great source of surprises), and yes they have lots and lots of really interesting guitar sounds. There are two tracks over at www.myspace.com/thecalculusaffair. The first track is “The Bridge” [...]

Time for some of my favourite category – hard listening. Autopilot is for Lovers are awesome. Now I will be first to admit that you are unlikely to see the charms of this outfit on the first listen. BUT you really need to persevere.

Adrienne Hatkin,(the lead vocalist) has a voice that will stop you in your tracks. Her performance is so direct and intense. It takes some getting used to.

www.myspace.com/goldteeth only fired up last year (2008. Their MySpace site seems to be doing all the heavy lifting of getting them noticed. Hey it worked for me. Electronics, Afrobeat, great rythms and yummy guitars. Think Madness meets Blu… “Everybody” and “Confused Blue” are my faves. “Confused Blue” feels rythmically like a rework of  Bob Marley’s [...]

The Field Mice were an early Ninties pop band, long broken up. But as Chris Anderson of “Long Tail” fame points out their music will be around for a bloody long time. Which is exactly how I found them. I honestly can’t remember listening to them their first time around, but I was reading an [...]

Steve Lawson is a “New-Age Post-Rock Ambient-Jazz Solo-Bassist”, that’s what it says on his website. I found him though the looping work he does.  You really need to hear this guy’s stuff., head over to www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson and listen to “Grace and Gratitude”. It is just beautiful. The space that surrounds the notes, the notes that [...]

Kiss The Mistress caught my ear by surprise. All the more so because they don’t have a guitarist. I truly find their music quite startling. The tune “Priddy Pookah” which romps along in 7/8 time, is a prime example. This puppy slips and slides , the ideas wander in and out and it never sits [...]

I hadn’t been to Magnatune for a while ( along while as it turns out. But I was looking something baroque-ish (don’t ask) and found Da Camera: Celtic Renaissance/Baroque Ensemble, who as it turns out , were just what I was looking for. Da Camera is a versatile ensemble, crossing the line between ‘early’, ‘folk’ [...]