Blowing Up

So Shark Party is now a part of The Hype Machine, which is exciting news, but also slightly terrifying: within a matter of hours after being added, my bandwidth had maxed out, and my e-mail was full of notices from new bands sending me their mp3s. Step one in solving this problem was upgrading my account (obviously) to get my bandwidth back, and step two was getting a seperate e-mail just for the site. Unfortunately, the surge of new downloads doesn't appear to be easing up, so I'm devising a creative step three. As for the time being, I figured I should make my first official post full of a bunch of artists few will have heard of, and few will be searching for (at least not yet......hopefully they will soon, since they're all pretty good and all). Let's hope it gives my bandwidth enough air to breathe for a bit. Overall of course, despite the new stress, this is an opportunity to reach exponentially more readers, so if it's your first time here, welcome & enjoy the site.

When is a side project really a side project? Don't ask Spencer Krug that question, as the answer might make everyone's head hurt, and apparently don't ask Daniel Rossman, who, despite reaching a much wider audience by being a songwriter for indie darlings Grizzly Bear, was first a member of "electronic folk" (I know, I know, but give me a better way to describe it) duo Department of Eagles, formed at my alma mater of NYU. Instead of leaving co-founder Fred Nicolaus in the dust, Rossman has now returned to release another LP from the group, which sounds decidedly like, well, like Grizzly Bear. That is, if Grizzly Bear were locked in a haunted cabin deep in the woods, and decided to do a few drugs. Not a ton, but just enough to get a little paranoid. The final product is mellow but far from calming. It's engaging stuff, and makes me proud to call both men Fighting Violets (yes, we did in fact have the gayest school mascot ever. What of it? Wanna fight?). You can buy the band's new LP, In Ear Park right now on i-tunes.


Department of Eagles - "No One Does it Like You"

Speaking of bands that conjure up the spirit of Grizzly Bear (and thus, obviously the Beach Boys) comes New York's Air Bombay, who'd also go down well with fans of Beirut and Okkervil River. The brand-spanking-new band hasn't released an official EP yet, but the songs they've posted RIGHT HERE have a lot of promise, especially "Norway". The songs carry through with the jetsetting theme of the band, both in tropical arrangements and in subject matter. It's the kind of music you might put on to read a book, only to discover it stealing your attention away a couple minutes in, and never letting go. In addition to songwriting skills and a cool band concept, however, these guys have a great fucking side-note: singer/keyboardist Andrew Kaladjian's last project was L'Homme Run, a hip-hop duo with Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koening at Columbia University. Between this experiment & the formation of Department of Eagles, it's safe to say today's topic might almost be the joys of a Manhattan higher education, but I'd never allow that. All I have is one phrase and one word to search: "Pizza Party"....and 'awesome'. Happy hunting. Of course, that was then, and Air Bombay is now. Check out "Norway" below, and keep an eye on these guys: they're clearly just warming up, and where they go from here should be very intriguing.


Air Bombay - "Norway"

So I just got back from French weirdo-folk chantruese, Soko's first show on US soil, semi-secretly held at The Bardot (the new lounge occupying the old Spyder Club space above Avalon), and it was quite a night. Not cause she was incredible or anything, but because I got nice and drunk, before having a glass thrown at my back by a certain socialite/"actress"/party accessory who felt I was blocking her view. I won't drop her name, as her lawyers can most likely eat mine for lunch, but the bottom line is: Hooray for Hollywood. Anyway, in case you've never heard of her, Soko's like a French Cory Kennedy, except she's actually talented at something; that something being songwriting (though she's also an ex-actress). Unfortunately for Soko tonight, she was acting fucking wasted & that inhibited her performance. Fortunately, her charm has little to do with excellence of execution: half the fun of watching her tonight was trying to see if she could competently play her own songs, even for the ones where she was on drums with no accompaniment. In other words: fuck all, this crazy French chick's got charisma to spare. Even if she never got around to playing what's by far her best song. Overall, she played for almost 90 minutes to a scenester-ific crowd more concerned by why Kirsten Dunst just fled the party than the music right in front of them, and yet managed to win the majority of them over by the end. She even got a few to clap along, then meow like kittens, which alone is worthy of admiration. Soko's got no official EP as of yet, but a number of impressive singles are floating around, like this one below:


Soko - "I'll Kill Her"

Nothing more to placing this next song than the fact that it cleansed my palette after a very Hollywood evening.........okay I guess I have to talk about them, so that I'm not just giving away an mp3. The Guillemots are a bird-obsessed band fronted by Fyfe Dangerfield. Their first LP, 2006's Through the Windowpane, was a triumph of post-Clash Joe Strummer-style rock and copious horns. The band has a new single out, signaling that a new LP is most likely nigh, but this was the song that sobered me up in the car tonight, and the song that I'm now humming, so here you go:


The Guillemots - Trains to Brazil

Finally, here's datapuddle (which I think I'm supposed to keep in all lower case), aka Alex Data and Steve Puddle, a new band from London that churns out progressive rock, with some fairly experimental production layered on top. And yes, to get it over with, one point of inspiration for them might be another British band that starts with an R and ends in adiohead, but there's far more to dissect here than what's found from that obvious comparison. For starters, I'm sure I've never heard half the random objects used to record this album. Hollow clangs, rip-cord buzzes and various bleeps and bloops litter the songs with a sound both technically precise and entirely organic, like some of the best National tracks mixed with a CD of city soundscapes. The band's first LP, the wonderfully titled monkeyskymokey (note to all: I like monkeys), is available for purchase HERE, and the band's Myspace profile is @ http://myspace.com/datapuddle (for some truly bizarre reason, the html won't let me post a link so close to another). Here's one of the simpler, yet most impressive tracks on the album. If you dig the sound, I definitely recommend checking the rest out as well. The vocals are cathartic, and each track is packed full of pleasant surprises.

datapuddle - "SloGO"




And remember.....be nice to my bandwidth :) (ps: you know I've been drinking if I'm utilizing emoticons. Tip of the day.)

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UPDATE: I started this post at 4 AM then went to sleep at 5 AM before sending it. For the sake of preserving history, aka my first inebriated post, I still approve of it the morning after.