these songs are by casiotone for the painfully alone.
from the artists website:
“Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is the musical alias of 28 year old American film school drop-out Owen Ashworth. Ashworth began making music in 1997 after he realized that song-making was a far more cost-effective means of storytelling than film-making.”
this guy seriously is incredible. with just a keyboard and his voice he can convey some pretty heavy emotion. while his songs definitely are somewhat bummed, i feel it still has that, “things aren’t working out so well, but i’m going to keep trying until i get it right” feeling. hopeful, not hopeless.
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music of the week
so, jana and i recorded a song for a compilation that some guy in france was putting out. well, it’s finally here. i guess he decided to make the compilation for download only, which is cool. cooler yet, the whole thing is free! it’s called “have a good night” and we are the last song on the seventeen song compilation. it’s a series of lullabies for children. while, i really like the songs on the compilation, i’m not sure if some of them qualify as lullabies, but nevertheless, it’s pretty good. go to his site here and download “have a good night”. you can even download any of several pre-made covers which were all drawn by children. it’s pretty cool.
the tracklisting is as follows:
1 – Faris Nourallah • Galla
2 – Jana Hunter • Ooh uuh
3 – Ramona Cordova • One day someday
4 – Au Revoir Simone • Stay golden
5 – Liz Janes and Create (!) • Careless love
6 – Quincannon • 0’s & 1’s
7 – Eric Ramsey & Milkymee • Spider monkey song
8 – Aujourd’hui Madame • Hush hush hush
9 – Thunderegg • Go to sleep
10 – F*** Buddies & Tutu Clash • Lou Oliver
11 – The Metasciences • Intergallatic lullaby
12 – Dawn Landes • The loveliest of trees
13 – Let’s go sailing • Come home safely
14 – Salim Nourallah • Dreaming
15 – Lisa Cerbone • You are loved
16 – Half Asleep • Childeren
17 – The Cedars • I’m me and you’re you
[audio:the_cedars-im_me_and_youre_you.mp3]
music of the week
these songs are by low.
and low’s back for an unprecedented 20th time as my music of the week. well, maybe not the 20th, but a lot of times nonetheless. so, jana and i performed last week and it was really cool and we’ve been asked to peform again at some youth thing. i want to play some really cool songs and have been going through the archives for some good cover tunes. here are a couple of songs that i’m thinking about playing.
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music of the week
we’ve decided to use the moniker “the cedars” from now on when recording music together. several years ago, jana and i went to the experience music project in seattle, and they had this exhibit where you went onto a stage and it was lit in such a way that it made you feel like you were on a huge stage in front of hundreds of people. you could hear people screaming in the audience. it was really cool. well, they ask you for a band name when you go in and when you come out, they have tickets printed out with your band name on them. we called ourselves the cedars. i just thought it sounded cool. so, there you go.
this is a song jana and i did for a forthcoming compilation of childrens music. it’s going to be released in france i think, so i’m not sure how the u.s. availablity will be.
this is a song by laurie berkner who sings on one of lily’s favorite shows (or “yo”, as she calls them) jack’s big music show.
[audio:the_cedars-im_me_and_youre_you.mp3]
music of the week
this song is by the teenage prayers.
i heard this song the other day on k.e.x.p. (the best radio station in the world) and was totally into it. they remind me of someone but i can’t quite put my finger on it. if anyone has any ideas, put them forth here.
[audio:TheTeenagePrayers-Annihilation.mp3]
music of the week
so, jana’s band, the arrogants, have been working on their masterpiece album for over 2 years now and it’s finally finished and available for everyone to buy. it’s called ‘you’ve always known when best to say goodbye’. it’s got 23 tracks and comes with a bonus dvd. tweekitten.com is selling it for $7.50. now, you can’t beat a price like that. though i may be a bit bit biased, i have to say that this album is really good. i’ve been listening to this thing for the past two years and have seen it raised from it’s infancy so it’s somewhat hard to listen to it with fresh ears. but i threw it in the car cd player the other day and pretended that i’d never heard it before and it just sounded so good…
…better than i ever remember it sounding. it’s a perfect mix of mellow and poppy. and the production is great. our friend steve brown recorded the whole thing in his house (with the excepetion of the first track from the album which jana and i recorded in our home, and one other track that was recorded live) and he did a phenomenal job. so, as connected as i am to this album, i can honestly say that it’s an amazing album worth owning.
click here to visit the arrogants website.
music of the week
this song is by explosions in the sky.
this band was introduced to me by the man who has shown me more music than just about everyone else in my life put together. i speak of mr jayd mcferson. for those of you who know him i’m sure that that comes as no shock. jayd has more musical influence on others than anybody. he told me about this band some time ago but i never really listened to them that much until i saw the movie ‘friday night lights’. explosions in the sky scored that movie and had a large part in making it the incredible movie that it is. explosions in the sky are a quartet from austin, texas and make some of the most beautiful, driving music that i think i’ve ever heard. their most recent album, ‘the earth is not a cold dead place‘ is a masterpiece. though it only contains 5 songs (none of which clock in at under 8 minutes) it is definitely a full album. i highly recommend getting this album as it will really help you see that there is still some originality to be had in new music.
[audio:ExplosionsInTheSky-YourHandInMine.mp3]
music of the week
these songs are by jeff buckley.
if you want some music with soul, you want jeff buckley. if you’ve heard of jeff buckley then i’m sure you have heard the story by now: a mega-talented, one-in-a-million artist gets discovered and records a landmark debut album that is critically acclaimed by just about everyone. in the middle of recording his second album, he drowns and the world has lost a legend in the making. seriously tragic. well, luckily many live recordings of buckley exist. on of which is ‘jeff buckley live at sin-e’ which features 4 amazing songs. well, columbia released the legacy edition of ‘live at sin-e’ a couple of years ago. the legacy edition is pretty much everything they recorded during those two sessions. it includes 33 tracks on two discs and one dvd with four live songs. if you like what you hear at all here, go out and buy his first full length, ‘grace’ which you can pick up rediculously cheap. once you’ve got that down i recommend this legacy edition of ‘live at sin-e’. before he died, his second album was in the works and the bulk of the tracks were recorded. they mixed it post-mortum and released it as ‘sketches for my sweetheart the drunk’. i have to say that that album is really rough. the skeleton of the songs is in place but it’s really apparant that these songs are not the way that they were meant to be heard, so i would save this album until later on in your jeff buckley development.
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music of the week
these songs are by death cab for cutie.
it seems, for some strange reason, that there are still people out there who don’t listen to death cab for cutie. whether this is because of lack of exposure, or simply because you don’t like them, you need to get over it. if you’re reading this, here’s your exposure, if you don’t like them, here are a couple of reasons that will hopefully get you headed in the right direction. here’s the deal: death cab for cutie are arguably about as good as it gets with indie music today (in my humble opinion). check these songs out and tell me just what it is that you could possibly dislike.
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music of the week
these songs are by the album leaf.
here’s another band that was brought into my life by the o.c. the o.c. truly is a great place for new music. anyway, i came across the album leaf in my search for that great song on the season finale by imogen heap. in my searchings, i stumbled across the album leaf, and though it wasn’t the music i was searching for, it was definitely the music that i was glad to have found. it’s very mellow with a bit of sigur rós vibe.
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music of the week
