The Friday Refrain: A bit of what's new in music...
Happy Friday everyone! Time to check in on the new releases of the week and see what's what. This week was a huge week for releases, so let's just run down the list of the biggies: the hip-hop/rap scene had a couple of big releases this week with Lupe Fiasco's Tetsuo & Youth and Joey Bada$$, B4.DA.$$; Marilyn Manson is back with The Pale Emperor; reunited indie rockers Sleater-Kinney released No Cities To Love; two other indie rockers also on the docket this week - Belle & Sebastian's Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance and The Decemberists' What A Terrible World What A Beautiful World; and finally today EDM favorite Aphex Twin released Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt. 2. Oh yeah, and emo Fall Out Boy released American Beauty/American Psycho as well.
Phew. That was a mouthful. And now for the rest of the tunes - it's The List!
Welp, I'm a little underlistened because I was really diving into a few albums for a podcast I'm doing with my friend Josh called Half Pints Whole Notes. We review a beer and some music every other week and in it, I'll be giving a bit more of my opinions on some of the bigger releases in a week. Which I usually just gloss over here because this is more about the underdog than the superdog. Here is the link if you want to check it out, or you can search for it on iTunes as well.
Yeah, so not really prepared with too many underdogs this week, especially now that music releases are back in full swing but...
A few that I'm digging right now
BC Campground, How To Die In The North - Maybe it's the bleak midwinter that has me thinking of them, but MGMT came to mind while listening to this one with a hint of Queen.
Etienne de Crécy, Super Discount 3 - dancey electronica poppiness. Get your Friday going.
Darlings, Feel Better - it's on my To-Listen list but my 3 song skim was pretty good for some hanging out rock.
Erase Errata, Lost Weekend - My first skim of this one made me think that if you liked the Viet Cong release this week, maybe you might enjoy this one as well. (can't wait for my podcast cohort to rebuke me on this)
Jim Ed Brown, In Style Again - some old style country for the weekend breakfast times of course!
Raymond Fairchild, King of the Smoky Mountain Banjo Players - Banjo music. Banjos. What more do you need to know?
Hanni El Khatib, Moonlight - it's got a lot going on in the music and seems like it could be a good one.
Light background music for a romantic dinner?
Matt Belsante, When You're Smiling
David Osborne, On the Wings of Love
Well there you go. Somethings to listen to - musicwise and podcastwise even! Definitely going to be implementing my new notetaking ideas to keep track of albums I like because I think there will be quite a few after this week and it's so hard to remember all the way back to January by the end of the year. My New Year's Resolution I guess is to be better prepared for my best of list because I want to make a "maybe not epicly the best thing ever but you should give it a swirl" list. Anyway, enough of that. It's the 3rd week of January, we're supposed to be past best of lists and hitting up all the new stuff, right? And I've got Hanni El Khatib on as I finish this up, and it's good. Give it a swirl, because I guess that's the phrase for this week. And on that note - Happy Listening!