Getting scooped is never a big deal at 3hive. For most of us, this job is a pleasant distraction from our real responsibilities: changing dirty diapers (Shan, maybe Sam, me), grading papers (Sean, me), hanging out with famous people (Lisa, sometimes Sam), being married to famous people (Jon) being Californian (Sean, Clay), and making huge bank (Sam). The only real competition comes from snapping up new tunes to post, and I always feel I miss out on the Swedes. Therefore, the posting of Pinto’s lo-fi pop is a kind of small victory for me. Whoo! This is from the band’s website: “Pinto is more or less a one man band but I have some friends around to keep me sane because Pinto is all about being sane… Say what?” (That “Say what?” was in the original text, I didn’t add it.)
The Heavy Circles
Well hello Edie Brickell! I won’t even mention the title of her ubiquitous late eighties/early Nineties “New Bohemians” hits, hit lest one in particular gets stuck in your head for the rest of the week and haunt your dreams. (You know which one I am talking about.) Looping music in my mind notwithstanding, I was delighted to find this collaboration between Ms. Brickell and her hubby Paul Simon’s son. She’s always had a beautiful voice, thats for sure, and it seems that Mr. Simon (the younger, Harper) has added some of what appears to be his youthful dreaminess and angst to the mix. Shall we play the definition game? Eighties earnest meets Nineties earth pop meets the offspring of Simon & Garfunkel and then gets busy with the present day and hangs out a little with French lounge pop? Maybe/maybe not, but I heart.
Figurines
I’ve been digging through the mail and scouring the net for two hours searching for that something something that will hit the spot. Figurines do the trick. The band’s last album Skeletons recently made it back into heavy rotation here at 3hive’s Southern California HQ, the wood/cork paneled office in my ’70s suburban tract home, so I figured I’d do some nop-notch investigative work on the band’s current status. I struck gold: two new tracks from their forthcoming LP, When the Deer Wore Blue, plus the video for another. At first I was let down by the songs’ slower tempo, but only for a listen or two. The slower the tempo the more they channel a lovely, laid-back Beach Boys vibe (“The Air We Breathe”). The band’s U.S. label, The Control Group, already has the album up for sale, but it won’t be out in their hometown until next month. I’m kicking myself for missing them in L.A. back in October. This calls for an exception to my no-mailing-lists-because-I-don’t-need-the-extra-emails-rule. Sign me up boys!
Hey Girl [MP3, 3.0MB, 160kbps]
The Air We Breathe [MP3, 4.2MB, 128kbps]
Christine Fellows
I’ve been holding on to this song for a long time, at least a year or two, unsure whether or not I’d post it. Obviously, here it is… The album on which “Advice” appears, 2 little birds, is out of print; Fellows asks on her website that it not be purchased digitally, if available, as she has not consented to it sale in this manner. That said, I can certainly pitch her latest work, Nevertheless, released last November, which features the same cellist heard here, Leanne Zacharias, plus Weakerthan (and husband) John K. Samson.
Wire
So I was just talking in the past week with a rather new friend about our top 5 albums. So I made my list after much internal debate, and when it came to adding Wire, one of my favorite bands of all time, I had such trouble deciding between their albums Pink Flag and Chairs Missing. I ended up going with the former, but Wire is not just musical nostalgia; the old lads are still making music, as heard in the song “23 Years Too Late” below from their November 2007 release Read & Burn 03. Many more free songs available from their website.
Canon Blue
You diehard 3Hivers (we love you!) will recall that Canon Blue was originally posted just three months ago. But Daniel James is giving away the new Halcyon EP for free, and it’s so lovely (especially the title track) that I felt it deserved a little more plug time. Unzip and enjoy! Canon Blue is the creation of Daniel James, a Nashville-based do-everything musician who came to my attention not through any tangential southern connection but through his European label Rumracket. That could be because he’s not your typical Nashville kind of dude. Or is he? James may prefer digital to analog, keyboards to six-strings, drum machines to high-hats, but at heart he’s a singer-songwriter in a town that cultivates and nourishes them. Good thing because Canon Blue’s helium-filled harmonies, industrial beats and sweet falsetto deserve all the cultivation they can get.
The Hermit
I found out about The Hermit after checking up on
Paper Moon, one of my favorite Canadian bands. The brainchild of musical experimentalist/drummer Hamish Thomson, The Hermit also features — with greater prominence on their most recent release, Turn Up (the Stereo) — the alluring voice of Allison Shevernoha from the aforementioned Paper Moon. Samples from the new spin can be heard over on MySpace; I like “Si vous me quittez” a lot. The tracks available here are winners from a remix contest, based on The Hermit’s 2005 album Wonderment, and they are sweet and pleasant things to listen to.
Malajube
Sometimes one’s computer dies. And it takes with it thousands of un-backed-up songs, hundreds of un-backed-up pictures and well, your whole electronic life from the past 5 years. We’ll skip past my stages of grief, denial and rage and go direct to the fact that I have many kind friends to thank for an influx of mix cd’s, emails with links to things to cheer me up, It mostly cheers me up. Amongst these desperately needed donations, Malajube turned up. And while it seems to me that there are many a sound that could be described as belonging to Montreal (lo-fi loveliness like the Unicorns; gorgeous string infused songs for depressives like Owen Palette; etc.)–the one I need right now in this moment of return to my 1999 boom box is this one: scratchy guitared, French-Canadian, happy, bouncy indie-pop. In French. I need a little bum-bum-bum-budumpbadum in my life. Don’t we all?
Ben Benjamin
I’ve been busy the last two weeks. Busy doing nothing. It’s been nice, but it’s time I start catching up on a few things. First up, outta Sam & Joe’s hood, more or less, from Ypsilanti, Michigan give it up for Ben Benjamin. Formerly of Midwest Product, Ben Benjamin, AKA Ben Mullins, splits his time between this solo project and PostPrior, his neu-wavish duo also out on Ghostly. Between his myspace and Ghostly pages you can get a good feel for his debut full-length, The Many Moods of Ben Benjamin Vol. 1. “Selective Periphera” showcases Mullins strength—his ability to elaborate, with both electronic and organic instruments, on a simple riff for an absolutely hypnotic effect. Run this track into your skull and your life, regardless of how mundane it may be, will resonate with cinematic panache.
Holland Buffalo
Yay! It’s always a good email day when something comes from The Harvey Girls. You’re never sure what it might be – concept album, tribute, covers, et. al. – but you know that it will have a healthy dose of sweetly melancholic harmonies wrapped in a subtle sonic blanket that’ll keep you warm and cozy. Well, it turns out that for the past year or so they’ve been collaborating with the lovely and equally adventurous UK outfit Feedle, latter-day ambient wizards who make lo-fi electronic music that in more devious marketing hands might be called “lifestyle music.” What happens when the two come together? Layers upon layers of pop bliss. Plus, you can download the two tracks here and then go to Amie St. and get the other two for 26 cents, or be a real champ and buy the whole EP for a mere 52 cents. Yay!