Insomnia Radio: Indie Music Network

Jets Under Fire: Like Waves, Like Sea

Jason Evangelho — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:41:35 +0000

Here’s a band from Austin, TX that is not only tech savvy (a necessary trait for ALL indie bands now) but creates incredible music and gives it away for free, including their two releases EP1 and EP2. There’s no excuse not to gobble up their tunes and spread the word.

Ranging from tender to anthemic, Jets Under Fire’s sensibility and melodic, piano-driven style will definitely garner them comparisons to brit sensations like Keane, Travis, and the Verve. However, the band’s music is also shaped by Smashing Pumpkins, The Beatles, and the Beach Boys. That being said, just one listen to their third release, Kingdoms, makes it obvious the band is informed by their influences, not confined. Built around Jason Poe’s emotive vocals, Jets Under Fire’s songs are unflinchingly introspective and penetratingly beautiful. [bio]

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Howling Bells: Into the Chaos

Charles Stepczyk — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:00:35 +0000

Australian band Howling Bells formed out of the ashes of the group Waikiki, moving to the UK shortly thereafter for purposes of recording, where they released their highly praised debut “Bella Union” in 2006.

The newest release from Howling Bells on Nettwerk, “Radio Wars”, was released in February of this year with production by Dan Grech-Marguerat, who has engineered records alongside producer Nigel Godrich, including Radiohead, Air and Paul McCartney.

Howling Bells have most recently left their mark opening for Coldplay on their North American tour with more tourdates coming in the next few months.

HB @ MySpace
HB @ Last.FM
HB @ emusic | itunes | amazon

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Echo Slightly: Run So Fast

Stuart Morrison — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:02 +0000

From their album Birds Fly South

Echo Slightly is a downtempo project that draws influences from Massive Attack, Imogen Heap, Portishead, and The Gathering. In 2005, Morgan Long did guest vocals on Stabilizer’s “A Project Called Red” album. The track, called “Grey to Green,” demonstrated a keen chemistry between the her and them. 3 years later, they have released an album together under a new name.

Buy the full album at CD Baby

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Henry Homesweet: Okiirobo_Navigation_System

Jason Evangelho — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:17:15 +0000

I’m on a retro video game kick lately, and when I stumbled across this artist @ The Sixtyone, I was hooked. Here’s his bio:

Henry Homesweet is a music project to express all of my creativity. I work with lots of diffrent styles, experimenting with all sorts of retro video game consoles to create my sound. I have produced a lot with the Nintendo Gameboy but more recently have been Composing with the NES and Commodore64. This type of music is known as Chiptune, the sounds from my childhood consoles make me shiver with Nostalgia! Im a geek at heart! I hope you enjoy my music

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IR SoCal Album Release: Still Time – See America

Charles Stepczyk — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:24:29 +0000

As a nice audial cannonball into Summer, we’ve got a handful of tracks from San Luis Obispo roots-rock group STILL TIME’s newest album “See America” which were recently passed along into our greedy little hands.

Just a short week back or so, we featured the first single from this album, “Come Alive” over at our Daily Dose feed – and have three more tracks we’d like to present to you here; a nice cross-section of the album, but certainly not the only quality tracks therein.

SAMPLER TRACKS
1) 27
2) Tedd the Monster
3) The Girl I’ve Always Loved

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See America is a musically diverse album full of instrospective lyrics, amazing musicianship and thoughtful well structured compositions from front to end. The thematic vision of the album is appropriately topped off with a notable quote by mid-20th-century politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson, underneath the plastic CD mount:

“When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England Hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.”

Artist Website
ST @ MySpace
ST @ Reverbnation
ST @ Twitter
ST @ t61
ST store | itunes | emusic | amazon | cdbaby

Throw Me The Statue: Ancestors

Charles Stepczyk — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:00:27 +0000

Seattle, Washington’s Throw Me the Statue is currently working on their second album, Creaturesque, available August 4 (Worldwide) and August 17 (UK), via Secretly Canadian.

Originally the one-man project of multifaceted musician and songwriter Scott Reitherman, TMTS has since expanded to a quartet with drummer Jarred Grimes, and multi-instrumentalists Aaron Goldman and Charlie Smith. The album is produced by TMTS and Phil Ek (The Shins, Built To Spill, Band Of Horses), and while the band retains much of the lo-fi bliss found on their critically acclaimed debut Moonbeams, Phil Ek’s mixing of Creaturesque brings the band’s maximalist pop sensibilities to new heights.

On lead single “Ancestors,” Reitherman spins a somber story into a pop song tour de force amidst gazing guitars, athletic fuzz-bass and a crystalline wall of synthesizers. Perhaps more sonically upbeat than its predecessor, Creaturesque’s details are at times painted in both optimistic and sobering tones. Reitherman’s scattershot poetics touch on an array of ideas; it’s oppressive American machisimo and Suburbanite sexuality. It’s soft drugs and convertible cars. It’s the struggle for higher expectations within the mess of modern life, and when wrapped up in the structures of TMTS’ sure-handed tunes it’s an all too delicious combination. [bio]

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Megafaun: The Fade

Stuart Morrison — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:00:16 +0000

From their album Gather, Form & Fly

This is the Summer of Megafaun. Their highly-anticipated second album, Gather, Form & Fly, is a monument to a band that hundreds have experienced on stages, under trees, in galleries, on ?oors, in headphones, and through radios-with-the-windows-down over the past three years. All the hints they’ve given us — from songs Stereogum described as “mournful, slow-blooming banjo-and-white-noise-laced epics” to tours with The Rosebuds, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Akron/Family — have culminated in a record that is an ode to death, love, musical history (from blues to musique-concréte), community, tradition, and experimentation. In all, it’s an ode to the listener.

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IODA Links

Megafaun
“The Fade” (mp3)
from “Gather, Form & Fly”
(Hometapes)

Math the Band: Why Didn’t You Get A Haircut?

Jason Evangelho — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:17:42 +0000

“More expensive Casio equipment than Devo” – CMJ

Math the Band is equal parts Atom and His Package and Andrew WK. Sampled casio sk1 drums, paired with solid square waves and more BPMs than can possibly be considered reasonable. Started by a sixteen year old kid who was kicked out of his high school pop-punk band, Math the Band has been going strong for 5 years, playing well over 400 shows throughout the US, Mexico and Canada.

Math the band will play (pretty much) any show anywhere anytime. For booking, either send a message, or send an email to fender_kid_978@yahoo.com

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The Papertiger Sound: Tiny Robot Love

Charles Stepczyk — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:00:47 +0000

The Papertiger Sound is a transatlantic project created in 2006 by Dan Gelder who is from England’s Eastern shore.

Hailing from the Eastern shores of Canada, Kerstin Wilson later joined when both Dan and Kerstin were living in Leeds later that year. They now function as a long distance duo between Canada and the UK and occasionally get together for tea and a chat.

In anticipation of their mini album, ‘The Last Days Are Taking Forever’, put out last month, the band released the EP ‘Tiny Robot Love’, which has five tracks and is 15 minutes in length.

THIS EP IS COMPLETELY FREE SO GO GRAB IT BELOW!!

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Deer Tick: Standing at the Threshold

Stuart Morrison — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:00:37 +0000

To mark the release of the second album “Born on Flag Day”, here is a song from their first album “War Elephant”. Head over to Partisan Records to check out both of them.

Deer Tick is a rock n roll band originally from Providence, Rhode Island. The band is John Joseph McCauley III, Andrew Grant Tobiassen, Christopher Dale Ryan, and Dennis Michael Ryan. The band began in December of 2004 as a drums and guitar duo. Within a few years the band developed into a quartet featuring two guitars, bass and drums, with three members singing and writing, and one writing string arrangements. As of January 2009 they have released countless CD-Rs and one official release, 2007’s (and re-released in 2008) War Elephant.

[Band Bio]

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IODA Links

Deer Tick
“Standing at the Threshold” (mp3)
from “War Elephant”
(Partisan Records)

Buy at Partisan Records Store
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Puretracks
Buy at mTraks
More On This Album

Plajia: Dummy

Jason Evangelho — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:00:51 +0000

Note from Jason: I’m a sucker for “The Bends”-era Radiohead. Plajia (pronounced “plah-gee-ah”) scratches that itch nicely!

Lauded by music critics in Canada and abroad, trip-rock group Plajia, composed of Patrick Pleau (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards and harmonica), Simon Boivin (bass and backing vocals) and Pascal Laviolette (drums, percussion and backing vocals) feels compelled to buy a crystal ball in order to preview its future successes.

But let’s get back to ongoing reality. With its first sonic offering entitled “Beautiful Explosion”, the Montreal trio renews a struggling tradition in this hypermodern and fragmented musical era: the full-fledged album. No respite for the listener here, the experience is total.

From gripping beginning to grandiose end, this voyage through eleven songs transports us in an impressionist soundscape, where unbridled imagination, open emotion and gleeful sarcasm colour an ethereal and melodious music. And stylistically speaking, “Beautiful Explosion” is certainly audacious, as Plajia infuses its atmospheric rock with brit-music references, psychedelic accents and eccentric arrangements, the whole with a pop focus and technical mastery.

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IR: Detroit #28 – Interview with Mikal

Les Zaldor — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:57:07 +0000

IR: Motor city is back again for another interview episode – this episode is an interview with Mikal, a great up and coming indie artist from South East Michigan! This was a fun interview, it was a pleasure to talk with Mikal. He is also playing live in Redford Michigan at Bullfrog on June 28th, 2009 (sponsored by The Olin Ezra Show, another great Detroit podcast!) – which I will also be attending!

Mikal has received 24 Detroit Music Award nominations, including 16 in one year, which has only been accomplished by one other artist.

Mikal’s pre-debut release, the acoustic EP “Only Enemies Tell The Truth… Friends And Enemies Lie Endlessly” is now available on iTunes for only $1.99.

Download MP3

Subscribe here!

This interview was first broadcast on my live internet radio show on BounceRadio.net – Mondays from 7pm-10pm ET and Tuesdays 6pm-8pm ET – Tune in to catch other new interviews before they’re on the podcast!

Signal Hill: Stunning Clarity

Charles Stepczyk — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:00:23 +0000

Los Angeles instrumental outfit Signal Hill is back with a new album as of June 11th, twelve songs and 61 minutes of universally understood tracks without the vocal interjection that occasionally takes away from the artistry when the songs are played outside the realm of the band’s native tongue.

We recently featured a few tracks from their self titled debut called “This New Years Absence”, and “Standby Sir”, and listened to several new songs they sent us before we settled on this gem of a track “Stunning Clarity”, from the newest “More After We’re Gone”. Its a languid yet beautiful song that slowly unwraps over the course of about five minutes, really helping this listener clear his head, refocus and tackle all of the tasks at hand this evening.

All “More After We’re Gone” orders from SignalHillMusic.com include an immediate digital download of the 12 track album in Premium 320 kbps MP3 or FLAC (highest audio quality available) formats.

Links follow:

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Fabulous Hats: Trance

Stuart Morrison — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:00:34 +0000

From Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Canada

Neil Dobson was a regular on the Toronto club circuit for years with various original bands. “I go back a ways in Toronto, we played Larry’s Hideaway a lot -such a classic venue- I met Joe Strummer in there one time…”

And now this…Fabulous Hats !! . “Well I like a lot of styles of music and the “Fabulous Hats” name comes from the old saying “He wears many hats” . I guess musically, I like to wear a few..”

The Fabulous Hats’ debut CD features twelve originals with a classic rock vibe, almost as though it is an artifact from a lost 1970s recording session with Gram Parsons and Keith Richards with Dick Dale chiming in on the odd track.

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The OaKs: My Father’s God

Charles Stepczyk — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:00:23 +0000

In honor of our fathers past and present today, we are providing a track by one of the friends to the network – Orlando band, The OaKs. Here’s a bit of back story on their previous release, Our Fathers and the Things They Left Behind.

In late 2003, just two years after 9/11, The OaKs’s Ryan Costello sold everything he owned, joined a humanitarian organization and moved to Afghanistan. Costello lived there for two years, working in the Central Afghan mountains with returned refugees, teaching them creative agricultural techniques and becoming fluent in their native language, Farsi. Late at night, while the dust storms blocked out the stars and rattled the windows, he would sit and work out impressions of what he had seen and heard that day on his acoustic guitar.

After returning to the United States, Costello joined back up with his long-time creative and song-writing partner Matthew Antolick, who was drumming full-time in a Moroccan band. Antolick and Costello began working out Costello’s melodic ideas and lyrical concepts, home-recording in Antolick’s apartment what eventually became Our Fathers and the Things They Left Behind. Exploring themes of self-sacrifice and introspection over roots-folk and jazzy melodic layers, Our Fathers… was an original breath of fresh air for independent music.

The release of Our Fathers… drew immediate attention to The OaKs in Orlando’s press and music scene, and the attention quickly went national as Paste magazine featured Costello and The OaKs in their July 2007 cover story “Can Rock Save the World.” The OaKs also partnered with Global Hope Network on the release of Our Fathers…and agreed to donate 50% of the profits from each CD or track download from that album to aid widows and recently-returned refugees from Afghanistan.

Artist Blog
The OaKs @ MySpace
The OaKs @ Twitter
The OaKs @ ReverbNation
The OaKs @ cdbaby | emusic | itunes | amazon