Vol. 5 Issue 46 October 2009
October is here and it is time for BRM to start thinking of our Halloween outfit! Hmmm, what should it be? Playboy Bunny? The old dude from UP? Don Draper? So many option......Maybe I'll get the BRM crew to all dress up as MONSTERS OF FOLK to celebrate the record's release? Other new possible outfits and releases include Lou Barlow, Dawn Landes, Smokey Hormel, and the band name of the year-Get Back Guinozzi!!
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Current Releases
- Click to see:
- Shangri-La
- Tough Love
- Team Love
- Fat Cat
- Bank Robber Music
Shangri-La
shangrilamusic.com/
Monsters Of Folk
"Monsters Of Folk"
If Jimmy James, Conor Oberst, M. Ward, and Mike Mogis had dinner together it would be big news. If they recorded an album as an indie “supergroup” called Monsters Of Folk we wouldn’t be able to contain our excitement. Why are you still reading this? Check out "Say Please"
Tough Love
www.toughloverecords.com/
Dawn Landes
"Sweetheart Rodeo"
Years from now there will be a definitive genre title for the indie-neo-country that’s seen a recent surge in popularity—maybe it is just glorified folk, but I’m going to go out on a limb and put all my money on “urban rural,” although “post-honky tonk” isn’t quite out of the race—and all the music writers and critics will finally be able to stop welding together unlikely musical combos like “Garth meets Garfunkel” or “Fountains of Wayne meets Shania Twain.” The rolling melodies and windswept instrumentation of Dawn Landes’s latest full-length, Sweetheart Rodeo, are certainly the stuff frontier songs are made of, but, with occasional slow electro modulation, tin-can backup vocals, and handclaps, Dawn proves her mettle in the modern studio scene. Synths and harmonicas? We think she’s found something here. Kentucky-born and Brooklyn-based? Forget it, she’s just naturally got something special going on. Check out “Romeo”.
Team Love
team-love.com/
Taylor Hollingsworth
"Life With A Slow Ear"
Earlier this year, Merge Records brought us Outer South, a terrific sophomore offering by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and we further acquainted ourselves with Taylor Hollingsworth. He comes from Alabama with a guitar, a voice with Southern twinge and high rasp that reminds us of Nancy Griffith and Bob Dylan and Tom Petty rolled together in a country travellin’, youth uprisin’ debut album, Life With A Slow Ear (Team Love). Hollingsworth is a rule breaker. His blues songs aren’t always really bluesy, he toys with tradition—sometimes trashes it—and with his sound feigns an innocence, which allows his Dr. Gonzo drug culture lyrics to secret their way into our drawl-softened minds. He’s funny, and songs like “Damn Boy” and “Sin City Blues” recall Charlie Daniels Band and Crazy Horse, while cigarette smoky ballads like “Trail Of Tears” are standard folk. Check out “Keep Comin’ Back”.
Fat Cat
fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/
Get Back Guinozzi
"Carpet Madness"
Quirky french pop band, Get Back Guinozzi, is a magical combination of analog wonderment, drowning in bubbling over effects that has made it one of my favorite new releases. Check out “Police and Thieves,” a cover of the Junior Murvin song. Or try the infectious title track, "Carpet Madness" (Fat Cat.) Wave after wave of synth patches pair with chunky Talking Heads rhythms. The whole album has a beatnik flair. I can picture the ladies dancing to this stuff with their flats and there striped shirts and their berets. Ooh la la! Check out "Carpet Madness".
Bank Robber Music
www.bankrobbermusic.com
Various
"Bank Robber Music Compilation Vol. 20"
If you haven't received our most recent compilation Bank Robber Music Vol.20 Summer Part 2! We recommend you contact us immediately!! With new tracks from bands like The Fiery Furnaces, Starlight Mints and uh, Spoon, you are sure to love it. Also included is your favorite new supergroup since uh, Tinted Windows. Monsters Of Folk (featuring you know who, that guy, the other guy, and one other dude), round it off with Yacht's "Psychic City" and your summer is over! Check out "Psychic City"
- Click to see:
- Merge
- Afro Sambas
- Ernest Jenning
- Park The Van
- Misra
Merge
www.mergerecords.com/
Lou Barlow
"Goodnight Unknown"
It’s difficult to come up with something new to say about Lou Barlow (Merge). Dude does everything, and he does everything well. We have been desperately trying to stop listening to “Take Advantage”, but nothing seems to work. It’s perfect. It’s not a pretty sight to watch everyone in the office slow dance to this song, but there you go.
Afro Sambas
www.smokeyhormel.com/
Smokey Hormel
"Smokey's Secret Family"
Hey, you, at the desk, being responsible, Bank Robber Music has some good news. There is a place where summer never ends, a place where saxophones and clarinets dance with guitars across a rum-soaked beach, and world renowned guitarist, Smokey Hormel, is the mayor. Okay, so it’s not an actual, physical place, but take one listen to his instrumental album, Smokey’s Secret Family, and you’ll be ready to say, “Bring it on Fall, and tell Winter to go suck an egg.” Smokey wrote the book on cool, having worked on studio albums with Beck, Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Johnny Cash. For this project, he’s pulled together an elite squad of studio instrumentalists to cover popular African music from the sixties, which was a light, jazzy feeling style of music. We could call it surf rock mambo or calypso cha-cha, or we could just let you hear “Fiesta Folkloric”.
Ernest Jenning
www.ernestjenning.com/
Nouvellas
"Nouvellas"
Nouvellas self titled album is the kind of thing you put on at a party and just wait for the first person to break down and ask, “Hey, who is this?” Like a great girl group from the early 60’s combined with the funk power of the 70’s, they have created their own kind of party here. With a band so tight James Brown would have been proud to have them grove behind them, vocalists Leah Fishman and Jaime Kozyra co-helm the front of this rollicking outfit in a way that two white girls should never be able to. Try “Come Back”, a neo-garage soul classic that would feel perfect on any of Tarantino’s soundtracks.
Park The Van
www.parkthevan.com/
Generationals
"Con Law"
Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer, with the genius sound engineering of Dan Black, have created the perfect debut album for a brand new New Orleans band: Generationals. Perfect? Yes, perfect. Their digital and analog trail mix record, Con Law, is a veritable fan-base factory with tracks that sound like they could have been recorded in the ‘60s wrapped around lyrics and fresh instrumentation that is the product of modern pop-rock and electronic synth-pop. This album is danceable, and, with hook-after-hook melodies and horn interludes, it is likely to go on ‘Repeat’ mode moments after playing Beck-ish robo-disco song “Nobody Could Change Your Mind” or bit-crunched geek anthem “Wildlife Sculpture.” One of the most important offerings from Con Law is the simply awesome, “When They Fight, They Fight.” Whether this music plays on laptops, in clubs, through earphones or whilst cruising, it digs itself a cozy spot in the back of our minds, and we hope it never goes away. Check out “When They Fight, They Fight”.
Misra
www.misrarecords.com/
Hallelujah The Hills
"Colonial Drones"
From chamber pop intros to shout along choruses, Hallelujah the Hills is a carnival of music. Their new album, Colonial Drones (Misra Records), is a collection of tunes that have the ability to be heartfelt and snarky at the same time. The band can come rolling at you like a freight train, disjointed and clunky, yet retains a melodic streak that would make Frank Black jealous. Also delivering sweet songs like “The Echo Sequence,” which comes off as a beefed up more subversive Neutral Milk Hotel. “Church bells ringing out commercials for Jesus, the future ex-girlfriends all promise to leave us." Check out "The Echo Sequence".