Showing posts with label Lo-fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lo-fi. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Paavoharju – Laulu Laakson Kukista (2008)

These crazy Finns have tapped into something really special here. This album has it all: Strange, wonderfully over-the-top melodies, lots of lo-fi ambient noise, and an otherworldly female voice floating above it all.
The constant hiss and feedback can be annoying at first, but you eventually realize that it’s integral to the music, especially on the more rhythmic tracks. It’s hard to tell whether the little jabs of static that wrap around the drums are intentional or incidental. Either way they sound pretty awesome.
Here’s what their record label has to say about them:
"Paavoharju comes from Savonlinna, Finland. The group is a collective project of ascetic born-again Christians. The sound is something between Bollywood music, church hymns, beautiful pop tunes and ambient esoteric noises. The lyrics are very spiritual in sound and text. Paavoharju sing of branches touching the surface of the water and walking down a black street to an old inn."

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Bibio – Vignetting the Compost (2009)

One of the prettiest things I've heard in a while.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?vimteotatnl

Here's the title track from his upcoming album Ambivalence Avenue. I really like the sound of this.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Jana Hunter – Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom (2005)

I don't like everything on this one, but there are a couple of amazing songs here.

Perry Leopold – Experiment in Metaphysics (1970)

Experiment in Metaphysics is one of the rarest and most sought-after artifacts of the hippie era. Recorded live during a five-hour session in the basement of a shoe-repair shop in June of 1970, most of the 300 original copies of Experiment in Metaphysics were simply given away in one afternoon, yet, inexplicably, bootleg copies of the album later sprang up half-way around the world. The reason for the album's staying power is apparent: the music is gorgeous, first-rate progressive folk.
Like much of the youth countercultural scene of the times, Leopold can occasionally give into mystical pretentiousness. Experiment in Metaphysics has moments -- namely the spoken-word monologue in the middle of the mostly stellar opening cut, "The Absurd Paranoid" -- of philosophical meandering. Still, even those moments maintain a period charm.

Each song, even the instrumental cuts, feels like a story, with beginnings and endings and all kinds of interesting ideas and storylines sandwiched in between. The album is a relic that has not lost one iota of its power. (Allmusic.com)

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ox24dn2z2nt

Friday, March 6, 2009

Wavves – Wavvves (2009)

In an effort to compete for hits with my rival over at littlevibrations.blogspot.com, I’m going to start posting everything that Pitchfork rates 8.0 or higher. So here’s the new Wavves album, entitled Wavvves. I like it. If you can get through all the fuzzy muck you’ll find some well-crafted pop tunes, unique guitar playing, and groovy Motown-inspired drumming.