songwriter

The Essential albums of 2009 are starting to appear, and one of the first (together with the Mulatu & Heliocentrics) that get the undomondo seal is American singer-songwriter Bill Callahan’s sophomore on Drag City. And it’s coming from a blog that is highly skeptical of the thriving indie/hipster scene which produces hundreds of unoriginal bands everyday both in the US and the UK.

It’s been a long time since we last heard of Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett. The eloquent singer-songwriter has a new ep called Spectrum, 14th Century on Blocks Recording Club, a Toronto artist-collective label. You’ll be quite happy to know that he can still craft good offkilter pop songs.

In hindsight, the first thing that attracted me to this fine gentleman was his pseudonym. A frenchman singing acoustic folk songs in English, trying to represents among what, like ten thousand folk bands from the US? Yet somehow after a few months of coming back to this album, it’s July and I should say this album has solidified its place in my heart now.

Last week I spent some time to cover some promo albums we got and clear that inbox. After few days though it’s still full, so here’s another post with email submissions. Beware though I won’t be checking new stuff that’s sent to us for at least a month from now on.

I’ve been listening on/off to the UK release of Norwegian singer-songwriter Silje Nes‘ Ames Room released on Fat-Cat, and it’s about time to talk a little bit about her music now that the European release of her debut is due.

15 Battles – Mirrored (Warp Records) : Everybody’s been talking about “Mirrored” this year, and they kind of deserve it for getting their oddtimed dissonant music to find strange acclaim from mainstream circles as well as mathheads.
14 Deejay OM – Reheated Naan and Curry (Galapagos4) : A fine hybrid of Indian samples mixed with beats. Somehow liked it much more than Madlib’s take. Past

Alright fellas, I couldn’t finish the list on time, but I’ll finish what I started hopefully. I’m still in London so I’m trying to wrap this thing up on a borrowed computer.

Been listening to Mill Pond’s Luke Temple with his second full length called “Snowbeast” for some time and Brooklyn based guitar/banjoist & songwriter straight away charmed me with his frail falsetto voice and exceptionally versatile songwriting I should say. Temple’s indie pop/folk has many elements of psychedelia and prog which moves “Snowbeast” apart from all the American guitar folk artists.