Rupa and the April Fishes are a San Francisco based group playing wildly eclectic music with influences including gypsy music, cabaret, and Latin jazz. Rupa, the lead singer, also happens to be a doctor, which is cool. She has a solid band behind her with percussion, trumpet, stand-up bass, and cello. Their album is eXtraordinary rendition (yes, that kind of extraordinary rendition), and their single is Une Americaine à Paris. Have a listen:
We admit, when we first saw this photograph of the Los Angeles group (((Eagle Winged Palace))), we had our doubts about music coming from such visual candy. So we were surprised to find ourselves really liking the soothing sounds of Hand of Doom. They also have a 3-song EP available, Songs of (((Eagle Winged Palace))) a miniversion of their upcoming LP Mansion on the Hill. Which just goes to show you the truth of the adage, don’t judge an album by its album cover…
We mentioned the 90’s group Supreme Love Gods in our last post about the band Headquarters and we thought we’d write a little up about them. Not only are the Supreme Love Gods from our very own Fresno, California, but they rock, and they’re finally back together. Word is there might even be a new album in the mix.
We here at withmrleecom believe that good music should never get lost in the Great Cycle. And so, for all those who have never heard them before, or who haven’t for a long long while, its our pleasure to re-introduce the Supreme Love Gods and their hit singe: Souled Out.
Headquarters has been called everything from Britpop to psychedelic powerpop. Amplifier magazine memorably described their as “jamming power pop into new wave and run[ning] it through their neo-psychedelic carburetor.” A colorful clause, that is. KoolKatMusic compares them to the Stone Roses, but we are more inclined to compare them to the Supreme Love Gods.
Tunnel Vision is a nice track off of their 2005 EP Get Your Head On. Really nice track. A driving beat, a few nice guitar riffs including a catchy little melodic hook. The vocals feel distant, almost lost in the force of the musical drive, but present enough to keep it interesting in a song which pushes its viability just a little bit after three and a half minutes.
The Books make songs out of spare instrumentation and a plethora of found sound, mostly from old media. Their music is of course part of the long tradition of musique concrète. Its smart, often funny, and occasionally moving. Chris over at Weekly Geek called The Books his coding music (we have some coding music of our own, which we’ll present to you in the future.)
If Not Now Whenever is one our favorite tracks by The Books, from their 2005 album Lost and Safe, an emotive song
Papertrigger, a quintuplet group from Philadelphia, makes raw lounge rock. Such contradictions make for powerful sounds- when it works at all. Their slightly most well known song is We are Nations Now, from their EP Riot Lovers. But today we’d like to feature the less well known song- but the better one in our opinion- Famous Monster, which, we assume will be one of the ten tracks on their upcoming album Snake Sale. Famous monster features raw vocal reverb, dark. Reminds us a little of something that Tom Waits might have pulled off, minus the gruff voice of Mr. Waits. Actually, their sound has something in common with Bodies of Water. Have a listen to the song on their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/papertrigger. For more information about the band and how to purchase their albums, visit their web site: http://papertrigger.com/
The Shake make authentic early 60s rock. I’ve put them up before on the top ten, but its worth posting them again. My favorite: Can’t Fight Your Loving from their album Trippin’ the Whole Colourful World. They have a new 7″ single out just out on Hey Girls records, and will shortly be putting out an entirely new album.
Have a listen:
Ok, you’re in for a treat. A friend of ours passed this along to us, and we’re grateful. Under the Pines is a powerful song, despite (or perhaps because of) its minimalism. Yet, just as you think you’ve figured the song out, it throws something at you large, weird, even a little scary. But the composition hangs together, managing something that seems missing in so much of the overly compressed music of the last decade- dynamism, an emotional arc of the composition.
Did you know we live in a golden age of music?
Vavamuffin kicks. Hailing from Poland, where there has been a thriving reggae scene for at least two decades, Vavamuffin stirs it up with neat dancehall style flows, tinged with a roots sensibility. They have a lot of songs we’ll be featuring in the future, but for today it’ll be one of our favorites: Serce. Serce means “heart” in Polish, and the song’s refrain, is słuchaj słuchaj słuchaj swego serca, “listen listen listen to your heart”. And we’re llistening, at least to Vavamuffin. We love them because not only do they have the chops (those more hip than us might want to call it something else), both as musicians and vocalists, but as song writers. A bit of melody, a bit of variety, some rhythmic interest, and lots of parts. What makes their songs magic is how it is all put together. A near constant in good song writing is how many parts are interleaved into tight cohesive wholes.
In 2008’s Top Ten I’ve already listed the Vabang! album version of Serce. But check out this live version from 2006:
