múm

Wednesday, January 17 by ernie

another great group from iceland. 'summer make good' was their last full length released back in 2004. its been official for a few months now. that will be the last album made with one of the founding members. the delicate, haunting voice of kristin anna will no longer be a part of múm. she however, will not stop making music as she is exploring a solo project under the name of kria brekkan. she also recently toured with her husband avey tare who is a part of the icelandic band animal collective.

múm is awesome. and im not kidding. their sound is extremely unique and innovative. they are genius in creating and composing with electronic sounds. they are talented musicians. their music embraces what is eerie, beautiful, sad, hopeless, quiet, haunting, brooding...etc

this isnt pop music. its not easy listening. its a bit dark. its introspective. its creative in a way that is sometimes hard to grasp. hard to notice. and theres something i love about that. music like this gives parts of me a home to live in.

off summer make good:
múm - the ghosts you draw on my back
múm - weeping rock, rock

all their releases have notable tracks. i just picked summer make good because its their most recent lp. if you like this, id could recommend songs on their other releases to try.

I love pop music

Sunday, January 14 by Brian Pan

In the past few weeks, my music has been controlled by what I'm doing at work. Normally my commute to work is podcasts- music, talk, daily news. At work, when the coworkers get a little too exuberant in their conference calls, the headphones go on and the music blocks out some noise and hopefully I can get back into the flow of debugging or coding. The playlist of choice is a mostly instrumental mix of post rock, trip hop, and hip hop to provide a background for coding.

On my way home, I'm unwinding with just about any kind of music. But when there's extra stress like in the past few weeks, I need something to really help me take my mind off of work and get my brain switched off. Hello, pop music!

Well, sort of pop music. I put Imogen Heap and Utada Hikaru into a playlist and I've been pleased with the results. Imogen Heap provides the vocals for the group Frou Frou and she has a handful of solo albums herself. You might remember Frou Frou from the Garden State soundtrack. And Utada Hikaru I started listening to after ernie's post, of course, and I discovered I really like her. (Dan enjoys reminding me that I share this in common with many teenaged Japanese school girls).

While I was in Taiwan I bought two of Utada Hikaru's albums- Deep River and Ultra Blue. Since Utada has already been posted about, I'll write a little about Imogen Heap.

Imogen Heap is from Essex, England and is a classically trained musician. She started writing songs at a young age and soon turned her attention towards alternative pop rock and electronica. She taught herself sequencing and production and signed a record contract at 17. Her debut album "I, Meagaphone" was released in 1998.

In 2002, Frou Frou released the album "Details". Their song "Let Go" is on the Garden State soundtrack and is one that caught Grace's ear when it played during the credits. Heap's second solo album "Speak For Yourself" was released in 2005 in the UK. Songs from the album were featured on The O.C. After her album was released internationally she appeared on a couple of US late night talk shows. Heap performs by herself on stage singing and playing the guitar over music controlled by an Apple laptop.

What does her music sound like? It's singer-songwriter with plenty of layers of various instruments and electronic music. It's pop-rock but not overly sugary sounding. Have a listen:

Speak For Yourself - Daylight Robbery
Speak For Yourself - Goodnight and Go
Details - Let Go

Rachael Yamagata

Monday, January 8 by JR

hap·pen·stance adjective: a circumstance especially that is due to chance.

here's another once chicago local - 28 yr old freckle faced Rachael-with-two-a's-Yamagata - the hottest talent to emerge from the halfie community since kristin kreuk. at least since kt tunstall? has she been featured on grey's anatomy yet? seriously.

according to wikipedia, happenstance is her first full length album, produced by the same guy behind mayer, dmb, and ben folds. (currently she's in studio working on number 2 with the guy behind rilo kiley and bright eyes). she's already collaborated with a slew of artists like mraz, ryan adams, and mandy moore. speaking of whom, mandy and zach braff are in her top 8 on her myspace. please do not hold this against her. self described as 'Janis Joplin meets Fiona Apple' - you can definitely hear a little fiona in 'letter read'. her other influences include jeff buckley, carole king, and a somewhat expected smattering of her peers, i.e. regina spektor. some ppl liken her to maria mena, but i think here is a distinction between a girl and a young woman.

"I try my best to write of love and pain and explore how we humans treat each other, and what our souls are trying to get out at the same time. Performing is my meditation; writing my traveling companion. These songs are as truthful and in the moment as I could be at this point in my life. They are observational, touching, but with a sense of hopefulness that every piece, and each bit of pain had a reason. So that nothing is wasted. The never can be happenstance."

"I think honesty is the most important thing for my songwriting which leads me to live a lonely existence of rehashing the muddy waters of my faults and love tragedies. I'm definitely hung up on wanting life to be fair and everyone's full story to be told and understood truthfully. I will never be a great educator because of my intelligence for facts or analytical skills, however I'm pretty damn compassionate and will probably draw people to me for some sense that 'I've been there too…' Life is not always heavy and dark, but I do spend time swimming in those areas. Go fish. "

i would like to see her branch out of love/love sick songs, but maybe that is what she means by her 'compassion'. ppl are drawn to her for it.

hard to choose just a couple samplers...

moments with oliver - just over a minute of instrumentals

i'll find a way
feels like joni mitchell and damien rice (she did cover joni's 'river' which can be heard on her myspace, another good cover 'jesus was a crossmaker')

letter read
fiona applish

even so
" you're gonna question whether you really know me at all
you will revisit every smile, and where it fit into the day"

listen only:
fireflies (duet with rhett miller)
streaming

be be love
indirect link to her myspace

reason why
indirect link to her myspace