Missing My Music

One of the saddest things about our lack of blogging lately has been the distinct lack of music sites I’ve been able to access. He was always so good at finding SoundCloud or BandCamp pages where I could happily sit and listen to awesome tracks by one of my favourite artists for ages on end. Now, I have to resort back to the wonderful world of YouTube.

Unless He’s the one sending me the link, I’m pretty brutal at finding them on my own. I’d much rather (for some inane reason), sift through “Related To” videos that are not, in any way, related. Or if they are, they’re live versions, where I get shitty people screaming and clapping, instead of listening to the soulful sounds of the Avett Brothers.

With Spotify coming to Canada soon, I hope that this problem will be solved. I, for one, would love an account, as it will solve all my at-work musical problems.

Music at Work: Takénobu – Exposition

Music at Work is a periodically published segment on HisHersandTheirs.  He writes about music that you can listen to online while at work.  The criteria is that: (1) a full album must be available to listen to; and (2) it can’t suck.  Here is the latest edition of Music at Work:

 

I came across Takénobu’s bandcamp page a while ago.  I think it was one of the suggestions that is on the side of the bandcamp homepage.  Anyways, it’s nice.

He’s a guy from Atlanta who plays the cello.  and sings.  and writes songs.  It’s good music.  I like it.

I gather he’s also got plans to do an album made up almost exclusively of cello played covers to pop songs.  That should be good.  Take a listen to the first one that he posted on his webpage.

Electric Feel by Takenobu

Anyways.  Take a listen if you want something kind of chill to listen to you while you update your spreadsheets.

Don’t Miss: Jigsaw, Method and the Masses, Black Stallion

Music at Work: Freedom or Death

Music at Work is a periodically published segment on HisHersandTheirs.  He writes about music that you can listen to online while at work.  The criteria is that: (1) a full album must be available to listen to; and (2) it can’t suck.  Here is the latest edition of Music at Work:

Him and her went to the Steam Whistle unsigned show last Friday. The two bands who we saw were both good, in my opinion, and the venue is pretty historic.  The brewery is housed in the old steam engine train repair building in downtown Toronto.  While it certainly is a neat place to visit (super old with a new hip sheen to it), the acoustics weren’t very good.  I guess it’s just too much brick as the sound seemed to just be bouncing everywhere.  Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.

First up was a local Toronto band called Freedom or Death.  Their genre is listed as electronic-folk.  Really, that’s about as accurate as it’s going to get.  These guys aren’t rock or electro, but kind of a fuzzy middle which you might as well call electronic-folk.

The band’s sound is helped greatly by their lead singer.  The guy has got great pipes and some good stage presence to boot.  He was having a ball playing with the crowd as well as getting his fellow band members to groove a little bit.  He started off without a guitar, but then pulled one out for a few songs.  To my untrained guitar eye, it didn’t look like he was doing anything other than simple chords.  But his singing was quite something, really strong.

The rest of the band provided the electro backup and I thought the show was good.  They’ve kind of got a Kenna sound to them.  That’s probably the best/only comparison that I can think of.

I really like their music on bandcamp, too.  They’ve got two albums up that you can listen to.  The first is a 5 song EP that they made last year.  Pretty good, one song in particular that got stuck in my head at work today (see the “Don’t miss” section).  The second is an LP that came out last month, Ego.  It has a lot of great tracks on it.  Definitely something to keep on my bookmarks to listen to in the future.

Also, if you’re into checking them out live, they’ve got a show coming up on June 9th at the Drake in Toronto.  I probably won’t be there, but you never know…

Don’t miss: Soldier (FoD EP); This Crowded Room, Elefant, Human, Virgina Woolf (Ego)

Music at Work: Ben Walker – This Is Not An Album

Music at Work is a periodically published segment on HisHersandTheirs.  He writes about music that you can listen to online while at work.  The criteria is that: (1) a full album must be available to listen to; and (2) it can’t suck.  Here is the latest edition of Music at Work:

My goodness, Bancamp.com has got to be one of my favourite websites. It’s a music sharing website where Indie (or semi-indie) artists create a personalized page and upload music for anyone to listen to via a very simple and clean streaming interface. Now that sounds a lot like Myspace music, but it’s not. It’s better, for three reasons: (1) The music is uploaded in full album format (see Music at Work rule #1); (2) The listener can buy said full albums easily on the artist’s Bandcamp page; and (3) The above-mentioned streaming interface doesn’t take up many resources and is very simple to use.

The only issue that I have with it is that it can be difficult to find good music on it.* I’m not sure if indie artists are unaware of it or if there’s some other reason for bands to not sign up, but it can be difficult to find anyone you might have heard of before on the website.

*There’s an obscene amount of video game inspired music, lots of 8bit bleeps and bloops. And not in a good way like Crystal Castles.

Anyways, I’m always looking for new music to listen to at work and one day I decided to Google “good music on soundcloud or bandcamp” to try and find something new to listen to. After a couple of jumps, I made my way to Ben Walker’s Bandcamp page.

The Englishman looks a little strange with his teased out hair, but he’s written some pretty clever songs on his album “This is Not an Album.” Playing either a piano or acoustic guitar, Ben sings along to songs about sitting in a traffic jam or the imaginary life of an IT professional. Another one, Make a Difference, he imitates a Mexican trumpet player pretty convincingly in between verses about trying to make a difference to the world as a consumer.  He also as some serious sounding songs, but they aren’t as memorable as the silly ones.

Another thing about Ben Walker is that he really has figured out how to use Bandcamp to its fullest. He has a number albums up for listening and purchasing on his Bandcamp site that is a collection of 12 songs that are each only 12 seconds long. They’re basically 2 lines each with a short fore or aft accompaniment. Just one of those things that Bandcamp makes possible. An album like that could never be even close to commercially successful, but because of the artist’s ability to easily upload in it’s full format to the internet, he’s able to share it with everyone. Another album is one which is a bunch of songs that didn’t make it onto the This is Not an Album album. Which is great. He had songs on his hard drive that hadn’t been used and would have gone on sitting unlistened to if he hadn’t uploaded them for everyone on the interweb to listen to.

Don’t miss: Beaten up, Box Junction Heart, Make a Difference,Turn It Off And Turn It On Again (Ballad of the I.T. Guy)

Music at Work: We are the City – High School

Music at Work is a periodically published segment on HisHersandTheirs.  He writes about music that you can listen to online while at work.  The criteria is that: (1) a full album must be available to listen to; and (2) it can’t suck.  Here is the latest edition of Music at Work:

So.  We are the City played twice during Canadian Music Week.  I got to see them for their first show.  Well, I got to see the last 2.5 songs of the first show they played.  Wish I had a chance to see more.

Two Fridays ago a friend and I went down to Tortilla Flats.  Home of the $3 tequila shot at all hours of the day.  It was pretty good.  It’s one of those dirty places along Queen West that is pretty good and really cheap.  We left happy.

Anyways, the show was at Criminal Records which is basically across the street from the restaurant.  Oh yeah.  Something that I learned about shows that are held in record stores: they actually start when they say they are going to.  That’s the reason why we only caught the tail end of their set.  Kind of a neat venue.  Probably not functionally ideal, we were in the back and couldn’t really see much, but a cool atmosphere.

First thing I noticed is that they’ve got a new guitarist.  The guy with the hipster moustache is out and the guy with the glasses and hipster haircut is in.  Not sure the reason behind the switch, but I hope it was for the best for both parties.

We caught half a song from their first album, can’t remember which though.  Then the drummer pulled a Phil Collins and grabbed the mic.  He starts singing “Dark/Warm Air”, a song from “High School” which is their EP that was released on March 22^nd.  Oh man, I thought was going to pass out.  The veins in his face were all bulging out and he was going red.  Then he books it and climbs over his drum set in time to start up with the drum part.  Good song. Some of it reminded me of that mid 90’s alternative song where the singer says “wake up my airplane” or something like that.  Misheard lyrics for sure on my part.

Then they finished off their set with “April” from their first album, “In a Quiet World.”  This is probably my favourite song of theirs, so I was glad to hear live again.  Afterwards, my friend was asking what the song was called.  He really liked it.

Anyways, I was sad that we missed their (presumably) longer set at The Garrison the next night, but sometimes you can’t be everywhere at once.  Check out their new EP. You can listen to it on their bandcamp page for free while you’re at work.