Throwback Jam!

It's throwback jam time! I heard this song earlier today and remembered it's a pretty great. How can you not like whistling and crazy hand drums? I remember hearing this song on the FM talk radio's indie weekend music show when it first came out and remember whistling it for days after. So, here's Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folk

Through The Cracks

I have no idea how I let this slip through the cracks. Tokyo Police Club, or a band this blog loves, has a new video for their single Wait Up off of Champ. I love fun videos, and dogs, and Tokyo Police club so this video makes me smile. Check it out!

Also through the cracks: Remember Brandon Flowers solo project we posted about a while ago? Well the video for Crossfire ,the single, is out - and its also awesome. Ninjas and Charlize Theron? I'm pretty sure my dreams just came true watching this video. Also, apparently Brandon Flowers can't fight his way out of a paper bag - but hey, if Theron would save me in that situation, I wouldn't fight either.


Woo Breaking Update! Best Coast, Kid Cudi, and Vampire Weekend have made a song together! It's for Converse's Three Artists One Song campaign. Check it out over at Spin: Spin and download the single from Converse's website: Converse So much good music today!
Three posts in one day! Unheard of!

Thursday Night Spotlight: Thumbzo coming in with a longo mix

Hey y'all!

Hope you're not getting too stressed out as the end of the fall semester, quarter, period, whatever approaches...

If you are, though, here's something to cheer you right on up: a hour-plus mix from Ramsgate, UK artist Thumbzo. If y'all remember some of the remix and mashup posts from earlier this year, this has a lot in common with some of those, albeit (1) it's a bit more dancey, and (2) you probably won't recognize most of the choons. Get off your collective tails and get to dancing, eh? Burn off some of that nervous energy, get yourselves recharged and up for the weekend! And if you decide that a solo cup full of a delicious beverage should be part of that, hey, I won't hold it against you.*

*Note: By delicious beverage, I of course mean soda. We here at AAH would never, ever, ever condone the underage consumption of alcohol. Never. Of course not. We certainly wouldn't.

Party!!!!

Thumbzo-Rolldabeats 92 Hardcore Mix-October 09 by thumbzo

Liam Finn: not just 90210

Can y'all believe that it's December already? I mean, seriously... this last quarter has just flown by. It's already just about finals time, which means it's almost Christmas time, which means it's almost time for the new year.

Stuff.

Anyways - I've been listening to Liam Finn for a little while now, kind of saving him up for a time when I hadn't found anything new in a little bit. Then... this morning, I found out that one of his songs was featured on the new 90210 series. That bummed me out like whoa.

I guess it doesn't change the fact that his music is pretty awesome. I guess.

Tunes! ...or, more accurately: Videos!

Liam Finn - Second Chance


Liam Finn - Better to Be


I'd also like to note that this past weekend was the 10th anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. For any of you who like to style yourselves as activists... that's big stuff. Now, I'm no activist, but there's something about community and solidarity and belief to be said coming out of that.

Quick Post: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, you ask, your faces upturned quizzically, mouths twisted?

(note - I've gotta run. Like, three minutes from now, I've gotta go somewhere. Otherwise, I'd give you more witty text and more analysis, plus I'd upload a couple of mp3s. Or something.)

Yes, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I read about them a little while ago in an interview that The Dresden Dolls did. From SGM's Myspace:

[...] they reject the elitism of the avant-garde in favor of a reckless populism: They are entertainers. Though not without humor, their often wide-ranging musical and theatrical choices are rarely ironic.

Just what I've been looking for.

Anyways -

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum: Widening Eye


Have a great day!

Rain Machine: Big Hair and Big Sound

Any of y'all like TV On The Radio?

I ask this because Kyp Malone (this guy, and, yes, he does look kind of like a hobo nerd), one of the leaders of that august assemblage, has put out a solo project under the title of Rain Machine. And it's awesome.

[content warning, before I continue: yes, he uses bad language. bad words. if that offends you, don't listen to his music]

He's definitely got a unique sound. His voice is a strained, warbling thing that alternates between a croon and a shriek; the guitars that underlie most of the album are alternately sparse and overwhelming.

The music is also passionate; it takes on Important Issues (or, perhaps more importantly for the sake of creation, issues that are important to Kyp Malone), and it does so without getting stuck in the preachy, whiny tone that so hinders a lot of art that tries to be political. This is music, first and foremost, and it's pretty dang good music. I like.

Anyways... it's a rainy Wednesday evening. The rainy Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, yeh? Y'all have a good one, enjoy your times of rest and celebration. Enjoy these tracks, too. Peace out.

Rain Machine - New Last Name


Rain Machine - Smiling Black Faces


Rain Machine - Love Won't Save You

Thursday Night Spotlight: Gridlok

Hey, y'all!

It's the weekend! (and the party just begun!)

Party! (in the USA!)

Dance! (Dance Revolution!)

Neurofunk! (... uh... I got no witty followup to that.)

Gridlok! (has a new album coming out next week!)

Granted, I don't actually have his new album yet (sad panda), but I do have a few of his older tracks. So here are a couple of those, some fun ish to get your party started right.

Gridlok - California Schemin


Gridlok - Sherlok Holmes


Have a great night, y'all!

Thursday Night Spotlight: Hardstep

Y'all like hardstep?

Y'all know y'all like hardstep. Thick bass, classy drum patterns, stuff you can dance to.

It's Thursday night, y'all! Classes are done for the week (unless you have Friday classes, in which case I pity you), and you know what time it is! So tune in, turn off, drop out, drop in, switch off, switch on, and explode... just don't blame me if/when Public Safety comes knocking on y'all's dorm room doors!

I'd like to offer thanks to NB for clueing me in to IQ Collective... you know who you are, and you rock.

I'd like also to throw out a shoutout to all the beautiful people out there... especially if you don't know who you are. Because that makes you rock harder.

What're you waiting for?! Start up the strobe! Hit the play button! Get your dance on

IQ Collective - Mode One


Resonant Evil - Are You For Real


Resonant Evil - Hold Your Breath

Quick Post: Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

Hey y'all!

I don't know quite how 'indie' Jarvis Cocker is, seing how he used to front Pulp and he's signed to Rough Trade Records... but his music is tremendous fun, and there's new music from him out now! This is the title track from his new album, "Further Complications", which dropped all of two days ago. Hope you enjoy!



...and it's time for me to head out.

Have a great afternoon!

(whoo! four minute post. who says that you need free time to be a blogger?)

(also: whoo! two posts in two days!)

DM Stith - Lingering Traces of an Unfelt Presence

Hey, y'all... sorry it's been a little while since I've posted - life has a funny way of getting busy and eating up spare time.

Anyways - I realized this morning that I'd never posted on DM Stith. This caused some slight embarrassment, if only because (1) a lot of people have never heard of him and (2) he's completely freakin' amazing. I'm going to post three of his music videos for y'all today, all from his album "Heavy Ghost", which came out in March of this year.

[disclaimer, before I begin: I've heard from folks that DM Stith's music is a very bad idea if you're high. I would of course have no firsthand knowledge of this, but it seems reasonable. So. If you're high, be warned.]

DM Stith - Isaac's Song


For those of you who are counting, Isaac's Song is the first track from Heavy Ghost. Simple enough, lyrically - but absolutely haunting and just drop-dead gorgeous. It's probably worth mentioning at this point that DM Stith - DM stands for David Michael, his first and middle names - is a protege of Sufjan Stevens and is signed to his label, Asthmatic Kitty Records.

DM Stith - Pity Dance


Pity Dance is the second track off of Heavy Ghost, and it starts getting into some of the absolute lyrical brilliance that DM Stith features - lines like "I say bring me sunflowers and bring me a landscape of clouds and rain / And let the sky give up her many, heavy hammered warnings"... wow. I'd also like to comment on the music video, which is simultaneously creepy and absolutely wonderful.

DM Stith - BMB


The complete lyrics to this track:

From in your car we saw the fire
and we could feel it on our skin
Slick licorice road, our glassy eyes,
shared in the argument of undefended light
Oh, did you say?
What did you say?
Oh did you say?
What did you say?

Wow.

Hope y'all have a great day (and how could you not, after seeing those music videos?)
Peace.

Thursday Night Spotlight - Five Infected Maroon Earworms

Hey y'all! Another Thursday... the end of another straight-up awesome week... let's party, eh? Correspondingly - let's party with AAH (who better?).

Got three fun tracks for y'all tonight, all of them suitable for turning up loud and getting your dance on.

First up - from Israeli psychedelic trance band Infected Mushroom, the title track off their 2007 album Vicious Delicious. Some killer stuff there.

After that - two remixes from San Francisco mashup artist DJ Earworm. The first one is a little bit older, a club workup of several different Maroon Five songs; the second one is his newest piece, a mashup of a bunch of different Sean Kingston songs. All irresistibly catchy, all a lot of fun.

Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious


DJ Earworm - Love and Wonder (Club Mix)


DJ Earworm - Beautiful Mashup


Hope y'all have a great night! Party hearty, party safe!

Peace.

Johannes Hopfner: Blues from the Other Side of the World

So I was wandering around the internet the other night, putting off my reading, and I came across this guy, Johannes Hopfner. And then I listened to his music, and I was like, "hey! this guy's pretty awesome!" (because when I'm talking to myself, I don't use capital letters). And then I read about him a little bit, and I was like, "hey! this guy's not from around here!"

He's French-Danish, actually, which kind of surprised me, if only because there's not much of an accent evident in his music... and because his sonic palette is exactly the sort of indie-blues I'd expect to hear coming out of the mid or northern South. Not so much Europe.

Anyways... I've got his album "One Song, One Take" - a reference to his method of recording it - which came out not all that long ago. Take a listen! If you like acoustic blues, I think you're gonna like this. I like acoustic blues. I like this.

Johannes Hopfner - Over


Johannes Hopfner - Walk Away Leave Away


Off to the library! Have a great day, all you beautiful people out there. And we're all beautiful people.

Thursday Night Spotlight: Swing Low and RAVE OUT, BRAH

Hey, y'all! Welcome to another edition of Attempts at Hip's famous Thursday Night Spotlight.



Now, I know that just because it's the Thursday before Halloween, y'all aren't passing up the parties, right? There's no point in saving up the raving for the weekend - let's get it on!

Got some Pendulum for y'all tonight... classic Drum & Bass, probably best enjoyed with a blacklight, some glowsticks, white t-shirts, markers, and (if possible) the famous Jack Kelly ravedance. Y'all know it, y'all love it...

Anyways - a couple of tracks off their album In Silico - (and sorry for not embedding the mp3s... my internet is being mildly retarded at the moment)

Pendulum - Propane Nightmares



Pendulum - Granite


Edit 30 Oct. 9:00 AM - subbed actual music videos for blank screens. Audio is the same.

Thursday Night Spotlight: Loo and Placido

So, for whatever reason (by which I mean that we're all busy folks) it's been a while since we've run this feature. And that really is a shame, because, in the grand scheme of things, there's not much that's more important than having some hot tunes to dance to on Thursday nights.

Am I right?

Of course I'm right.

So - with the first Thursday Night Spotlight since, uh, the last one, Attempts at Hip gives you a 23-minute mix from French mashup artists Loo & Placido. Killer beats, fragments of familiarity - where else are you going to get RATM, The Sex Pistols, Daft Punk, and oh so many wonderful elements together? - and, overall tons of fun. Enjoy!



Oh, btw... next post... I'm not saying yet exactly what's gonna happen... but it might or might not involve a certain goth/punk vampire... and/or a certain tweed-wearing, tea-sipping, dark-past-having librarian...

Quick Post: The Twilight Sad

Hey y'all! Hope you're having a great morning (or afternoon, if you're on the East Coast).

Things I'm Excited About Today:

(1) Leaves changing color!
(2) Class in a mere couple of hours!
(3) Coffee! Hot, two sugars, no cream.
(4) Rain! Okay, not really.
(5) I got the new The Twilight Sad album! I'm still not quite sure what to make of it - I liked their debut, "Fourteen Albums and Fifteen Winters", but this has kind of a harder feel to it, with some U2-type guitar stuff going on. Still, the vocals are awesome, and the lyrics, which feature lines like "There's a hand in the till / still believing what she sells / only girl in the town / with her fingers in eyelids" are as georgeous as they've ever been.

Anyways - I've embedded "I Became a Prostitute", one of the singles from "Forget the Night Ahead", their new album, which dropped near the end of September. Enjoy!



And have a great afternoon.

The Daring Young Man...

So after I wrote my post on Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I received a flood a bunch a few an email somebody mentioned to me in passing that I might want to take a look at another post-rock band, God Is An Astronaut. Since I'm (as are Tyce and JK) always eager to please the readers of this noble blog, I took a look.

Dude. This band is friggin' awesome.

I mean, I don't know if I like them better than GY!BE - and I don't think there's necessarily a direct comparison to be made between the two - but God Is An Astronaut has a few things going for them. Shall I make a short list? Why not.

Things Going For God Is An Astronaut
(1) An awesome name
(2) Delicious bite-sized post-rock niblets
(3) No vocals to get in the way of the instrumental goodness.
(4) They're Irish.

That enough to make you want to take a listen? I hope so... anyways, here are a couple of tracks from the band's 2008 self-titled album. Time to go study!

God Is An Astronaut - Echoes


God Is An Astronaut - Zodiac


edit, moments after posting: I don't use the term 'niblets' as a negative thing, here. Niblets can be delicious. Sometimes it's nicer to have a bite of steak than a full-on 20-ounce T-bone. Mmm, steak...

Swing Baby Swing

Y'all feel like a little jazz tonight? It's a beautiful Wednesday, ya know - I've got chicken and vegetables simmering in my slowcooker, textbooks sitting on my desk, and a beautiful evening fading slowly towards darknessoutside my window. Let's groove, eh?

As always, though, I'm bringing y'all some ish with a little bit of a twist to it. The Diablo Swing Orchestra isn't what y'all might call conventional. There's sure as heck some danceable beats in there - 'Balrog Boogie,' the first track on the "Butcher's Ballroom" album, starts out with basic hi-hat and upright bass on the intro - but then bursts into a full-throated electric-guitar-and-trumpet-and-cello pseudo-roar, followed moments later by singer who's obviously well-schooled in screamo, followed in turn by an operatic soprano whose voice soars and floats over the continuingly turgid pseudo-jazz undercurrents.

Diablo Swing Orchestra - Balrog Boogie


Sound complicated? A quick glance at the band's Wikipedia page is enough to make you wince... for one thing, the band is listed as "Swedish avant-garde metal." Ouch. While I can't really argue with that, there's a lot more to the Diablo Swing Orchestra than such a limiting and cliched description. The Wikipedia page also lists a long and complicated anti-establishment pseudo-backstory.

Once you get past the pretentiousness, though, there's a really fun band here; more than that, there's a really fun band here that has the potential to ascend towards the top echelons of jazz-metal greatness (wait... who else, exactly, might be in that echelon? I'm asking this kind of seriously. If any of y'all know, shoot me an email - sprawwling@hotmail.com). Anyways, I'll leave y'all with a link to DSO's Myspace and a page where they've put up the entire Butcher's Ballroom album for free listening and download. Go check it out! Worst case, your eardrums will bleed a little bit (warning: a didgeridoo is involved). Best case, you'll find a cool new band with an awesome, freely available album.

Hope y'all enjoy! I'm off to be pretentious and enjoy the Seattle evening.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Classic. Listen. Know. Now.

A warning: this isn't new music that I'm writing about today. It's a decade or more old. It's also pretty famous, if not nearly famous enough.

Any of y'all post-rock fans out there almost certainly know GY!BE already; they're sort of the linchpins to the entire genre. Any of y'all who haven't heard of Godspeed... I'm tempted to say something along the lines of 'shame on you', but I'm not going to. I'll just say that you're missing out on something truly special, something that verges on (if it doesn't cross over fully into the land of) mind-blowing.

I say this without equivocation: the first time I really sat down and listened to Godspeed You! Black Emperor's 1997 album 'F#A#oo' (that's 'F-sharp A-sharp infinity), my mind was utterly blown. This isn't to say that there isn't good stuff on GY!BE's other albums - I'm fond of 'Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven' and 'Tiny Silver Hammers' - but F#A#oo was what made me fall in love.

This isn't pop music, and if you go into it looking for pop music, you'll be confused and put off. The song I'm including with this post, 'The Dead Flag Blues', is slow in places. It has room to be; it's 16 1/2 minutes long. It makes me think of the ocean on a warm, cloudless night. It builds as calmly and inexorably as the incoming tide, solemn guitar and strings rolling in like breakers past a sandbar. The only words in the song are from a poem, and they're spoken (not sung) in a stark bass voice: "The car's on fire / and there's no driver at the wheel / and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides," the voice intones. Cheery stuff, I know... but brilliant.

Another warning: this isn't music to be listened to through cheap computer speakers. Not that any music should be, but you can get the gist of Britney Spears or Taylor Swift no matter how scratchy and flat the sound might be. Not so much this. GY!BE is music that demands to be experiences in quality - good speakers, or at least a decent pair of headphones. The difference in the experience is truly astounding.

Gahh - anyways. Listen. If you like it, pick up the album, or any of Godspeed's other work. F#A#oo has two other tracks, 'East Hastings' and 'Providence', both of which are, if not equally jaw-dropping, beautiful in their own right.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues

Quick Posting: A Hawk And A Hacksaw,

Sorry my pace has dropped off a bit... I've kind of gotten into the flow of the quarter now and OH MY GOD THE PACE. (for the eight or so of you who made it through Honors with me: remember Honors 4? It's like I've got that class. Every day. For four hours.) So... I've been a little bit busy.

Anyways: I can compensate! By posting YouTube videos, which take less time to embed than mp3s!

So, then: I've got a treat for all you lovers of violin-and-accordion duets! That's right... you guessed it... or, more probably, didn't...

A Hawk And A Hacksaw - I Am Not A Gambling Man


Kind of interesting, no? I'm still trying to figure out whether I like it or not, precisely, but it's at least something to consider.

In terms of things I do most definitely like, though, I give you Art Brut... or would have, except that they're apparently being kind of pathetic and have disabled embedding on their newest music video. So NO PROMOTION FOR YOU! (note: I'm not even going to tag them in the post! because that'll show them... or something)

I'd also like to mention that I went to see It Might Get Loud last night. That movie was completely, completely amazing - if you're interested at all in music, or more generally in the creative process, go. Watch it. Get a bucket of popcorn (light on the butter; one can never be too careful of one's arterial health), get a seat near the front, and let the sheer awesomeness of it make you dance like a spaz in your seat (with no offense meant to spazzes). Jimmy Page is amazing. That is all.

Have a great afternoon!

Sarah Jarosz: Because, On Occasion, I Creep

So the other night about three AM, I was sitting by myself, in a dark room, reading peoples' facebook pages when I came across (in one particular friend's 'favorite music' section) Sarah Jarosz. Being, by nature, a curious sort of fellow, I said to myself: 'Hey! That's an interesting name!' I then clicked on the link to the lovely Ms. Jarosz's website (note: I don't have any basis to say whether she's actually lovely or not, since I'd (1) categorize that as a personality trait and (2) have never met her).

Upon the website loading into my browser (yay Firefox!), I saw that the headline item in the 'latest news' section was that Ms. Jarosz was going to perform on Prairie Home Companion on September 26. Being generally a non-Garrison-Keillor-loving sort of fellow - no offense to the man or the show, it just doesn't light me up the way it does some folks - I didn't take that as an encouraging sign that I would love her music. I pressed on, however, as I usually do - because, after all, anything's worth listening to once, right? (please don't kill me, sir... please...)

Anyways, all fear of Mr. T aside (he has a tank, you know... and so can you!) when I listened to Ms. Jarosz's music, I was pretty much blown away. There's an unusual level of virtuosity in her banjo playing (don't hold the instrument against her - she uses it well), and her voice is smooth as a velvet hand. While some of her songs - her cover of The Decemberists' 'Shankill Butchers', for example - are relatively unadorned, they never feel overly simplistic; and when, in other tracks, she chooses to go for a more multi-layered and fuller feel, the arrangements never overwhelm the songs, instead adding depth and color.

Take a listen! I think you'll like. All songs are from Ms. Jarosz's debut (and, so far, only) album, 'Song Up In Her Head', which dropped in June of this year. The album's available on Amazon and on iTunes, and you can preview every song on the music page of Ms. Jarosz's website.

Sarah Jarosz - Shankill Butchers


Sarah Jarosz - Song Up In Her Head


Sarah Jarosz - Broussard's Lament


Have a great Sunday afternoon, everyone!