Happy New Year! Here's a round-up of the music I've been recommending this week on Twitter.
For Everyone
Tycho:Coastal Break - Fine 3Hive recommendation led me to this trancey-dancey electronic track, which is very good.
Brooke Fraser:Albertine - One of my favourite artists has made one of the best tracks on her excellent second album available. It has rhythm, passion, melody, intelligently personal and challenging lyrics as well as beauty and is an essential download.
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are paranoically restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
Corinne Bailey Rae:It Be's That Way Sometime - A typical relaxed lounge-feeling track from her, good download.
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Lou Rhodes:There For The Taking - Beautiful new track from Lou Rhodes, who you'll recognise as the voice of Lamb but whose new solo direction is a foundation for 21st century folk.
The Middle East:Blood - Despite the unpromising names, this is a charming and strong track that's worth the download.
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Here's a round-up of the music I've been recommending this week on Twitter. It was a busy download week and I have thrown away a load of other tracks that I didn't like as much as these. Signs are that there will be many Christmas-themed tracks in the next two weeks, plus I just downloaded three full sampler albums (of which more next week) so the sampler season is upon us again.
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
Eliza Doolittle:Police Car - Laid back chill-jam that's Lily Allen in all but name. ***
For US Readers
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Jeb Patton:The Music Goes On - Tasteful piano-led lounge jazz, a good choice if that's your thing (it is mine). ****
Ingrid Michaelson:Sort Of (Live) - Piano-and-vocal angsty love song from capable female singer-songwriter. She's like so many other artists I enjoy listening to, yet I can't bring myself to love this for some reason. ***½
The Little Heroes:Say I'll Be Gone and Common Ground - Two decent soft-rock tracks by a promising band - I'll be watching out for them. ****
Christmas tracks abound. If they are your thing check daily on the 25 Days of Free page (worth bookmarking if you do).
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Once again, here's a round-up of the music I've been recommending this week on Twitter.
For Everyone
Valleys:Tan Lines - Elemental shoegaze, whispered female lyrics, native-style drumming - what's not to love? ****
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
Ghostape:Many Stars - All this electronic chill track really has going for it is that it's free in the UK. Messy but OK as part of a larger mix. ***
For US Readers
An excellent selection on Amazon US this week for Thanksgiving, I recommend you try all of the 4* and 5* tracks.
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Debbie Davies:Percolatin' - Excellent blues/rock'n'roll guitar, love it. *****
Sheva:The Closest Thing - Just the sort of thing you'd expect me to like (strong female voice leading musically rounded soft-pop-rock ballad). ****
Mulatu Astatke:Mulatu - It's common for jazz musicians to produce a self-titled track as a defining signature. This interesting, syncopated and varied track seems an excellent introduction. ****
Deleted Waveform Gatherings:The Doorway - Like an extract from some 70s prog-rock, and as such I quite like it, despite the slightly tacky synth effects. ****
System And Station:Love Etc. - Promising rock but a touch shouty for my tastes. ***
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Here's a round-up of the music I've been recommending this week on Twitter.
For Everyone
UltraChorus:3Hive has links to two rather good free tracks of throbby "bubblegum pop", worth looking. ****
For US Readers
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Excellent sampler from Brushfire Records starts with a deliciously slouchy Jack Johnson track and goes on with a relaxed Saturday vibe. *****
Kings of Convenience:Boat Behind - Great Kings track, charmingly retro with the rhythm of the oars on the guitars. ****
Audra May:The River - minor-key ballad with a travelling rhythm, guitar & snare. Good track. ****
Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble:Semi-Detached - Deliciously spacey, Philip Glass-inspired new music fusion track. The bass heartbeat and twiddly (technical term) instrumetals complete it and make it one of favourite tracks of late. *****
Barlow Girl:Hello Sunshine - Pop music wannabes from the "Contemporary Christian" twilight zone. Sorry, this track lacks the energy and conviction to succeed with people lacking other motives to listen. ***
Clare & The Reasons:Oooh You Hurt Me So - Twee girlpop with retro feel, may be worth a try if you need more twee in your life. ***
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Here's a round-up of the music I've been recommending this week on Twitter.
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
Jack Johnson:If I Had Eyes - Typically syncopated, guitar-led ballad from a live performance. Easy on the ears. ***
Once again not Music, but you may be interested if you liked the look of the Chill Pill travel speakers I mentioned a while back. Amazon Vine sent me a LINX B-Tube to try. It's a USB-charged bluetooth stereo speaker system in a 6" steel tube, which also has line-in. Sounds quality is tremendous, and when used with a cellphone it doubles as a great speaker-phone with echo cancellation. Battery life is surprisingly long (on the scale of a couple of days from one charge) and it comes with USB cables (as well as charging from a normal Nokia charger too). I've been travelling with it the last two weeks and I love it. Mine was free but at £15 I don't think you can go wrong.
For US Readers
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Great Lake Swimmers:Pulling On A Line - Still producing reliably comfortable folk/pop, this track follows in earlier footsteps and signals another workmanlike album. ***
Boozoo Bajou:Same Sun - Deliciously laid-back female lounge vocals, love it ****
Rodrigo Y Gabriela:Hanuman - Energetic flamencoesque instrumental track will have you dancing around the room stomping your feet ****
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
The New 5:New York Hotel - Good jazz track, with enough melody to be pleasing and enough syncopated modernity to be interesting. 8 enjoyable minutes of music. ****
Ben Allison: Fred - More pleasing jazz. Creative brass-led and lyrical instrumental ballad. ****
Rusty Anderson:Where Would We Go? - Buskerish singer-songwriter ballad. ***
The Duchess & the Duke:Hands - Strummy/twangy semi-acoustic ballad with added cheesy organ and mournful lyric. ***
A Bad Think:Long WayTo Go - Simon & Garfunkle-ish guitar-led ballad but with reflective female vocals. I quite like it. ****
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Here's my round-up of music recommendations for the week.
For Everyone
Tom Waitswill send you the first 8 tracks of his new album in exchange for any working e-mail address (I love Spam Gourmet!) Not my taste at all, but some readers may be fans.
They aren't free, but you may like to explore the "album" I have put together of Imogen Heap'sRarities and B-Sides. I realised I had accumulated a wide selection of very good collaborations by her and decided to put a page together collecting them.
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
Seasick Steve:That's All - Live sampler track of the grungy blues rocker. ***
Way Out West:Ultra Violet - Good, throbbing drum & bass dance track
For US Readers
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
The Swell Season:In These Arms haunting folk duet. ****
Lights:Saviour - Yes, that's the correct spelling despite being a US track. Ambiguous love-song in child-like vocoded voice with pulsing, running electronica backing. Curiously compelling. ****
[Note that these links and offers are highly likely to corrode over time]
Here is my free and recommended music roundup for the week ending Friday October 9th.
For Everyone
Absolutely wonderful music video of Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie, with charming stop-frame and a great, gentle ballad. Free stuff worked for Oren; I bought the album.
For UK Readers
Amazon UK downloads are restricted to UK IP addresses regardless of account status
The Raveonettes:Suicide - Rocky little number as a sampler of their new album, pretty good, and it breaks the drought for UK free tracks.
I wish there was something to report, but in the UK the Lily Allen mindset (that's the modern, airheaded version of the Metallica mindset for those of you with any history) is so strong among music promoters that the very idea of letting you listen to anything without paying for it first is anathema. This is the real reason they are in trouble. The only people who get to listen to new music are people who are willing to take the risk to download it in the face of the witch-hunt, or pay speculatively based on breathless fanboyism. The rest of us just keep listening to our back catalogue...
For US Readers
Meanwhile, there's no shortage of free tracks and sampler albums over in the US. Clearly promoters over there are discovering that letting people hear an artist can easily lead to selling more of their music.
Amazon US downloads are restricted to verified US account-holders
Black Whales:Books On Tape - Pretty routine if gritty-ish soft rock, with enough energy to make it worth a try. ***
Mike Keneally:Inhale - Despite the heavy opening this is actually another ballad. Pace is rather slow and style treacly, lyric delivery a bit strained, not really to my taste but not bad. ***
The Maldives:Tequila Sunday - The nasal intonation, fiddle riffs and the pedal steel confirm that this scratch-band rock number is from a "country" group, but it's actually quite rocky otherwise. I went to give it 3 stars and surprised myself by wanting to give it a 4th. ****
So is the Verve Vault Rhythm, Strings and Cool Breezy Jazz Sample, which has some of my all-time favourite jazz classics on it and is would have been worth paying for (well, apart from the fact I have all of them already!) *****
As a footnote, the Celtic Sampler I warmly recommended a few weeks ago obviously is worth paying for as Amazon is now charging $8.99 for it!
This week's selection of music fetishes as posted to Twitter, aggregated here for your delectation, delight and convenience. Americans should get the Neko Case track, Brits the David Grey track.
For UK Readers
The Amazon UK store only allows downloads from IP addresses in the UK.
Chill Pill Speakers - I borrowed a pair of these from Norm Walsh at XML Summer School so people could hear the audio. They are tiny, yet manage to create a huge and complete sound. They have retractable cables and rechargeable batteries. So desirable I instantly ordered a pair.
David Grey:First Chance - sounds just like David Grey, so if you like that you'll probably enjoy this track. I do.
Animal Kingdom:Silence Summons You- perfectly pleasant band, I'll be watching for other stuff by them.
For US Readers
The Amazon US store only allows downloads by customers with a US-based account.
Chill Pill Speakers - see above, the reviews give more detail on the US Amazon site and the speakers are substantially cheaper.
Rufus Wainright:I Don't Know What It Is - Live performance of a likeable if rather plodding ballad. Rather over-orchestrated so that he gets a bit lost in all the instrumentation, but he has a great voice and this is a worthwhile download. I gather this is a bonus track not on his new CD.
Anti- Fall Sampler - pretty variable sampler. There's a splendid Neko Case track, Magpie to the Morning, and The Swell Season are good with In These Arms. The venerable Brazilian band Os Mutantes with Teclar aren't bad and I quite liked Jason Lytle with Rollin' Home Alone. The rest - well, I listened so you didn't have to!
The Apples In Stereo:The Bird That You Can't See - bouncy buzzy pop with a retro tinge, as you'd expect from them.
Kate Walsh'sAcoustic EP is still available free for US download (although curiously the individual tracks aren't). Get it now if you haven't already.
[Note that these links may corrode over time. Part of a series]
Just in time for Labor Day weekend for some of you (and a patch of light at the end of the first week back after the holiday for the rest of us), here's this week's pick of the freebies and goodies. Get them while they are hot, they are sure to go away after a while.
For UK Readers
These are free from the Amazon UK MP3 store. Amazon UK won't let you download unless you are connecting from a UK IP address, regardless of your account status.
Kate WalshAcoustic EP - three lovely acoustic versions of tracks from her new album. The charming-näif-style gets wearing after a while so I'll take some convincing I want the album, but this EP is definitely recommended. This just showed up on Amazon US as well.
The Sargent House Sampler is a real mix, with some decent tracks between - uh - less good ones. My highlights were tracks 1, 5, 7 and 12, especially that last Red Sparowes one which brings to mind The Engineers. This selection is also available from Amazon US.
For US Readers
These are all free from Amazon US MP3 store. Amazon will let you download from anywhere, but only people with a US address and credit card can do so.
It's not music but it's too good a deal to ignore - Cory Doctorow's excellent book Little Brother in hardback for the price of a cheap paperback. It's a modern polemic about digital freedoms, set in San Francisco and intended for children but a good read for everyone.
United Breaks Guitars - A Marketing Case Study In The Making
To my surprise, I've found quite a few people who have missed what I think will become one of the classic case-studies in customer management and PR in the web age. It stretches back over a year and involves a talented Canadian folk musician, Dave Carroll, and the story of his trip with his band to perform in Nebraska.
The band was forced to check in their guitars as luggage, and used strong hard-sided cases for the purpose. While in transit at Chicago flying on United Airlines, passengers saw United baggage handlers tossing the guitars across the tarmac with abandon. The United crew on the plane did nothing to help him and it was in Nebraska that he was finally able to check his $3,500 guitar, only to find the neck broken. Dave tried for over a year to get some explanation and compensation from United, but got a final "no" at the start of 2009. His parting message to the United representative was that he intended to write three folk songs about the experience.
Good to his word, Dave and the band created a folk masterpiece - a wryly humourous song with a catchy, pacy guitar tune and a great hook - and recorded it to their usual production quality. They also engaged a video producer and produced a funny and watchable music video. The whole package appeared on YouTube last week and is reaching record viewing figures already. It's so good I went looking for a way to buy and download it - Dave is now selling the MP3, hopefully briskly.
Before long, this phenomenal take-up caught news attention and the video appeared on the US news channels, including CNN and Fox. In each case the reporters sided with the underdog and applauded the song. The manufacturer of Dave's guitar also jumped in, posting a nice video discussing how to get your guitar mended and suggesting United didn't know the rules when they forced the guitars in the hold.
After all this attention, United finally decided they might have a problem. They called Dave and offered him compensation. He responded by saying he wasn't interested in that any more - United had the chance to say that all last year and didn't. He told them that if they wanted to pay money, to give it to charity. United picked a music charity and optimistically posted on Twitter that the matter was now sorted - nothing to see folks, move along.
If only. Dave has posted a short video on YouTube where he says that song two is even better than song one and should be ready in August. I've not seen anywhere that United has responded on YouTube yet, and I suspect their unhappiness will only get deeper until they embrace the situation rather than trying to "solve" it. This one could run and run, and when it's done I think every corporate marketing team will use it as a case study.
Update August 18th:This one will run & run - part 2 is now live:
Live, as required, in Sydney I don't know if it was the afternoon start, the problems with her keyboard, or something else altogether. But Juana Molina did not seem pleased to see a room full of people out to enjoy her remarkable and accomplished music in Sydney last Saturday. She seemed elsewhere - had nothing to say, commented condescendingly as if our presence was unwelcome or the venue beneath her, seemed ill at ease throughout the performance.
The music was worth hearing though. I'd not fully appreciated that everthing she does is live, and had anticipated canned loops throughout. As it is, she creates every song live, recording the guitar or keyboard notes in mid-flight and weaving the set-up into the song. My respect for her talent is greater than before - she is clearly someone deeply practiced in what she does.
The incident with the keyboard was also impressive. The one she was using failed and a replacement found. She performed while it was installed, performed while it was configured and loaded (from the floppy disk in her guitar case) and weaved the testing of the new one into the next song. All thoroughly professional.
The sound she makes live isn't as clean and rounded as her recorded sound - that's obviously polished in the studio before the bits hit the disk. Her audience was perhaps muted as well. It seemed to comprise women dragging along bemused partners to experience the happening. Row upon row of alternating nodding and bemused, tilted heads spanned the tent.
Finally the end came. Once the regulation period of suitable applause was submitted, Juana Molina returned for her required encore, delivered it with excellent professionalism and departed, perhaps a little surprised to discover how many of us were actually fans rather than anthropologists. Overall a worthwhile afternoon, but I'm not sure that her inner entertainer really shone through.
Club 8
It was 3Hive that put me on to Swedish duo Club 8 ages ago. I sat and listened to them this weekend and thought it was time to pass on the goodness. According to their Wikipedia entry, they got together in 1995, and since then they've produced six albums.
What's striking about their sound is how much Dido owes to their singer, Karolina Komstedt, who sings with unstoppable calm regardless of the energy or pathos of the song. I've really enjoyed listening over the weekend.
They've placed enough free tracks on their web site to constitute a sampler album. Here are pointers to them, playable in-browser assuming the JavaScript works.
Brooke Fraser Browsing around on iTunes a week or so ago, I spotted a music video for sale called C.S. Lewis Song. Pretty intriguing title, so I sampled and discovered Brooke Fraser for the first time. She has a stunningly pure voice and the lyrics of her music are thoughtful and for a change mostly not about relationships, so I've dug further - first to the other (excellent) iTunes video, Shadowfeet, and then further to her most recent album, Albertine, from which both those songs are taken.
Turns out that she is from New Zealand and this is her second album. The first, What To Do With Daylight, is also excellent and made her a star in her home country with Arithmetic and other tracks. She's moved to Sydney since then, spent some of her new wealth on sponsoring children in Africa and got married.
The whole album is excellent - I've scored almost every track as 4 stars. The title track is available free from her website and is strong and compelling, as is the back-story. Her voice remains compelling at both ends of her range, and all the lyrics are refreshingly deep and spiritual.
To get a taste, browse her YouTube channel where all her music videos show up. While her record label is clearly trying to make sure we don't find out too easily, it turns out she is also making great worship music as a member of Hillsong United. I am captivated by her song Hosanna for example.
She's about to tour the US at the moment, and I think she's got a strong career ahead of her. She joins Delta Goodrem and Missy Higgins in my "antipodeans to watch" category and I suggest you give a try too.
Norwegian Music
Sitting in the hotel (right next to Herr Nielsen's Jazz Club) last night in Oslo I realised that the music I was listening to on my laptop was just track after track of Norwegian music. There was Beady Belle, then Thomas Dybdahl (try Damn Heart or Half Of Me, both free B-sides, and my absolute favourite single Love Story), then Ane Brun - and that's ignoring nearby Scandinavians like Teitur and Tina Dico (try this. Wonder how I'd missed the connection for so long?
Update: As Walter points out, I forgot the most obvious musician (and the one who features largest in my collection), Jan Garbarek.
Amazing Grace Another free taster has done its work and I've now got Grace Potter and the Nocturnals on rotation, specifically their album This Is Somewhere [UK]. The free track that hooked me is only free until tomorrow so you'd better pounce - Apologies, a lost-love ballad that is among the quietest tracks.
Despite the samples Amazon has chosen, the rest of the album is much more rocky, with the sort of hard edge that the sparse historic line of female rockers would be proud of. If you do buy the album, you might also want to pop over to iTunes and buy the bonus track they have over there, despite the DRM grief they want to give you.
In Praise of Freeloaders
I think I'll be going along to listen to Bryn Haworth tonight locally, a guitarist I've not heard live since the early 80s. The friend I was talking with wanted to know what he sounded like, so I went to his web site to look for a sampler. Nothing there. Bryn is clearly only interested in people who already know what he sounds like. No free sample track. Not even any track previews.
So conversation turned to the paradox of the new web-mediated market and how some musicians don't seem to get it. I assume the thinking goes "I make my money by selling music, so why should I give any away to freeloaders". But that's so superficial. By giving me a few tracks to listen to, you're much more likely to recruit me to the ranks of admiring fans, since without them all I have to go on is your photograph (or maybe if you're a bit more avant garde some stuff I can awkwardly stream while at my desk).
Giving away samples is very effective. I follow a couple of web sites (3Hive, Lost at E Minor) that review and point to free tracks and the main way I have found new artists of late has been through those sites and the free tracks on iTMS and Amazon MP3. In the shake-down that's coming, I suspect it will be the artists who treat music lovers looking for music as "freeloaders" who will join the RIAA whining about how no-one loves them, while the enlightened part of the industry moves into the new mainstream.
The Guggenheim Grotto I'm not sure what drew my attention back to them, but I bought an album (for the benefit of those who have been asking that's a useful archaic term for "a collection of related MP3s grouped under a fanciful name") by The Guggenheim Grotto, an Irish acoustic/folk band with a talent for both lyrics and melodies. I'd first picked up their track Told You So off the 2006 SXSW sampler and then Philosophia showed up as a free song on iTMS US. That second track finally got to me and I decided to get the whole album, Waltzing Alone (that's Amazon MP3 and US-only, but Amazon UK has the CD).
There's a lot of Oasis sound in there, but it's generally more accessible and laid back (and, yes, I suppose, OK, I admit it, melancholic) as well as heading deep into folk sounds (try Rosanna). 'Philosophia' is still a stand-out, but several others are already sticking including the thoughtful Koan and the fascinating close harmonies of Ozymandias which is indeed derived from the Shelley poem. On continuous play and recommended - the free EP on their download page is great and they have even got ready-to-use free ringtones there.
I ran into Wax Poetic the first time when I found they were the band that Norah Jones started with before she was famous, but this newer stuff is much more international - like a raw Les Nubians with a jazz break. Give the Last.FM embed above a try.
By the way, if you'd looked at their 2003 album Nublu Sessions on iTMS and wondered what the missing track 1 was, it's there on Amazon with no DRM. Turns out it's a fantastic pre-fame Norah Jones track called Tell Me.
[Fixed the post time on this one, it was set in the past for some reason]
I expect I am the last person in Britain to find Kosheen, but I saw a replay of the "Later..." appearance they made in 2001 and immediately had to go hunting for their music. Fortunately their latest album Damage is there on Amazon MP3 so I'm already luxuriating to stuff like Overkill (that's the embedded Last.FM video above) as well as working my way through their large channel on YouTube. It's the best of Massive Attack with a pinch of Evanescence and a healthy dose of Depeche Mode. Tasty, it's keeping the windows rattling.
Fink
OK, I could get into this Last.FM video thing. I have really been enjoying this week's free track on iTunes UK, "This is the thing" by Fink (not free in iTMS US, sorry). It's just so laid back and delicious. Turns out the video is there on Last.FM - here it is. Love it.
Last Video
I noticed a few weeks ago that Last.FM had added a video tab to all the artist pages, but I couldn't find any. Today I got some promo-spam from them pointing to a few videos. It turns out there's some pretty good stuff hanging around on there - best so far is this one from KT Tunstall.
More Feist
Still enjoying using Amazon MP3 (you'll need to use a US delivery address to buy stuff). Today I finally got round to buying Leslie Feist's The Reminder. I'm not sure that the single, 1234, is the best track on the album. It all sounds rather like Let It Die (try Secret Heart or Mushaboom), which in my view is a good thing, but if you're trying her out for the first time you'll only want one of those albums.
They are selling current chart music in the US at 89¢ per track (cheaper albums too), and delivering it directly into iTunes in MP3 format. And just to add insult to injury, they let me test the service with a free track from "The Apples in Stereo", as if to ask why iTMS is still in mono and offering less for more.
Argentine Magic
The sample tracks finally managed to displace A Fine Frenzy from continuous play, so I gave in and bought not one but two albums by Juana Molina. I really liked the three free tracks from Son [UK|US|iTMS] and I previewed the rest of the album on iTunes. It's clear she is getting more experimental over time, and several tracks on Son will be challengingly avante-garde to some ears, not least the title track. But I adore La Verdad as well as Rio Seco.
By contrast, her previous album Tres Cosas [UK|US|iTMS] is hypnotic and soothing. The title track is especially good.
This is all just the sound that's wooing me - I still have no idea what any of the songs is about. I'll have to beg Ana to translate for me!
Juana Molina
I have been following a site called Lost At E Minor for a while now. They have an eclectic mix of art and music on there, often with an antipodean slant that means there's frequently material I don't see on places like 3Hive.
Today they had an excellent pointer to Juana Molina, an Argentinian actress and musician who weaves magical soundscapes with voice and instruments. Her breathy and ethereal voice is accompanied by loops she creates with various instruments. The sound her one-woman-orchestra builds is sufficiently avant garde to be edgy, yet has sufficient melody and gentleness to be beautiful. If only I spoke Spanish. Her new album, Son may well be in my future...
The track they have posted is wonderful, and I quickly snapped across to her own site and found a bounty of richness. There are an additional eight tracks on the Download page. Go explore, especially the videos - I just wish I was going to São Paulo on October 4 so I could go to the concert there.
A Fine Frenzy
Just a quick alert for those of you using iTunes US - the free track this week is really good. It's A Fine Frenzy - You Picked Me and will appeal to Feist fans among others. Go for it!
Danish Music Too - Tina Dico Live
It seems this is destined to be a Denmark-dominated week for me. This time it's not to do with OOXML and ODF though. Instead, I spotted a new album on iTunes US - an electronic-only live album by Tina Dico. If you've enjoyed the vocals on Zero 7's albums it's probably been Tina Dico you've been appreciating, but she's far more interesting than that.
She's another artist like Kate Walsh and Imogen Heap (who by the way is blogging the writing of her new album) charting her only course by self-published music rather than allowing the customer-hating, musician-abusing music industry to rip her off. I note her new EP is only available at live performances, and that she has different products on iTunes and Amazon, so she's a great example of what Dare doubts is workable.
Her album In The Red was pretty good, and this new album is a full length live album - "Live at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse". It's very simple - her gorgeous voice (perhaps a little shouty once or twice), accompanied by acoustic guitar (with splashes of electric here or there). Her songs are full of regret and the tone of the whole album is somewhat maudlin. She is well able to hold the stage just with her voice and accompaniment and overall it is a superb folk album that deserves a hearing. Unlike her EP Far there's sufficient new material here to make a current fan want to check it out too.
Genoud in Honolulu I've stopped in Honolulu on my way to JavaOne, pretty much because I could (I am using an air ticket where stops are free, and the hotel here is less than half the price the one in San Francisco is gouging out of me). I spent the day walking from Waikiki towards the town, and quickly came to the conclusion that Waikiki is not designed for a fat fortysomething married guy travelling alone. While I was walking though I did get the chance to listen to one of the new albums I've bought.
The album in question is 'Aqua' by Moncef Genoud. Yes, hardly a name that's rattling around the charts. This is another one where I got a free track from iTunes and went back for the album. It's great jazz, deliciously syncopated and melodic, with the sort of rhythms and melodies that remind me of Brubeck and Take Five. Putting it on repeat, it was all I could go not to hum along with it as I was wandering around Ala Moana shopping centre, realising that almost all the stores sell designer clothing for people other than me.
It was the title track that first hooked me, with its descending minor-key melody that runs as a motif through the whole album. Genoud improvises beautifully on piano, and he has sax and drums supporting effectively (I miss having sleeve notes). All ten tracks are long, around 8 minutes, and the confection lasted easily with only one track skipped (10) until after sunset for me in a walk on the beach watching the waves lit by the lights on the promenade. Just as bouncy Venus Hum was a good soundtrack for a Saturday morning walking towards Bondi from Sydney CBD, so Genoud provided a great soundtrack for a day even more alone in dense crowds in Honolulu.
Mais Um Lamento
I've not mentioned the iTunes US free tracks for quite a while, in the main because they have lately been so unmemorable that I've forgotten them within moments of hearing them. However, this week's 'Discovery Download' is very good, and since it's by a Brazilian singer it's topical too. The track Mais Um Lamento ("one more regret") by Céu is laid back, sultry and very Brazilian (even if it stretched my Portuguese to the limit!). If you've a US iTunes account go get it before it expires next Monday.
Kate Walsh and the Crumbling Monopoly I posted a couple of weekends ago about singer-songwriter Kate Walsh and the delicious track iTunes UK were giving away that week. I'd actually heard another of her tracks, on the SXSW showcase, and loved that one too. Try the free SXSW Showcase track, Your Song.
Those of you in the UK can go straight to iTunes as I just did and buy the whole album (it's only £4.74, amazingly ungreedy of her, almost double on plastic on Amazon). Those of you in the US can get it on the iTunes US store already too, it seems.
Turns out that this weekend she hit the new-era big time, which she deserves without a doubt - check out the clipping on her blog from The Times. No, not a number 1 single or even a number 1 album - she was top of the chart on iTunes! She has a super voice, singing hauntingly to her own guitar accompaniment (with the odd seagull added for effect). The album has many tracks I'll be playing over and over, not least that free one I linked above.
It also reveals how the music monopoly is gradually crumbling. Like Imogen Heap, who you've also read about here, she decided to start her own label rather than submit to the greed of the music industry (by the looks of it after tasting first hand how far that was going to take her). She is working incredibly hard - look at that tour schedule - but it's paying off.
You'll see in the article she was unimpressed by the industry meat market she found at SXSW Music in the US, and she stuck to her guns. The key to market access here was not talent scouts or "being signed" but iTunes and her own courage. The Music Store gave her access to a market ready to experiment and ready to buy. I'm sure she had to pay dearly to be the "free track" two weekends ago, and that aspect still sucks, but her gamble paid off.
It's the music-downloading-public that's given her this victory. The same ones who hang out on MySpace, the same ones who like to download tracks by new artists (hint to Kate: that free SXSW track could be the making of you after all and could make up for the meat market!). The same people the music industry hates and accuses of theft. Only it turns out we (as a category, probably mostly as individuals too when the price is this honest) will pay when we can for what we actually want. And the ones who won't will probably pay for a live gig. And the rest - well, who cares really once those two groups are paying at the point of value?
When we hear the RIAA and their cronies moaning about how downloads are killing their industry, they are right and we are cheering. Their greed, lack of imagination and hatred for their customers means the demand is being met not by their scheming but by the talent that's making its own way to the market through the new channels. Let's hope they stay clueless long enough for the revolution to truly take hold and build a new industry without them!
Kate Walsh
It's been a while since I've liked one of the free tracks that iTunes is giving it's UK users, but this week's track - Talk of the Town, by Kate Walsh - is pretty good, if you like female singer-songwriter-guitarist stuff (which by now you may be working out that I do - although not exclusively, James!) Worth downloading and liberating to CD.
Update Apr-9: Well, another new talent you heard here first, folks! She hit the number one spot in the iTunes UK chart this weekend - check out the clipping on her blog. I just hope she'll be performing some place near where I am soon. The more I listen to this, the more hauntingly gorgeous I find it, and the way she just beat the system and cut out all those people-hating music middle-men bodes well for the future of music. More on today's blog.
Download 3Gb of New Music
I attended last year but I'm going to miss South-by-Southwest this year, sadly, since there's no way I can get to Austin from my European commitments. I'll be vicariously attending, though, thanks to their gargantuan music showcase. I downloaded it in 2005 and 2006 and much of the music I routinely listen to was stuff I encountered in the Showcase.
The 2007 Showcase is now available and when it all finally arrives (download in progress) I am certain there will be a load of new music that I will love. It's a 3Gb directory full of music, delivered via BitTorrent. Grab it and we can compare notes.
Amazon Is Parochial
I find Amazon something of a paradox. They have some very innovative thinking in their retail business, and I find the "associates" scheme very effective (I am now using their AStore to manage three of my interests lists, on photography, books and music). Yet they have an amazing blind spot when it comes to geography.
The problem is this; the Associates schemes for each country are distinct. They have stores in many different countries and they expect me to maintain totally separate accounts on each of them. I could live with that, but it gets worse. To earn credit for a sale delivered in a country, I have to have an account in that country and I have to use the unique ID for that country in the referral. To do that, I would have to know which country the reader resides in. Amazon provides no assistance in doing this. The result is that, in the case of AStore, I need to have completely separate stores for each country. I don't bother, the return on the effort isn't worth it since my primary motivation is actually having a simple CMS rather than driving revenue anyway.
How can such an advanced company have such a huge blind-spot when it comes to the international nature of the Internet? I have readers in every country where Amazon does business, and from one page I could be gathering attention for their products in all those countries. As it is, they pretty much force me to focus just on the readers in the UK and the US. How myopic and reactionary. Come on, Amazon, get with the Web on this one.
New Booklist for a New Year
I decided that my old book-list page on Webmink was looking a bit freyed around the edges, so I have been meaning to rework it for some time. The problem is that editing HTML takes a repeated investment in time. That's the reason I use an aggregator to build my home page - it simply gathers the work I've already done elsewhere automatically rather than requiring an additional process step.
This, by the way, is the reason most club, small business and church web sites fail - because people don't factor in the effort involved in working regularly to keep things fresh. All they look at is the up-front effort and cost, cover that and then fail to budget for upkeep. It's also the reason gathering metrics for driving quality improvement in an organisation fails if the data-gathering is an additional process step. If you need a metric, measure something people have to do in order to achieve the goal, don't ask them to fill in an extra form or visit an extra web site because when the going gets tough they just won't.
This is all by way of saying that I may have found the perfect tool in Amazon AStore. You'll remember I have been using it to document my camera system - well, I think it may be the perfect mechanism for creating an attractive and useful book list as well. Take a look and let me know what you think of that and the new music list, both with comments of the length I use on del.icio.us for links.
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(c) 2003-10, Simon Phipps. Some items may be repeated in the editorial column on the home page.
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Browsing around on iTunes a week or so ago, I spotted a music video for sale called 
Another free taster has done its work and I've now got 
I'm not sure what drew my attention back to them, but I bought an album (for the benefit of those who have been asking that's a useful archaic term for "a collection of related MP3s grouped under a fanciful name") by 
. I'm not sure that the single, 
I've stopped in Honolulu on my way to JavaOne, pretty much because I could (I am using an air ticket where stops are free, and the hotel here is less than half the price the one in San Francisco is gouging out of me). I spent the day walking from Waikiki towards the town, and quickly came to the conclusion that Waikiki is not designed for a fat fortysomething married guy travelling alone. While I was walking though I did get the chance to listen to one of the new albums I've bought.
