I heard Hafdis Huld for the first time on Aurgasm quite some time ago, which means it’s high time that I wrote about her on here. She’s Icelandic, which made me assume that her music would at least be inside the realm of “weird,” and indeed, it is. It’s not as odd as Bjork, though, which is to say that I actually derive enjoyment from Hafdis Huld’s music. She has a very calming voice which suits her slow songs well. It is the charm she displays on songs like Ice Cream Is Nice that makes me a fan.

Sadly, these songs are only 64 kbps, which I realize is pretty crappy! Hopefully they’ll be enough to get you interested enough in her music to check it out further.

From Dirty Paper Cup
Ski Jumper – (MP3, 1.5 MB)
Tomoko – (MP3, 1.5 MB)

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While the Dougster is renowned for bringing you the latest in the world of ska and gyspy and all manner of weirs bands you’ve never heard of before, and Hugh is renowned for bringing you a good general mix of stuff you’ve probably never heard of before, I’ve always brought up the rear with stuff you’ve heard before, you know of, or you’ve heard to death. And this post is 100% without exception.

Remember how I was talking about that late night radio station that got me hooked on Wax Tailor? Well, it also got me hooked on Nikka Costa, a charming lady who plays some groovetastic R&B. I’ll have to say, today’s stream of R&B (mainstream wise) was something I generally avoided like the plague, so it was nice to hear some decent R&B for once.

Fans of Arrested Development (rippin’ show that one) should already be familiar with at least one Nikka Costa song: Everybody Got Their Something was featured pretty heavily on it. Anyhoo, Nikka plays a good mix of funky R&B and soul in a really sophisticated way. Well, sophisticated is the wrong word. Basically, it’s not trashy, like so much mainstream music is these days. There’s some really sweet tracks too, such as Push and Pull which would definetely have to be my favourite on the Everybody Got Their Something album. She also has an incredible vocal range: it goes from damn low to ear piercingly high (in a good way, honest).

This is a really sucky post and I can’t find any media for her, short of her MySpace page. So if you know how to navigate that contraption of a website, then please be my guest!

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I’ll admit it: I’m not a big fan of hip-hop. This is probably my own fault though, since the only hip-hop I ever get to listen to comes from dodgy radio stations and those mainstream music video shows and it always sounds rather junky. So it’s just as well I was listening to some indie radio station at like 2AM because I happened on some rather delightful hip-hop.

Wax Tailor is a French artist who samples a huge range of old recordings to build up his music. The recordings usually consist of old radio broadcasts, voice samples of long past and goodness knows what other material. It produces a nice “old record” sound, which is then underlined with a smooth beat and some other interesting things. Kinda reminds me of a toned down version of Frontier Psychiatrist, by the Avalanches (a tune I highly recommend).

So, if you like your hip-hop interesting, warming (at times) and just a teensy bit strange, then load up some Wax Tailor! If you don’t, then load him up anyway, as he does do some of the more traditional hip-hop sounds.

From Tales of the Forgotten Melodies:
Que Sera – (MP3 Sample, 681 KB)
Between Fellows – (MP3 Sample, 294 KB)
Am I Free? – (MP3 Sample, 710 KB)

If you want the more traditional hip-hop:

From Tales of the Forgotten Melodies:
Damn That Music Made My Day – (MP3 Sample, 475 KB)
Where My Heart’s At – (MP3 sample, 713 KB)

If you can brave the Flash, then there is a bunch of other tunes from this album and his other ones to take a look at. Or perhaps you could click here, but I might get in trouble.

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It is like Either/Or is the new France. Or Canada. Or something! Yet another French artist, is basically what I’m getting at.

I bought Not Going Anywhere for a dollar, but it was definitely worth a bit more. As much as I claim to only get excited if a band features prominant horns or accordions, Keren Ann’s music strikes a chord with me. Very well written songs, and I don’t need to know French to understand the basic idea behind a lot of her music.

Her earlier albums were entirely French, but her last couple have featured more English songs as well. She does well in either language, in her whispery, quiet voice.

While she does sound cheery occasionally (such as on Right Now and Right Here), a lot of her songs seem to, for lack of a better phrase, sound sad. It is the perfect music for hanging out inside watching the rain fall on your window, because while it does sometimes approach a depressing tone, it paradoxically feels uplifting at the same time. That makes no sense, I know, so just listen.

You can listen to samples of all her music at her site, which is all embedded in flash, so you will have to find your way manually (just go to Discography). If I were to recommend anything, I’d say to start with Sailor & Widow or End of May from Not Going Anywhere.

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Yet another French artist, but perhaps a little less known than Camille: Emilie is (seemingly) known in France (having received awards for her music and whatnot), but hasn’t had a great deal of worldwide exposure. Anyhoo, I found Emilie Simon through last.fm’s artist recommendations for Camille. Strictly speaking, the two artists have very little in common (apart from the fact that they’re both ladies and they both sing in French) as Simon’s music is a pleasing blend of rock, electronic and downtempo, all in the one bag.

Emilie Simon is the name of her debut record and it is quite the corker. She even sings a couple of tunes in English, so you can go ahead and sing along (if you know English and you don’t know French of course). Highly enjoyable tunes include Secret, Lise, Il Pleut and To the Dancers in the Rain. However, as is tradition for my posts, go ahead and check out the rest of her lovely debut album, as there is plenty of goodness under her pretty back (don’t take that the wrong way).

Unfortunately, her website seems to be rather borked at the moment, so I have no idea if she has media or not!

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As I’ve mentioned before, there are bands that I meant to write about a while ago. Brando is one of these bands. I found them a while back on Musical Family Tree’s compilation album and listened to their song Your Nelson Now constantly, just for the damn keyboard. However, MFT has an extensive (and free!) MP3 catalog, and that meant two more albums from Brando. While I do not profess to like every song they’ve done, they have quite a few that are lo-fi indie classics. The ones that I have linked down there, for instance. Chiggity-check ‘em; they come highly recommended from yours truly. I hope they’re not my version of Morex Optimo.

Note: Don’t right-click and hit save target as, since that won’t work… just click ‘em and it’ll do its job.

From The Headless Horseman Is A Preacher
The Fight Club Song – (MP3, 3.2 MB)
Pilot Of This Ship – (MP3, 3.2 MB)
Hold Me Mine – (MP3, 5.8 MB)

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There are four things you should consider about this post. 1) This band is French, 2) I do not speak French, so 3) I can’t understand their damn webpage and can’t tell what album the following songs are from. 4) However, you don’t have to understand the language to know that this is some damn good music. If I were to go by the category tags I’ve used, I would describe it as downtempo folk-pop. And since it is indeed French, there is a bit of that seductive romanticism thrown in. Delightful!

If you end up liking these tunes, make sure to check out Aurgasm’s post about them; he’s got two of their best songs on there. Which isn’t to say these songs aren’t great (the first two are, especially).

Pourquoi Mon Coeur – (Zipped MP3, 2.3 MB)
Tomorrow – (Zipped MP3, 2.7)
Living On A Boat – (Zipped MP3, 3.7 MB)

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No doubt I’ll be lauded as a total whore for posting about this soundtrack (the indie peeps get a bit pissed when people hail this soundtrack as “indie”) but I don’t care: this is dang good mix.

The thing about mix CDs ya see is that most of the time around 20% of it is good (i.e. songs you can really get in to) and the rest is generally OK, to poor, to utter crap. HOWEVER. The Garden State soundtrack is quite excellent, thanks to Braff’s excellent vision/audio hearing capabilities. There’s an extremely nice mix of indie (Cary Brothers, Remy Zero, Bonnie Somerville), downtempo (Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, Frou Frou), classics (Simon & Garfunkel) and even some folk (Nick Drake). Granted, the popularity of the album has probably elevated the status of some of the artists (*cough*The Shins*cough*), which is why some tossers complain when some guy says “That’s indietastic!”. Well, I say “Screw you, suckers!” – this is an accomplished mix of goodness that should already have been sampled by everyone out there on the Internetz. Check it out: I guarentee you will like at least ONE tune on there…

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Continuing on with my theme of downtempo music that everyone has probably already heard because they’re old releases, here’s the lowdown on The Mirror Conspiracy by Thievery Corporation. Now, considering I already revealed the genre to you, I’ve probably blown this post way out of the proverbial water!

Anyhoo, if you’ve been listening to Zero 7 lately, you can say that Thievery Corporation is a more “hardcore” version: a more uptempo downtempo, if you will. Generally speaking, their music is less vocal-y and less real-instrumental-ly (teehee), but not to the point of it being absurdly electronic. If I were you, I would go ahead and check out Lebanese Blonde (which was in Garden State, yay!), Focus on Sight, Shadows of Ourselves and…well, you know what? You should just check it all out, cos it’s pretty awesome!

Ok, this is a ridiculously tiny post, but hey, short and sweet!

From The Mirror Conspiracy
Shadows of Ourselves – SWF (Flash) File

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