by Marianne Meyer
What's a young and talented but maybe still relatively unknown band to do if it wants to reach a wider audience? Give some music away as free downloads! Here at the DAME headquarters, emails come in daily, offering complimentary legal downloads with the suggestion, "feel free to post and share." OK, let's do just that! Here are five new bands worth checking out...
1. WYE OAK
Three albums into their career (“Civilian” just came out) Baltimore’s own Wye Oak - guitarist/singer/lyricist Jenn Wasner and mulit-instrumentalist Andy Stack- create dreamy indie rock. The duo’s 2008 debut, “If Children,” took the pair from basement studios to a deal with Merge Records. On 2009’s “The Knot,” the team got a little deeper and more daring with their unpretentious Americana. While the first two albums were self-recorded and mixed, “Civilian” brought the arrival of mixing engineer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Shearwater) who, according to Stack, “pushed us into some exciting and sometimes scary new territory. You can download a copy of the title track here and then grab the not-as-mean-as-it-sounds “I Hope You Die.”
2. TELEKINESIS
Singer/songwriter Michael Benjamin Lerner delighted critics, bloggers and NPR with his debut album under the name “Telekinesis!” For his second album, Lerner reunited with Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla to record “12 Desperate Straight Lines,” another set of surprisingly fizzy, hooky pop songs about heartache and loneliness. Download "Car Crash" from the new album.
3. PEPPER RABBIT
Los Angeles-based Pepper Rabbit create happy/haunting avant-garde folk songs which might include banjo, trumpet, xylophone, clarinet, accordion, or ukulele. You can grab a free download of “Harvest Moon” – and watch the video - from their debut album, “Beauregard” thanks to the folks at Stereogum.
4. YOUNG GALAXY
Young Galaxy has a beautiful new album, “Shapeshifting,” that was recorded in Montreal and then sent far away to acclaimed but secretive producer Dan Lissvik, who spent nine months reworking the tracks into a delicate, fascinating creation that suits its title well. To get a taste, download “We Have Everything.”
5. DEVOTCHKA
Devotchka create a combination of gypsy punk, folk, rock and world music as can only be done with an arsenal of instruments like sousaphone, accordion, piano, violin, bouzouki, upright bass, trumpet, drums, tuba and a theremin. Here’s a free download of “100 Other Lovers,” the almost-title track from the new album, "100 Lovers." The track also has an awesome stop-motion video, wherein a bird-loving babushka unleashes a cascade of luminous flying friends .
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