L0W- Come on (2O11) / The Internet Police Strike

The administrators at Cosmonaut Farm had their first official Cease and Desist order from Blogger. Apparently, it came straight from a larger record label which used to be known as a small record company (whose name rhymes with Subb P0pp). This record label used to be "indie" but now apparently likes to bully blogs like this one.

Fine. Sorry to say that anyone looking for L0w's C'M0n (2011) will have to look elsewhere. Or, just get it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?z3xo3qq4iky3jv0

In the future, i'm afraid that i will have to consider brand new main label cds differently, or just omit them entirely. I'm more inclined to do the latter and let others take the hit. It's not a giant deal, but at the end of the day, i don't want to have to deal with some tight-assed record execs who can't deal with the fact that the internet is basically Napster version 5.0, and that file sharing will only become MORE pervasive.

TV on The R(a)dio- Nine Types of L(i)ght (2012)

http://www.mediafire.com/?li1bbefvpzzbvc1

I've been a big TVOTR fan since i first heard Young Liars, and it's been great to watch the band expand, change, and grow since.

NTOL might be my favorite, if for no other reason than the full length movie that was created alongside the album by singer Tunde Adebimpe, my man crush and ridiculously cool person. Do yourself a favor: find an hour, and watch this. Then feel awesome.

One of my favorite things of this cd is the feeling of letting go for the band, of enjoying themselves and letting the music be much looser. Love, love, LOVE hearing the meaty baritone on some songs! It's like James Earl Jones stepped in to croon. Plus, did anyone else notice what an awful guitarist David Sitek is??? The term "Robbie Robertson" comes to mind... Just saying.

Following my previous post, I love seeing black folks playing rock music, not because it seems like a crossing over boundaries, but that it is a resituation of black presence within a black medium (rock music) that was taken by white people from black folk musicians and early rockers like Chuck Berry. People forget that Elvis was playing the "Devil's Music" (meaning, black music). It's a reminder that rock, like so much else in this country, was early stolen and rebranded by white people as white culture.

Anyway, kudos to you fellas. You go, boys. Way to rock.

Happy 4-20!

Whether you celebrate National Pot Day, Hitler's Birthday, or whatever the hell else seems appropriate... today yields a massive amount of new music at Cosmonaut Farm.

Please enjoy!

Panda Bear- Tomboy (2011)

http://www.mediafire.com/?91eg2vds6mqxx3d

I'd like to suggest that you know you have made it as a one man band when you are able to have an awful screen printed t shirt as your cover art, and hundreds of thousands of wide-eyed hipsters will buy your cd.

Congratulations, Noah.

Carolina Chocolate Drops- Genuine Negro Jig (2010)

http://www.mediafire.com/?1u2i0wcccphlg45

Nothing defines Knoxville, Tennessee like folk music, specifically bluegrass and old timey music. When i first moved to Knoxville, i was blown away by the attention that people paid to folk music-- live, on the radio, in record stores, on tour, etc.

For a west coast kid who equated old time music with the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack (and don't laugh-- a lot of us did), it was a revelation to find out that young hipsters in the South liked folk music, and that young kids were MAKING folk music.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are pretty badass in that they are probably the only African American group doing folk music right now. They're not only great, they're finally getting a lot of commercial and critical attention (they won a Grammy for this cd). I actually feel a bit guilty about putting this up-- i love this cd, but i also want them to continue to make music!

Americans forget that folk music is an umbrella term that brought in music from different backgrounds (since America is a country founded by immigrants [oh, and forcibly taken from the native inhabitants. Had to add that!}). So musical traditions from French, the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Ireland, Scotland, etc all got lumped up into the limp category "Folk" music.

As Margaret Kilgallen loved to point out, the banjo was an African instrument. People nowadays associate the banjo with uber-white musicians, but traditionally, this sucka came from Africa! Percussion instrument, bitches!!

Miho Hatori- My First Time (mixtape) 2011

http://mihohatori.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-first-time-mix-tape-vol1-on-dossier_15.html

Miho Hatori is one of my first musical crushes, from the glory days of Cibo Matto, through Smokey and Miho, to her solo stuff. It's a weird collision of naivety and badass tendencies, though it's waaaaay closer to the former. She is interested in hip hop but is a total outsider, and her experimental nature always comes through.

This mix tape was created with the theme "My First Time," and is supposed to have a mixture of excitement and confusion. I love when people have themes that sound absolutely NOTHING like the way they probably hear them. It made me think of my latest request for people to send me recommendations for what they thought were the saddest songs ever. It's interesting to hear what people think of as sad... emotions are tricky!

Hear it before it's gone on Miho's blog.

Michael Hurley, the Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffery Fredrick and the Clamtones- Have Moicy! (1976)

http://www.mediafire.com/?oguumtfftdt

Do you like songs about stealing hamburgers, robbing banks, getting it on by the moonlight, washing dishes, and taking shits?

OF COURSE YOU DO!!!!

That is why you want to hear the most amazing and certainly most unique country/bluegrass/folk/pop cd of the entire 1970s.

This is what you get when a rubbertramp, psychadelic bluegrass musicans, and depressed folk singers get together and make an album. This is absolutely the most interesting record I heard during my year in Knoxville, TN. Which is saying a lot!

Have Moicy continues to be one of the most influential albums of the 70s and have given props up and down and all over. Yo la Tengo covered "Grizelda" and blah blah blah. I think you just might really love it.

L(y)kke Li- W(o)unded Rhymes

http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

*Note: Hooray! My second file removed due to copyright infringement! I'm on a roll! Notice the creative misspelling. Thanks, record execs-- keeping us all safe from pirates.

I hate it when I agree with Pitchfork.

I can't stand their ideal of "Let's-record-it-on-a-Fischer-Price-tape-Deck-and-add-a-photo-of-me-with-bad-sunglasses-with-Photoshop-lens-flare-effect" because it's so dumb that it's ironically cool. And that being hip is unhip, and that makes it cool.

And yet, crap: I love L(y)kke Li, the snaggle-toothed sorta shy Swedish pop singer. W(o)unded Rhymes doesn't feel as vulnerable as Youth Novels did, but i'll take it as a great follow up.

Wounded Rhymes is both simultaneously confident and vulnerable. I don't know how someone can make dance music that feels so confessional. When i think of popular American dance music, it seems to fall into one of two categories: either "You broke my heart and now i'm gonna dance" or "My man is so awesome and now i'm gonna dance".

By contrast, this is sort of a dance album that David Lynch would produce. And for that reason, i really love it. Don't believe me? Watch her music video for "Get Some" and tell me that you don't somehow feel totally creeped out, and perhaps a little smidge turned on. Mostly, though, just REALLY creeped out.

Also, she played on the Jimmy Fallon show in a ridiculous outfit with the most amazing tambourine display I've seen in years.

Michael Hurley + Ida: Ida Con Snock (2009)

http://www.mediafire.com/?zzzgzzzezw5

Call me a mindreader, because i know what you're thinking: "Based on this weak drawing of birds singing on telephone poles, this cd is gonna suck." I would tend to agree with you, if the words "Ida" and "Snock" didn't also appear in the title.

Snock, aka Michael Hurley, has been making weird folk records since the mid 1960s. His first record came out on Folkways, and his last came out on Devandra Barnhart's label, Gnomonsong. Tell me that's not street cred.

But mostly, this cd is my favorite Hurley record since the amazing "Have Moicy!" collaboration extraordinaire of 1974. I have at least 6 cds by Hurley, and i'll be honest-- they're pretty interchangeable. Each cd basically sounds like a continuation of the one before it. Or more bluntly, they all sound the same. Which isn't necessarily bad...

But, from the first bar in Ida Con Snock, you can hear the difference. Ida brings an incredible warmth and focus to Hurley's songs, grounding them and supporting them with an incredible musicianship that his other cds don't have. You've never heard drone, sweet harmonies, and thoughtful arrangements on a Hurley cd before. 

If you haven't heard Michael Hurley before, you might not be startled in the same way that I was. It might just sound like a nice, understated folk record. And that's okay, too. But keep in mind that this dude is around 68. At this point, Ida Con Snock sounds better than anything that Neil Young or Bob Dylan puts out (contemporaries of Hurley who proudly live up to the title "Washed Up").

For fans of early Low, Emmylou Harris, Crazy Horse, etc