parece mentira que un afamado artista como es Owen Ashworth esté pasando tan desapercibido por la escena independiente. Desde 1999 ha publicado 9 discos, confiriendo a sus canciones y a sus directos una impronta personal difícil de comparar.
Owen se esconde tras diversos sintetizadores y pianos (a pesar de ser enorme) y comienza majestuosamente a desgranar sus composiciones. Limpias de contenido pero exageradamente complejas de ejecución teniendo en cuenta que él es el único que toca. Su directo acaba conmoviendo si te dejas llevar por sus ritmos electrónicos. Deja traslucir un inequívoco sentido de lo que quiere hacer y de lo que significa su música. Hoy os presentamos su último disco, uno más que va creando el mito que algún día surgirá de forma mediática.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone es el proyecto solista del músico estadounidense Owen Ashworth (nacido el año 1979) de San Francisco, California. Comenzó este proyecto luego de musicalizar una película cuando era estudiante escolar en 1997. Compone su música utilizando simples teclados a pila y otros instrumentos electrónicos. Ha salido de gira con otros aclamados artistas de la escena indie como Cass McCombs, Kill me Tomorrow, The Rapture, y Xiu Xiu.
Su estilo musical se caracteriza por un sonido electrónico pausado y por sus letras sinceras. Su sonido se acerca al lo-fi al indie, y al alone-electro (genero moderno de música electrónica). En su disco Etiquette Ashworth amplía su horizonte musical y agrega algunos instrumentos análogos consiguiendo un sonido más orgánico.
Discografía
* 1999 - Answering Machine Music
* 2001 - Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars
Canciones destacadas: Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended At Ace Hardware In Libertyville, IL, Killers, Natural Light, Optimist Vs. The Silent Alarm (When The Saints Go Marching In) y White Jetta.
Estimados, labor multidisciplicar hace este cantautor y guitarrista de Oregon, combinando diversos proyectos con un alto grado de calidad. Empezó su carrera en solitario allá por 1999 con la publicación de su primer disco "Duet for Guitars #2".
Ha tenido colaboraciones con múltiples artistas: Cat Power, Beth Orton, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket... e incluso se hizo una gira con REM y Bruce Springsteen en unas elecciones en los USA.
Pero quizá lo que más renombre le ha dado últimamente ha sido la formación del grupo 'She And Him' junto con la actriz Zooey Deschanel. Su album de debut "Volume One" se podría considerar uno de los mejor considerados en el pasado 2008 teniendo tal repercusión que incluso presentaron sus canciones junto a Yo La Tengo en el show de Conan O´Brien.
Hoy os presento su último trabajo, de nombre 'Hold Time'.... majestuoso, respetuoso, atemporal, reposado. Un disco para escuchar con tranquilidad, con tiempo suficiente para deleitarse con cada canción. Un último apunte. La canción favorita del señor Ward es 'Amazing Grace'.... curioso, verdad?
"His solo debut Duet for Guitars #2 was released by Howe Gelb on his Ow Om record label. Ward's 2001 album, End of Amnesia, was put out by Future Farmer Records. A collection of live recordings, Live Music & The Voice of Strangers, was a self-released disc that was sold at his shows in 2001. His subsequent albums have been released on Merge Records.
He has guested on recordings by Cat Power, Beth Orton (with whom he co-wrote the title track to her album Comfort of Strangers), The Court & Spark, Bright Eyes (with whom he toured on the 2004 Vote For Change tour with R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen), Jenny Lewis (whose debut solo album Rabbit Fur Coat he co-produced), and My Morning Jacket.
In 2006, he contributed a song to, and helped produce the John Fahey tribute album I Am the Resurrection. He also appears on Norah Jones' album Not Too Late, performing backing vocals and guitar on "Sinkin' Soon", and toured as the opener and a member of her "Handsome Band" for the album in the spring of 2007. Also his cover of David Bowie's song "Let's Dance" is featured on the soundtrack of the 2007 New Zealand film Eagle vs Shark. Ward was previously a member of the band Rodriguez with Kyle Field of Little Wings. Their album Swing Like a Metronome was released in 2000 and produced by Jason Lytle of Grandaddy.
In 2004 Ward played guitar for Bright Eyes on a taping of The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. During the performance, Bright Eyes' singer Conor Oberst yelled out "M. Ward for President!" This prompted Newsweek to run an article on Ward and his next album Transistor Radio.
In 2006, he released Post-War, which was described by Vanity Fair in its August 2006 issue as thematic on the question "How will America heal once this craziness in Iraq is over?" Ward said in that article that he looked to the post-war music of the late 1940s and 50s. "I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America". The album was released on Merge Records and features cameo performances by Howe Gelb, Jim James and Neko Case. From the music blog It's Hard To Find A Friend: "According to the Omaha City Weekly: ...Also with recording plans for the winter is Conor Oberst. Beginning in the new year, Oberst is slated to begin recording two new albums — one a solo record in Mexico (the album is self titled "Conor Oberst") with Jake Bellows playing a role and another with a new band being formed with M Ward". [1] In 2006, Ward recorded a duet with actress Zooey Deschanel, which collaboration resulted in the formation of the band She & Him[1]. The duo's album Volume One — which Ward produced — was released on Merge Records on March 18, 2008. Ward and Deschanel performed (along with Yo La Tengo) on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on April 22, 2008. Returning from She & Him duties, M. Ward has released his sixth solo studio album, Hold Time, on February 17th 2009."
Grupo: M. Ward Disco: Hold Time Año: 2009 Puntuación: 8/10 Web oficial: http://www.mwardmusic.com/ y http://www.myspace.com/mward Canciones destacadas: For Beginers, Fisher Of Man, Jailbird, One Hundred Million Years, Rave On, Shangri-La y To Save Me.
Estimados, aquí os presento a Bon Iver, nombre de guerra de la banda del cantautor indie Justin Velmon. El nombre proviene de la forma de convertir al inglés (anglicismo) la frase 'bon hiver' francesa que signifca "buen viento":
Este grupo ya tiene un album en el mercado titulado "For Emma, Forever Ago" publicado en 2007. Curiosamente cuando toca en directo este album hace que el público coree las canciones porque no se puede simular en directo la cantidad de voces que se pusieron al grabar el disco...
Yo tengo un grato recuerdo de su última actuación aquí en España. Fué a propósito del Primavera Sound... y se pudo ver la calidad de este señor en temas como estos:
"While in high school and college, Vernon founded bands Mount Vernon and DeYarmond Edison, both indie-rock bands from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he still resides. DeYarmond Edison consisted of Vernon, Brad and Phil Cook, and Joe Westerlund. After a long period of success in the Eau Claire music scene, the four band mates decided to leave their longtime home and move to Raleigh, North Carolina to try their musical hand in a new place. The band released two records themselves, the first self-titled and the second titled "Silent Signs" and an EP of unreleased material is available on their myspace page. After nearly a year in Raleigh, Vernon left for Wisconsin after a breakup with the band and a girlfriend. The remaining members of DeYarmond Edison went on to form a new band called Megafaun and remain good friends with Vernon.
Live Performances Justin Vernon is joined live by Sean Carey (drums, vocals, piano, vibes) and Mike Noyce (vocals, baritone guitar, guitar). Noyce was Vernon's guitar student during high school while Carey approached Vernon during one of the first Bon Iver shows telling him he could play and sing all the songs after which the two played a number of them together.
Because of the large amounts of dubbing over in the For Emma, Forever Ago album, Justin Vernon was concerned that there would not be enough voices to duplicate the sound of the songs on the album. To compensate for this problem, Bon Iver gave lyrics for some songs to the audience to sing along to during shows. In an interview with Pitchfork, Vernon described his dilemma. "I don't want to be the guy with an acoustic guitar singing songs, because that's boring for the most part. The song actually needs 80-500 people singing or whatever the vibe is of that room, it needs that fight".
For Emma, Forever Ago After the breakup of a band, relationship, and bout with sickness, Vernon left Raleigh and moved back to Wisconsin spending three months in his father's cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin. He did not intend to write or record any music during the time but rather to recuperate from the events of the previous year. Eventually a record began to evolve during this cathartic time of isolation.
Vernon had recently finished helping the band The Rosebuds do some recording and had with him some basic recording gear when he made his move to the cabin. Vernon played all the instruments during recording and each song was heavily edited with a large number of overdubs. Vernon wrote most of the lyrics for the album by recording a word-less melody and listening to the recording over and over and writing words according to the sound of the syllables of the melody.
The record was almost not released and was originally intended as a group of demos to be sent out to labels and potentially rerecorded. But after getting very encouraging reactions from a number his friends, Vernon decided to release the songs himself in their present state [6] After significant positive reception, helped by word of mouth and its popularity throughout the blogosphere, Vernon decided to sign to the indie label Jagjaguwar which subsequently gave the album a proper release."
Estimados, este es el primer disco que me ha gustado sobre manera en el 2008. Hot Chip han sabido combinar perfectamente la electrónica, con ritmos bailables, con sonidos huecos y profundos.
Hot Chip es una banda británica de electropop. Tiene 3 álbumes en el mercado.
La banda se formó en el año 2000 a raíz de varios trabajos realizados previamente entre 2 de sus miembros, Alexis Taylor y Joe Goddard. Tras autoeditarse varios álbumes, firmaron en 2003 con la discográfica inglesa "Moshi Moshi", con la que sacarían su primer álbum, de nombre Coming on strong, en 2004. James Murphy, líder de LCD Soundsystem, se interesaría en ellos y los contrató para su discográfica DFA en Estados Unidos.
Un año después firmarían con la discográfica EMI para Reino Unido y su segundo álbum, The warning, ganaría bastante más repercusión. Su single "Over and over" sería considerado como "canción del año 2006" por la revista musical británica NME[1] . Su último álbum, Made in the dark, salió a la venta el 4 de febrero de 2008 y su primer single "Ready for the floor" alcanzó buenas posiciones en el UK singles chart.
El grupo también destaca por sus actuaciones en vivo y sus remixes de otros temas. En España el grupo ha actuado en festivales como el Sónar o el FIB.
"Hot Chip formed in 2000, though members Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard had previously worked together and had been in the same sixth form at Elliott School in Putney, London. In an interview, Goddard said that early Hot Chip music was written like sixth-form poetry, with acoustic guitars. However, the band completely changed direction because they got "so pissed off with it" and decided to try and make the most inane songs they could.[1]
After years of self-releasing records, they signed with Moshi Moshi in 2003 and released their debut LP Coming on Strong in 2004. Soon after this they started working on their second album and signed a US record deal with the DFA Records who re-released their debut album in late 2005.
In 2006 Hot Chip released their second album, The Warning. Now signed to EMI in the UK, the band gained much more mainstream appeal as well as the attention of critics. The album was shortlisted for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize[2] and was Mixmag's Album of the Year 2006. This album spawned also two UK top forty singles: "Over and Over" in March 2006 and "And I Was a Boy from School" in May 2006. "Over and Over" received attention for its music video, which was directed by Nima Nourizadeh, and was also named as the best single of 2006 by British music magazine NME.[3]
The band is also well-known for their live shows, because they often reinvent their songs on stage, creating a completely different sound to what might be the official version. Recent festival appearances include Dour Festival, Glastonbury, Sónar, Benicassim, Electric Picnic, Bestival, Lovebox, the Reading and Leeds Festivals, the Summer Sundae festival, the Big Day Out T in the Park , Summer Sundae and Splendour In The Grass (2007). They released a DJ-Kicks compilation in 2007, which included a new song called "My Piano", also released as a 12".
The band are also known for their DJ talent; all five members took part in a DJ set live on BBC Radio One's The Essential Mix radio program, hosted by Pete Tong, on December 29, 2007.
The band released their third studio album, Made in the Dark, on February 4 2008. The first release out of it was "Shake a Fist" which was released as a limited one-sided 12" in September 2007. The first proper single was "Ready For The Floor" in January 2008, which reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart.
In January 2008 the band appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross to promote "Ready For The Floor". Joe Goddard appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks on Thursday 31st January."
Grupo: Hot Chip Disco: Made In The Dark Año: 2008 Web oficial: http://www.hotchip.co.uk/site/ y http://www.myspace.com/hotchip Canciones destacadas: Ready For The Floor, Bendable Poseable, Out At The Pictures, Hold On, Made In The Dark y Touch Too Much
Estimados, aquí os dejo un par de temas de un músico americano nacido en Tel Aviv, Israel - Eef Barzelay. Quizá sea más conocido por ser el cantautor de la banda de country Clem Snide aunque ha formado parte de numerosas bandas de Boston e incluso ha realizado giras en solitario.
Acaba de publicar un disco que lleva su mismo nombre y lo vendrá a presentar el próximo día 18 en el Rockdelux Music Weekend.... con lo que habrá que ir a primera hora para ver a este estupendo músico.
"Clem Snide found fame when their song "Moment In The Sun" from their "Ghost of Fashion" Album was licensed to the NBC hit show "ED". Since then Clem Snide has released several more albums including "Soft Spot", "End of Love" and the "Suburban Field Recordings". They have appeared on Connan O'Brien, received rave reviews from Rolling Stone Magazine, and captured the hearts of many indie-rock lovers.
In 2006 Eef released his debut solo album entitled 'Bitter Honey'. In 2007 he composed many original tracks for the film "Rocket Science". In 2008 he is expected to release a second solo album featuring tracks which can be found on his myspace page."
Grupo: Eef Barzelay Disco: Eef Barzelay Año: 2007 Web oficial: http://www.myspace.com/eefbarzelay Canciones destacadas: True Freedom, Apocaliptic Friend, Lose Big, Make Another Tree y Song for Batya
