Alt-j – Hunger of the Pine

What an excellent single.

This makes me so excited for their upcoming album.

brb listening to this 100 times.

After a long absence…

I’m back. Hitting the books hard, and I always find that appropriate music makes me study better. Here are a couple of study listening recommendations to get you started:

Ambient1/Music for Airports – Brian Eno

James Blake – James Blake

151a – Kishi Bashi

Riot on an Empty Street – Kings of Convenience

As always, here’s a spotify playlist.

Album Review: Push and Shove – No Doubt

No Doubt are one of those bands that I can’t help but like. Classics like “Don’t Speak”, “Just a Girl” and “Ex Girlfriend” pretty much sum up what got me into ska in the first place. Today I’m having a listen to their new album, and sharing my thoughts.

Essential Listening (September 22)

New music! This is the good stuff. If you only listen to three albums this week make it these three. These are all albums which I hope to write a full review of in the future, but while I lack time I may as well share a few words about them just to get the word out. Micro-reviews after the jump!

 

Album Review: Idea of Happiness – Van She

Just when I was starting to think they were dead, Sydney band Van She have dropped a new album on us all. It turns out all this time they were just hiding out in Jamaica, honing and modifying parts of their sound while they left other parts of it virtually untouched.

Essential Listening: 1970’s

I really wish I was alive in the 70’s to listen to this music as it was released (or even live). Something about this decade made way for so many developments in music; some of these developments were stylistic, many were technological, but there is no real way to generalise the change that popular music went through in the 1970’s. In keeping with the purpose of these posts I’m going to talk about 5 albums from this period which are important to me, and which I think you can improve your experience of music by knowing about.

Album Review: Danny’s Den – Castlecomer

I’ve had my eye on Sydney band Castlecomer since I stumbled upon them busking in front of the QVB a fair few months back (I can’t quite remember exactly how long it was). They’d gathered quite a decent crowd round them at that time, and I think it is pretty obvious why – the band is marked by strong vocals (every member of the band contributes), catchy tunes, and (what appears to be) a decent local following. Aside from this all of their music translates really well to an acoustic set, and they have some great covers to boot. Castlecomer are a group to watch.

Essential Listening: 50’s & 60’s

This is the first of a series of posts that document what I consider “essential listening”. This is a bit like a “best-of” list, with a few main differences; this list is in no way intended to be exhaustive, and the order in which the albums are listed holds no meaning. Each one of these posts will simply highlight the existence of 5 albums that I believe to be important to this period. I’ll be mainly selecting from the popular music of the time. Listening to these albums and knowing a bit about them will make you seem adept in just about any conversation about music, and besides this I promise they’ll be simply wonderful to listen to.

Today, I’ve combined the 1950’s and 60’s…

Album Review: Every Child A Daughter, Every Moon A Sun – The Wooden Sky

I stumbled on this little Canadian gem while looking for new music earlier and it just struck me in a way which made me want to write something about it. This is a very relaxing album.

Album Review: The Age of Understatement – The Last Shadow Puppets

I’m a long time Arctic Monkeys fan. I’ve definitely said to people on multiple occasions that I think that without the Arctic Monkeys we would lose British rock as we know it. I was surprised, then, that I’d never even heard of this album (or band) before stumbling upon it recently.