James Apollo

Apollo, James Esq. purveyor of the type of Americana that warms the cockles.

A couple more tracks here.

No pedal steel though.

Kate Maki

via 3hive comes some old timey country stylings from kate maki. Quite a few mp3s to listen to and hear the implied yodelling and delicate acoustic fingerpicking - there's some expensive instruments in the photos for those, like me, that suffer from a guitar fetish. At least she can actually play.

The mp3s are missing a killer song - but then perhaps that's why you have to buy the album?

bandwidth gone

oops - a quiet month for posting and I still go over my bandwidth - come back again in a few days...

Was I the first

6.20am this morning at Heathrow Terminal 4 on my way to work, I saw the guy raising the shutters at HMV, he'd got the first one up and was working on the second when I spotted the HAL album on the shelves for £8.50, well it would have been rude not to buy it really wouldn't it? Given that the album is released today in the UK, I think I might have grounds to claim it was the first one actually bought. Of course I then burnt it onto my laptop at the gate and then onto to my iRiver so I could listen to it on the plane.

I'm now on my fifth listen through (having arrived in Vienna), but the singles all point in the direction the album takes - like the very best bits of post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys, mixed with a little Neil Young. Seems funny to finally have a crackle free version of Worry 'bout the wind though (and I think it's a different version).

Buy their album

Official site

London Leben: 268 Splendid MP3 Blogs

London Leben: 268 Splendid MP3 Blogs - saves me the trouble of suggesting links to others when mp3blogs.org is not sufficient!

Hal - play the hits

Summer's here - check out the Beach Boy harmonies on this little beauty:

HAL - play the hits

Straight from the purple vinyl 7" - so no tags, sorry.

The album is out on Monday - hurrah!

Special Fellow

PCL LinkDump directed me to the rather fine Special Fellow, with some great songs - so many I felt compelled to add the site to the blogroll - I particularly liked the unchained melody post.

Tarkio - I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More

via no one here is asking - a whole album of Colin Meloy's pre-decemberist band - over at you ain't no picasso Tarkio - I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More

Bars & Guitars

Meanwhile over at Bars & Guitars, Peter is doing a great job, posting some great Damien Jurado tracks. His blog is fast becoming my working day's soundtrack.

marissa nadler

Found via a link from the BBC Collective about Joanna Newsome is the rather lovely marissa nadler (official site mp3s to listen to), whose songs sound like Laura Veirs, but slightly out of focus. Which works for me.

Ruben Gonzalez

Can you hear the thunderstorm overhead?
Ruben Gonzalez - Chanchullo

Buy it

My album of the week

So breezing around a landlocked country listening to sea-shanties that mix revenge, mobey dick intense obsession, jonah, pinocchio and for some reason the mental image of Jim Carrey dressed as Count Olaf dressed as a fisherman might seem weird, but The Decemberists' new album picaresque is bloody fantastic. It's just so rich in language, and the other songs have a heavy hint of meat is murder-era Smiths. Confused? I'm still finding new things and taking new delight each time I hear it.

Here's the sea shanty - it's a huge one!: The decemberists - the mariner's revenge song

Buy it

the magic numbers - anima sola

Well walking through the city in the early morning is proving much better for my morale than I had anticipated. My mp3 player providing a blissed-out soundtrack for life getting started in the Austrian capital.

M83 are providing a very european, lush slowdive on synths soundtrack in the evenings, but this morning it was this little gem from the magic numbers.

The magic numbers - anima sola