I hate to just say “go here and download this right now”, but go here and download this right now. Ólöf Arnalds is a member of Múm and Við Og Við is a solo album of absolutely stunningly gorgeous folk. Vashti Bunyan is an obvious reference point because they have similar voices, but the similarities run deeper than that. There’s the timelessness and classiness of the proceedings. And neither were afraid to just go ‘la la la’ for a bit. Also, she’s singing in Icelandic (presumably. She could be singing in Finnish for all I know. I’m a dumb American.)

Am I the only person who doesn’t love the new self-titled album from Liars? I loved their previous three albums to death, but Liars just leaves me cold. I want to like it. I can see what they’re trying to accomplish. But I just don’t find it a compelling listen. I’ll give it more listens, of course. But right now, my favorite Liars album of 2007 was done by Aa.

Many years ago, I had a friend who was a die-hard Weezer fan. Then The Green Album came out. He hated it. So he looked around and found Rock and Roll Part Three by a band called Ozma that sounded exactly like what you would expect the follow-up to Pinkerton to sound like.

Aa’s gAame is a lot closer to a logical next step following Liars’ Drum’s Not Dead than Liars is. Now, Ozma sounded exactly like Weezer. Aa is clearly influenced by Liars, but does a lot of things differently. For one, they’re also heavily influenced by Boredoms. They also use tons of synthesizers and their vocals are punk rock shouting that you’d hear at Soophie Nun Squad show rather than the weird crooning thing that Angus of Liars does. But it does have the key component of what made Drum’s Not Dead such a compelling listen: the interplay of droning ambience and earth crushing drum madness. It’s a fun lively listen that sounds like what it is: punk rock kids who done got real weird and started making art-rock. Also, it comes with a rad DVD. Drum’s Not Dead? Rad DVD. Liars? No rad DVD. You can see what I’m trying to say here.

Here’s two cuts from gAame that work well as stand alone tracks. Most of the tracks on the album are continuously mixed, as it’s a very album-y album. So if you dig these jams, I highly recommend seeking out the whole thing.
Aa – Manshake
Aa – Thirteen

If you want to hear anything of Liars, tracks are all over that internet.

Buy Liars
Buy gAame (CD/DVD)
Buy gAame (LP/DVD)

Lucky Soul are an indie pop band from London with strong retro-60s pop tendencies. Yes, that sounds a lot like Belle & Sebastian or any number of their followers, but Lucky Soul are closer to fellow retro-poppers the Pipettes or Candie Payne. Lucky Soul’s arrangements are impeccable in both throwback credentials and overall enjoyability, but I have to admit that the quality of the songwriting on their album The Great Unwanted is somewhat inconsistent. I’m posting two tracks that don’t suffer from weak songwriting at all, though. “My Darling, Anything” is a rather straightforward pop song, but with a modern twist that you’ll know when you hear. “Baby I’m Broke” is my favorite song that they’ve done. It’s a country pop gem that sounds like one of Nancy Sinatra’s country songs or the under appreciated Canadian indie country pop band the Guthries.

Lucky Soul – My Darling, Anything
Lucky Soul – Baby I’m Broke

One of my favorite scenes going on today is the loosely defined, but closely knit, mid-western folk-punk scene. There’s a ton of great songwriters and there is a pretty good variety in style among them. There’s a definite Plan-It-X Records influence in the extreme DIY nature of the scene, but it doesn’t have as much of the stereotypically punk signifiers. Most of the people in that scene don’t write political songs and they’re more likely to cover Cat Power or Will Oldham than This Bike is Not a Pipe Bomb.

But when most of the shows they play are at people’s houses and most of the releases are handmade CD-Rs, you can’t help but call it punk. For a scene that is important as this one, there is a shocking lack of internet presence. Music bloggers have largely passed it over. I guess it’s not a particularly trendy sounding style, and most of the musicians seem to avoid any promotion, so it’s not surprising that it has largely gone below the radar of the blogerati. Still, I think that these kids (and most of them are kids) are doing something important, both musically and culturally. They are reaching a growing number of people just by playing living rooms, puppet theaters and the occasional dive bar. And it is a very inclusive, positive and reinforcing scene which is a large part of why it’s growing so quickly.

So I’m going to try to regularly feature different musicians from this scene. I’ve already talked about Sam King, who got me into this whole thing. But the man I should probably have started with is Tony Presley aka Real Live Tigers. He’s from Texas, but he tours non-stop and has set up a lot of the touring connections that the other people follow. The biggest sign of how important he is to this growing scene is how often you’ll here people cover his songs at shows. Apparently somebody was even trying to put together a RLT tribute album.

I’ve been told that Tony is related to Elvis Presley. I am going to believe that. Not because he sounds like Elvis, because he doesn’t. He has a chopped almost sing/speak voice that sounds like he’s gasping for breath. I am going to believe it because it is cool.

Real Live Tigers already has an extensive discography, most of which is handmade CD-R releases. He does a new proper album coming out. It’s called This is Sometimes a Riverbed and it’s on Sanitary Records. It’s excellent and will hopefully bring him his fair share of acclaim. I really like the songs “Beard of Bees” and “On Our Way”. I am also posting “Let the Things You Love Kill You”, which is from an EP. It’s number 1 in the Alphabet Soup Series, a series of EPs put out by MASA records.

Real Live Tigers – Beard of Bees (from This is Sometimes a Riverbed)
Real Live Tigers – On Our Way (from This is Sometimes a Riverbed)
Real Live Tigers – Let the Things You Love Kill You (from “Alphabet Soup Series #1 EP”)
If you want to get any of his releases, I’d try sending him a Myspace message.

Another reason why I prefer John Cale to Lou Reed.

My interest in Prefuse 73 peaked with his 2nd album One Word Extinguisher. Surrounded by Silence was sorta wack (except for the single “HideYaFace” with Ghostface & El-P) and I never even bothered to download Security Screenings. He’s got a new joint called Preparations coming out this year, but right now there’s a new single out in stores (and interwebs) called “Class of 73 Bells” which features NYC rock band School of Seven Bells. Does Prefuse 73 even do songs anymore that don’t feature somebody else? Anyway, the new single is pretty good. All 3 b-sides are pretty boring, though, which tempers my enthusiasm for his new album.

Prefuse 73 – The Class of 73 Bells (Feat School of Seven Bells) (radio edit) (expired)

Warp Records preorder

Fucked Up are a Toronto hardcore band with a strange history and a lot of 7 inches. I hate to admit this, but I first became aware of the band when the Fork posted some rather interesting pictures from a show they did with Pissed Jeans. It turns out Fucked Up had also released an album that garnered some accolades, but it was on the terminally lame Jade Tree, so if I was ever aware of it, I would have ignored it.

That all changed when I heard the badical “Year of the Pig” (A-side of the “Year of the Pig” 12″). It’s on middle-of-the-road indie rock label Where’s Your Rupture?, which is rather odd, as it’s an epic-as-fuck 19 minute progressive hardcore track. With its thick arrangements, heavy riffs, and extreme intensity, it doesn’t sound like anything else and blew my mind a little bit. So I holla’d at their album Hidden World. It’s not quite as audacious, but still excellent. My favorite track is the opener “Crusades” which is posted below.

Also of note is a cover Fucked Up did of the song “Stress” by Justice from the new album Cross. It was posted at the Vice Records blog, but is also reposted below.

Fucked Up – Year of the Pig (from “Year of the Pig” 12″) (expired)

Fucked Up – Crusades (from Hidden World album) (expired)

Fucked Up – Stress (Justice Cover)

Acquire “Year of the Pig” (vinyl)
Acquire “Year of the Pig” (mp3)
Acquire Hidden World(CD)