out Of The Box On Sunday XXXIII

Two Years by Tancred

Tancred (blog) is Now Now's Jess' solo music. This project sounds as sweet and precious as her band's music, only the minimalism of little more than her voice and an acoustic guitar creates an amazing cozy atmosphere. As always, the voice sounds angelic and moving, hovering over not too fancy-recorded acoustic guitars, to give it a hint of a lo-fi kind of sound.

Last fm tags as acoustic, indie, alternative, female vocalists,midwest

be sure to buy the record by clicking the image above!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXVIII

Out

Certainty by Procession

labelling themselves "vegan shoegaze", shoegazing indie pop band Procession (facebook) is all the right music with all the right ethics. DIY, vegan and punk rock radicals playing mellow indie music. occasionally the voice or guitar sound nearly out of tune because of the discordancy that oozes out of this sound, which is the major element in this band's brilliance. that, in combination with the oxymoron of this raw, minimalistic and unsettling versus dreamy and rich, all balanced in one consistent, signature sound of this band and record. 

click here to buy stuff directly from the band!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXVI

 listen to 'Poking Fun' by Flashlights

There is room for progress in Emo music... Flashlights (facebook) isn't easy to define, as they portray a curious combo of a specific style of indie music (not unlike Wavves or Best Coast) and a wide variety of the branches of emo music. the end product is always upbeat, 'pleasant' and sometimes wild music. genuinely both awesome and progressive feel good music to please enthusiasts of the midwest emotional punk as well as the dreamy hipster music!

Flashlights - "Choking!" from Stephen Marsh on Vimeo.

out Of The Box On Sunday XXV

Partners in Crime by Thy Mighty Contract

Thy Might Contract (facebook) brings something way off the chart. freaky and dreamy noise-rock with mostly shouting/talking yet clean (ex- I Would Set Myself On Fire For You) vocals. the overall product is full of layers of weird effects on every instrument and voice, resulting in a very alienating sound. like a hipster on a bad acid trip. all of it sounds like the product of very spazzy, erratic and random people getting together and just creating music very naturally, without the restrainment of labelling, or basing what they do on what is considererd the right way to do it. this is for the adept musiclover.

Last fm tags as  indie, post-hardcore, female vocale,psychedelic, experimental

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXII

Build me a wreck by Tar... Feathers

I became fond of this band after helping the vocalist to a show for his solo-tour in which he played the songs from this release all by himself. Just this band’s voice, a clean sounding Fender Jag and the audience clapping their hands to the rythm for percussion. Tar... Feathers (their blog) is a Modest Mouse –worshipping (almost Lo Fi) indie rock band that blends the most fragile vocals with eerie -almost broken or detuned- sounding melodies, in support of extremely melodramatic lyrics. As I said the (early) Modest Mouse influences can not be overlooked, even more so in te vocals than the tunes, but it’s also not as if they shove those in your face. They have a style with plenty of personal creative input to distinguish themselves. Just wish I could get you to listen to the solo songs, my love for this band might be biased by that experience. Let me know what you think!
Last fm tags as  indie, swedish, indie rock, diy, indietronica

Out Of The Box On Sunday XIX

I am not up to speed with whatever’s happening in any division in indie music. Despite listening to a great deal of it, and mostly pretty recent stuff, I would still refer to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Reconstruction Site, Daydream Nation, The Sunset Tree and Source Tags & Codes as my favorite records. So I have no clue what attention these guys are getting, but I also can’t imagine it being as much as they deserve. I don’t care if they’re headlining Werchter or Roskilde, WU LYF (site) is to be absorbed with awe. The twinkly melodies, raspy vocals and dreamy feel tot hem make them one of the freshest sounds in the 2500 songs on my online streamable playlist, of office-appropriate music, that plays when I’m working at my office cubicle.
Last fm tags as  lo-fi, indie, experimental, psychedelic, heavy pop

click the image above to buy stuff directly from them!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XVII

THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER "Exile On Vain Street"

Three One G spearhead The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower (myspace) were not only the greatest and bestest bandname ever, it was also a group that represents the golden age of what was then labeled as ‘ Post-Hardcore’. The band could very well blend in with the sound of bands like Ian Svenonius’ Nation Of Ulysses, the band Antioch Arrow and later even Q And Not U or some other 31G or even the experimental Dischord bands. Out of all chaotic/complex and spastic bands in their branch of extreme music, they gradually developed into a sound that was surprisingly approachable, moving gradually from seizure-inflicting screaming music to a blend of John Zorn-esque jazz and funk-incorporating hardcore/post-hardcore music.

This, sadly, is another band that broke up shortly before a significant album-release, which never saw the light of day because of that band’s sudden inactivity.

Last fm tags as experimental, post-hardcore, hardcore, punk,indie 

support the record label via the link in the image above

Out Of The Box On Sunday XV

listen to Incomplete by Football, Etc

Football, etc (bandcamp) is an indie/emo rock band that takes me back to when I thought most of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate or Mineral. they take you on a trip to the late 90's emo sound, via the rather typical sound that is the standard for bands on the Count Your Lucky Stars label, like this band in particular. The vocals are hypnotizing and don't seem whiney, when the pace gets really really slow and the melodies would leave no one unmoved.
Last fm tags as emo, indie, indie emo, indiemo, indie rock

click the image above to order stuff directly from the band

Out Of The Box XIII

Letter To Raoul Peck by Black Eyes

What the actual fuck? Black Eyes (myspace) were a band on Dischord Records, that build their music out of little more than a funky bass, two drums and two manic voices, each doing their own thing with occasional horns or synths in a frantic way that would make Arab On Radar jealous. on the surface the separate sounds seem to clash with one another. underneath that surface you may recognize the brilliance in their minimalistic dancey noise music, and feel like their approach is more an epiphany, than what you may get from an awkard first impression. 

Last fm tags as experimental, noise rock, noise, indie, post-punk

outside The Box Week: Atom And His Package - Hair: Debatable (3of4)

LMFAO. This is still easily the most random music I enjoy THIS much.  Just one dude (who is now a teacher in chemistry and physics), with a guitar and sequencer. While the machine automates sketchy beats, bleeps and MIDI-drums, Atom plays awkwardly upbeat punk rock guitar tunes and blurts out random and geeky lyrics. About his mother’s disappreciation for his and his friends’ black metal lifestyle, a mousache stuck to a TV-screen, how his definition of anarchy is littering, a fictional person who consists of nothing but a head with arms attached etc etc, with song titles like “I am down right amazed at what I can destroy with just a hammer”. You get the picture. The vocals often remind one of The Simpson’s Dr Frink and the overall music of an over-the-top Blink 182 mock-song. these songs are crappy/fantastic live recordings from his last show ever. Atom was also a playable character in EMOGAME.
Last Fm tags as punk, indie, experimental, electronic, rock

buy his stuff from No Idea Records, here

Outside The Box Week: Hot Snakes - Audit In Progress (1of4)

This is probably THE most quirky punk rock music in punx-history. Hot Snakes (site) featured members from Drive Like Jehu, and those very members went on to form The Night Marchers. in this band, and especially this album even more than their previous, they delivered very peculiar post-punk (and maybe even noise rock) influenced structures into punk rock. It’s like punk for all the Liars or The Jesus Lizard fanboys and girls and a prime example or reminder how versatile punk music can be to any die hard (up the) punx. This band is long gone but dearly missed.
Last fm tags as  post-punk, post-hardcore, punk, indie, rock

buy their stuff from Swami Records, right here

Out of the box on sunday XII

 listen to All You Need Is Blood by Test Icicles

 Test Icicles were a wildly energetic screamy/dancey punkish indie band. quite a lot of ingrediënts, but quite the conistent end product. just 3 hipsters with a mic, passing along guitars, while an iPod busts out their drumlines with occasional additional bleeps and other electronic noise. this often reminds of The Blood Brothers writing songs as catchy as Death From Above or Franz Ferdinand. members went on to form Rat Att Agg (aka Wrists), Kasms and most notibally Lightspeed Champion.
Last fm tags as indie, experimental, alternative, indie rock, punk

click here, to order their stuff directly from Domino Records

Out Of The Box X

listen to Transpire by Marionette ID

Marionette ID (myspace) is a Hungarian post-rock band with a very tuneful indie-rock approach. With more vocals entwined in their structures than any non-instrumental postrock band, these dudes bring forth THE most amazing compromise between catchy and ambient music. Something in between haunting indie rock and melodic post-rock, both executed brilliantly, with the most crystal clear vocals in any of those genres and catchy as heck. Heck I tell ya! This band could never be anything more than underappreciated, no matter how appreciated they will ever become. I have added their first full-length and their recent 2-song EP. Somehow I favor the EP, but that might be just because I haven’t listened tot hat release 394 375 times. Yet.
Last fm tags as post-rock, indie, hungarian, post-hardcore,emo

buy their debut album right here

Spark Is A Diamond - Keep Your Eyes Off The Price

 listen to Urgent by Spark Is A Diamond

Spark Is A Diamond (Myspace) was what Death From Above 1979 would sound like, if their vocalist sounded more like the screams from the chick (pardon my language) in Rollo Tomassi or even Oathbreaker. Funky, groovy and highly all in all danceable instrumentation with the most gritty screaming vocals. This band featured members from Morning For The Masses and Fall River’s signature raspy shouting. This is their first release of the two records they ever made.a n intro and 4 songs, of which most made their return on the next full album and were the best on that release, so… there you have it.

another defunct band that can only be found on Interpunk, here

Out Of The box on sunday VI

Chain Of Missing Links by The Books

Does anyone remember the song ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ by The Avalanches? A song entirely driven by sampling spoken extracts from various movies and tv-shows,  merged into one sequence of strange and inconsistant quotes with a minimal undertone of electronic music (a drum, a bass and some other seemingly random sounds). This is the foundation to The Books’s (page) entire sound. I always felt like there was more tot that song I mentioned, and these guys bring it quite masterfully.

Last fm tags as experimental, electronic, indie, electronica,indietronica 

buy this album from their record label, here

Serene - Inward Flowering

 listen to The Immortal Emo-Kids by Serene

This is Children Of Gaia before they were called so. Melody-driven hardcore and screamo punk music from a decade ago. A swedish band with one of the the most recognisable sounds out of most European emocore bands. From down to up tempo and everything in between structures, the melodies are always stirring and the mood continuously wholehearted.

Last fm tags as screamo, hardcore, emo violence, punk, indie  

I found this site had this album for sale. Genet records is more of a distro now, so...

On The Might Of Princes - Where You Are And Where You Want To Be

 listen to For Meg by On The Might Of Princes

ahhhh, ye olde american emo/screamo bands. On The Might Of Princes (Myspace) has everything that I liked best about screamo when I first got into it. I was hooked since first listen, to the melow guitars, like emotional post-rock, that transit into their more discordant peak as the vocals do the same, from whiny yet radiant to screeching and utterly tormented. I adore the bittersweet sound from this wave of screamo bands(like Indian Summer, Kite Flying Society, ...) which seem musically closest to the french screamo breed at its peak.
Last fm tags as screamo, emo, post-hardcore, indie, real screamo

a bit weird, but this is where I found the most merch and records by this band: interpunk (wut?)

outside the box on sunday III

 listen to Just Like That by Tangled Hair

Brittish band Tangled Hair (bandcamp) plays the most mellow Math-like music that ever appealed to me so much. as if they play a compromise between Foals' lengthy sweet ballads and their older energetic and fleeting songs with apparent pop-punk influences that remind me of the noodly guitars and odd time signatures of indie-ish emo bands. throw in a cheesy brittish accent, and you have an idea of Tangled Hair's musical foundation. to those who aren't frightened by such a description, you should have already checked it out by now.

Last fm tags as: math pop, math rock, indie, uk, bsm

click the image above to support them and donate something for a music download