English blog | Heet Stof

It's been quiet...

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:30:32 +0200

It has been pretty quiet on this pages lately. I never intended to let this happen, but circumstances forced me to put my search for indie music on a back shelf. Last time I wrote about my pneumonia but my health situation is a lot worse en tjis has nog to do with my lungs. This will not change in the near future and I just can hope that I will be able to introduce you to new and exciting indie bands and musicians.

It will stay quiet for a while longer...

Tilly and the Wall

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:35:58 +0200

There hasn't happened much. I've been home with pneumonia and although I feel a lot better by now, I don't feel like I'm cured yet. I feel cold a lot (even when it's hot outside), I'm a little short of breath and I'm tired fast. I've got no energy and even though I've got plenty of time, I don't feel like working on my indieblog a lot. For the time being I will only write one or two posts a week. Such post should be about a band who makes happy music. A band like Tilly and the Wall from Omaha, Nebraska.
The names of the members are Neely Jenkins, Kianna Alarid, Nick White, Jamie Pressnall and Derek Pressnall and the most striking thing of this line-up are the instruments played by Jamie: tapdance and percussion. It's also interesting to know that the five members all are songwriters and this means that the repertoire contains some of the musical tastes of every member. Tilly and the Wall debuted June 2004 with the album "Wild Like Children". Almost two years later they released "Bottoms of Barrels" and now, again two years later, the third album will be released. All CDs are released by the great label Team Love. This new album has been given the title of the symbol or form "O". Not the letter O, but a circle symbol. This new album has a larger focus on percussion, rhythm, harmonies and melodies. Tilly and the Wall make attractive songs which deserve a much larger audience. Just listen:

>mp3: Pot Kettle Black
>mp3: Cacophony
>video: Pot Kettle Black

The Lodger

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:32:01 +0200

When I was younger I regularly waited anxious to get my hand om an announced album. It usually happened after I read about this forthcoming album in some music magazine and from that moment on I biked to the local record store nearly every day to ask if it came in. This doesn't happen to me anymore. The main reason is that I've become much more patient and I don't have any really favourite bands anymore. But there are still some bands I really like and of course I'm always interested in their new albums. One of those bands is The Lodger.
The debut album "Grown-Ups" by The Lodger was released one year ago and I've put this one in my list with 10 best albums of 2007. Singer/guitarist Ben Siddall, bassist Joe Margetts and drummer Bruce Renshaw are from Leeds, Engeland. The Lodger was founded by Ben in 2005 door Ben, Bruce was added to the band since their first album. The threesome are sometimes aided by guitarist Timothy Corbridge or singer Sarah Williams. Their new album "Life Is Sweet" has finally been released and I've ordered my copy a few days ago. I've listened to some tracks via MySpace and the website from the label Slumberland Records and those songs sound exactly like I've expected. The music of The Lodger is a excellent example of the fine tradition of English and Scottish indie guitar bands.

>mp3: The Good Old Days
>mp3: The Conversation

The Secret Life of Sofia

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:57:28 +0200

Lately I've been listening to the radio again (Studio Brussel) and this means I'm know some of the current 'hits'. That's why I was wondering why one song gets a lot of airplay and another song stays completely unknown. Especially when it's a song by a new, young band or musician. What makes one song a hit and another not? Do record companies still use promo men who try to sell the record to radio DJs or does it all depend on the discovery by one DJ? Why can't, for instance, "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" by She & Him become a hit? If The Editors can be successful, then this should also be possible for The Secret Life of Sofia.
Brooklyn, New York is the residence of The Secret Life of Sofia, a band which consist of Kyle Wilson, Eric Trip and Steve in the studio and which is completed by Fraser and Chris on stage. After their self-titled EP from 2006 they now have self-released their debut album "Seven Summits". The first five hundred copies of this CD are packed in a handmade cover. The lyrics from the songs on this CD are mostly true stories. In this case a lot of songs have the common theme of mountains and mountaineers, which is obvious after reading the albm title. You can listen to five beautiful tracks on MySpace from The Secret Life of Sofia and one of the most beautiful tracks can be downloaded below. Then you can hear that the music of The Secret Life of Sofia is very atmospheric and easy-listening and I think will be liked by most of the listeners.

>mp3: Outside
>mp3: Hospital Inside Me (from the EP "The Secret Life of Sofia")

The Ruling Class

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:51:02 +0200

I've written about the influences of bands and musicians before. Every musician is influenced by one or more other musicians, conscious of unconscious. For instance by the music you heard at home when you where a kid. Those influences are not always very obvious, a little hidden in the sound and only recognisable by the expert. But sometimes the influences are very clear. This is only a problem when the difference between the original band and their followers is not clear anymore. I don't suppose that this will happen with The Ruling Class, but there will be no listener who won't think of The Stone Roses when hearing this international band from London.
The foundation of The Ruling Class was laid in Stockholm, Sweden by Tomas Kubowicz (guitar, vocals) and Anton Lindberg (bass). They didn't succeed in finding musicians with the same taste in music in Sweden and that's why they moved to London. After their move the band was completed with the Italian drummer Alfonso Tammaro and Jonathan Sutcliffe (vocals) and Andrew Needle (rhythm guitar), both form the North of England. The debut from this young band was released by the renewed label Shelflife a week ago. Since some months this label releases special combinations of CD + 7" vinyl single packed in a cover designed by an artist. The CDEP +7" from The Ruling Class is called "Tour de Force" and contains 6 songs, 4 on the CDEP and 2 on the single. Half of these songs can be heard on MySpace and you can download one track. This psychedelic pop music sounds just as catching and attractive as the music of Ian Brown and friends some fifteen years ago.

>mp3: Flowers

mr. Gnome

Sun, 25 May 2008 15:38:10 +0200

There are plenty of bloggers who write about (indie) music. Music lovers who want to share their newest finds with their readers. Usually they write about small, unknown bands which haven't got much chance of becoming big, famous bands. Their albums, which are released by small and often local labels, will hardy ever become international successes. This doesn't mean that it's impossible. The best example of course is Artic Monkeys, but it also happened with Beirut, Band of Horses, Blonde Redhead and it seems to be happening with Bon Iver. If you look at the number of bloggers who have written mr. Gnome, I won't be surprised if this duo are the next success story.
Mr.Gnome or guitarist/vocalist Nicole Barille and drummer Sam Meister from Cleveland, Ohio have been making music with their minimal instrumentation for a few years. They place great emphasis on the contrast between soft/loud and masculine/feminine music. mr. Gnome self-released the EPs "Echoes on the Ground" (2005) and "mr. Gnome" (2006). Their first full-length CD "Deliver This Creature" was released by El Marko Records some weeks ago. Their music varies from metal to triphop and it sometimes reminds me of Sinéad O'Connor, PJ Harvey, but also of Tool and Portishead. Mr. Gnome gives you enough variation.

>mp3: Pirates
>mp3: Rabbit
>mp3: Night of the Crickets

Slow Down Tallahassee

Tue, 20 May 2008 21:16:53 +0200

Before I start writing a post about a band, I try to gather information about them and to hear as much songs as possible. Sometimes this is not a problem at all, because every band has some songs on their MySpace. Sometimes you can even listen to the whole album in streaming. But their are also bands of which the written information and the number of songs you can hear are limited. If I think the band is worth it, I still want to write that post. I just have to hope that those few songs are representative for the rest of the songs and that I give the right information. This means I have to be a little careful about Slow Down Tallahassee.

Rich, Nicola and Claire or Slow Down Tallahassee are not from the south of the US, but from Sheffield and this is in the north of England. The got their inspiration for their msic mainly from the first three decades of pop history and their main goal was to make a marvellous pop album. After hearing four tracks of the album, I can say they have succeeded. The debut album from Slow Down Tallahassee has the title "The Beautiful Light" and it will be released at the end of this month by Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation. For fans of The Breeders, The Go-Go's and The Runaways.

>mp3: The Beautiful Light
>mp3: Candy

Mates of State

Sun, 18 May 2008 16:43:56 +0200

I've often written about my preference for duos and trios. Usually I've got the feeling that the music which is made by bands of two or three persons have a more sincere and natural sound. At least the music is often less complicated. This doesn't mean that a larger band isn't able to make beautiful music, but I like my music simple and casual. There are a lot of fine twosomes and threesome in the indie scene like The Like Young (who have stopped making music), Two Gallants, Pants Yell! and Xiu Xiu. And I think that the American duo Mates of State does belong in this list.
Keyboard player Kori Gardner and drummer Jason Hammel are not just Mates of State, they are also 'mates of marriage'. The duo started over ten years ago in Lawrence, Kansas. After California and Connecticut their new home is New York. Their first album "My Solo Project" came out in 2000 o the Omnibus label, but it was later re-released on Polyvinyl. That's also where "Our Constant Concern" (2002) and "Team Boo" (2003) were released. At the end of 2005 thet signed a contract with Barsuk Records and they released "Bring It Back" in 2006 and the same label has now released the latest album "Re-Arrange Us" by Mates of State. The music of Kori and Jason is still based on drums, keyboards and the voices of both musicians, but the organ of the earlier records has been replaced by the piano and synthesizer.

>mp3: My Only Offer
>mp3: Think Long (from "Bring It Back")

Camphor

Sat, 17 May 2008 16:53:17 +0200

'What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over' is an English saying. It means that you can't be sad about something you don't know. Maybe you could explain it also like this: you won't miss a good band if you haven't hear them. Why should I worry about bands and musicians I don't know? Well, I'm always looking for good music and this doesn't have to be from known bands. Rather not. And I want to share to beautiful music I find. I wouldn't have slept one minute less if I never heard the music of Camphor, but I'm very glad I did.
Camphor was founded by songwriter, soundtrack-composer and producer Max Avery Lichtenstein. In 2006 he decided that I wanted to make music without being bound to a movie and he started writing songs. He asked several friends from bands like Timesbold (of which Max is also a member), Mercury Rev, Beirut and Hopewell and together they finished the songs. The band Camphor consists of Max and Gretta Cohn, D. James Goodwin, Ryan Smith and Kevin Thaxton. Their debut album "Drawn to Dust" has been finished for almost a year now and it has been released by Friendly Fire Recordings a few weeks ago. On some moments the very atmospheric music of Camphor reminds me of Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Beirut and Nick Cave, but the enchanting voice of Max makes it very recognisable.

>mp3: The Sweetest Tooth
>mp3: Confidences Shattered

Sybris

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:19:06 +0200

What is a good band name? In the sixties they thought that the best names where regular nouns in plural and preceded by 'the'. Look at The Beatles, The Kinks, The Golden Earrings, The Monkees, The Animals etc. A few years later they often expelled the article and sometimes the name wasn't even a noun. The band names became stranger. Like Ten Years After, Happy Mondays, Squeeze, Blur, Aztec Camera etc. Today it seems like every name is possible. But I think a band name has to have at least one quality: it has to be eye-catching which is hard to forget. And of course a name for a band today has to be able to be googled. The name Sybris is easy to be found on Google, but I don't think its a nice, remarkable name. It looks like the name of a publishing company or a spacecraft. I'm glad that the music is a lot more interesting.
Sybris are from Chicago and the band consists of Shawn Podgurski, Phil Naumann, Angela Mullenhour and Eric Mahle. The first three have met on April 2003 and it soon was clear that their musical partnership would lead to something special. Some days later the threesome was joined by drummer Bill Bumgardner, but he was replaced by Eric during the recording of the self-titled debut album in 2005. This first album was released by Flameshovel Records from the band's hometown. For their second album "Into The Trees" Sybris signed a deal with Absolutely Kosher Records from California. The music of these four Americans sounds like a mix of Pretenders, Belly and Lush.

>mp3: Oh Man!
>mp3: Breath Like You're Dancing (from "Sybris")

Hallelujah the Hills

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:00:09 +0200

I guess I have written about 550 musicians and bands in this indieblog till now. From February 2006 until October 2007 in Heet Stof and Hot Stof on Blogger and since just over six months on heetstof.eu. There are a few bands about which I've written two or three times, but most of them have had this pleasure just once. I hope you know that it's impossible for me to remember all the names of the musicians and bands. Now and then I have to look back to find out if I have already written about a certain band. This wasn't necessary with Hallelujah the Hills, because I would never forget their name.
Hallelujah the Hills hail from Boston and the band consists of David Bentley (cello, guitar), Elio DeLuca (keyboards, guitar), Joseph Marrett (bass), Eric Meyer (drums), Brian Rutledge (trumpet, melodica) and Ryan Walsh (guitar, vocals). The line-up and the musical instruments tell you that this isn't an everage popgroup. The music of Hallelujah the Hills contains some more complicated arrangments than the music of a normal singer/guitar/bass/drums-quartet. I don't always like this kind of music because it often sounds to hectic, but Hallelujah the Hills doesn't exaggerate and that's why I think their music is worth listening to. A month ago they released their new 7-tracks EP "Prepare To Qualify". You could buy this Ep at concerts or at indielabel Misra for $5, but you could also download the EP for free via the link below. If you're not familiar with Hallelujah the Hills, you could start buy listening to both examples.

>mp3: Nurses 5 Float Past
>mp3: Cataloging Candy's Demise
>ep zip: Prepare To Qualify

Windsor For The Derby

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:03:13 +0200

Many of the bands I review on this blog are young bands who release their first or second album. Often they only have been around for a few years and their albums are released on a small independent label. But there are also a lot of bands which are a few years older and which have never signed with a major label. These bands often want to hold on to their own ideals and this is not often possible with major labels. I don't know what Windsor For The Derby's ideals are, but the have been active for more than ten years and they have already released seven albums, all with indielabels.
The music of Windsor For The Derby is often described as post-rock and this is partially right. Just listen to "The Egg" (from 1999) below. But if you listen to the later albums, you'll here another Windsor For The Derby. On "Hold On" from the new CD "How We Lost" is a nice popsong with a restrained melody and a fine Beach Boys-like background harmonies. This new album and most of the older albums (the first two as a re-release) are released by Secretly Canadian. The current line-up of the band is Jason McNeely, Dan Matz, Charlie Hall and Gianmarco Cilli. Longtime member Anna Neighbor has left the band (temporarily) to concentrate on photography. All the songs from the CD "Emotional Rescue" from 2002 can be downloaded for free from the website of Windsor For The Derby.

>mp3: Hold On
>mp3: Maladies
>mp3: The Egg (from "Difference and Repetition")

Culture Reject

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:07:10 +0200

How many starting (pop) musicians dream of becoming famous and rich fast? I think that this dream is shared by every beginning 'rockstar'. Like everyone who starts sporting seriously dreams of the Olympics. Of course this success is for everyone. Just very few musicians and sporters reach that goal. Most of them have to be satisfied woth some local fame. Musicians have the advantage that they can try to become a little more famous by using internet. I try to help independent musicians and bands a hand and today I want to help Michael O'Connell a.k.a. Culture Reject.
Canadian Michael O'Connell used to play with Black Cabbage and when that band split up, he first travelled through Africa and Cuba for a while. Back in Canada he started his solo project Culture Reject. Most of the songs from the debut album "Culture Reject" originate out of the sessions in Michael's home in Toronto. He recorded some of them all by himself and for others songs he was assisted by for instance Jim Guthrie, Karri North, Dave Clark and some horn players. Together they produced a CD with very nice music which reminds me of Beirut and Gomez. This CD from Culture Reject was released two weeks ago on White Whale Records and by clicking the second link below you'll reach a website on which yo can listen to the complete album.

>mp3: Inside the Cinema
>stream: album "Culture Reject"

Awesome Color

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:06:35 +0200

Last time I wrote about influences. Everyone can be influenced; sometimes you're aware of it and sometimes you're not. This is no problem for a teacher like me. I've never heard anyone say that I teach like another teacher. Of course it's also no problem for an artist, but if the influences are too obvious they will be mentioned in every review. It will be heard to convince your audience that you have your own style or sound. Last time I mentioned some influential bands and I realise that I've forgotten at least one. Sonic Youth. This band is a role model for a lot of alternative guitar bands like Awesome Color.

"Free Man" was the first song from Awesome Color I heard (watch the video below) and the influences of Sonic Youth are very clear in this song. Later I found out that the records of Allison Busch, Derek Stanton and Michael Troutman are released by Ecstatic Peace!, the label of Thurston Moore. After the self-titled debut album from 2006 they released their second album "Electric Aborigines" last week. You can call it noise-rock, garage-rock or post-punk, Awesome Color makes music you can't fall asleep on and it doesn't all sound like Sonic Youth. Other influences are Black Sabbath, MC5 and The Stooges. And from all those influences they produce their own sound.

>mp3: Eyes of Light
>mp3: Already Down
>video: Free Man

The Bridal Shop

Fri, 02 May 2008 16:21:47 +0200

Some musicians and bands are often mentioned as main influences. Of course The Beatles but also Velvet Underground, The Kinks, Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), Radiohead and I suppose there are a few more influential bands. However, many indiepop or tweepop bands are influenced by The Field Mice, a London band which excisted between 1989 and 1991. By now they have built up a rather mythical reputation. The Bridal Shop, today's band, is as far as I can tell very much influenced by The Field Mice. This is absolutely not a criticism, just an observation.
The Bridal Shop are from Sweden and the band consists of four persons and their names are Ida, Karl, Daniel, Peter en Toomas. At least, this are the five names mentioned on MySpace. I don't knwo if one of the members has a double given name of that they have included the name of the sound engineer. At the moment there's no biografy available from The Bridal Shop on the website of their record company Magic Marker Records. This is where the mini-album (7 tracks) "From Seas" is released. On Cloudberry Records you can find two of the EPs this Swedish foursome has already released.

>mp3: From Seas
>mp3: Marine Thing