Sammal deserves some love around here, because being a prog-rock band and still writing a song that I find amazing is not an easy task. Mainly because progressive is pretty much a curse word at the onechord.net headquarters and I prefer spending my days listening three minute pop songs or whiskey-soaked country ballads. However, Kylmää usvaa by Sammal is pretty fantastic. There’s a great 70’s thing going on. Almost something like Kaseva going progressive. The album is due out sometime next year. I’m still not sure will I enjoy the whole album, but prog-rock fans will certainly have a lot to look forward to. While waiting you can check out Kylmää usvaa and a couple of other tracks from the upcoming album on their myspace.
Viola says goodbye with their new song. Viola music club has offered a new song each month for the past three years, but now Viola are putting the project aside. Therefore it’s a time to say thank you and Goodbye Viola. I enjoyed the ride and the band will always have a tiny sentimental place in my heart. Especially Tearcandy meant a lot to me and was my very own comfort deluxe when times weren’t as bright as they are now. It would also be one of those 10 years 10 reasons albums, but it looks I will never get that project finished, because this anniversary year is running out. Listen to Viola’s final offering (at least for the time being) Goodbye Viola at violamusiclub.com. Take care Riku & Tommi.
As you may have noticed, I’m way behind in promoting new Finnish indie music, but thankfully there are several great blogs (like Stop, Shake, Honey, Go, Slow Show, Singin’ Drunken Lullabies…) that are keeping you informed while I keep listening to american folk music.
BLACK TWIG
I completely failed to mention the first outtake Lake Song from the upcoming Black Twig album, even though I really liked it. The second taster Death Scene has also been out there for a week or two, so now it’s definitely time to make amends and post these two great noise pop tracks. Black Twig may not be style-wise my closest companion, but this is definitely high quality stuff. Especially Lake Song is pretty amazing on all accounts. Debut album is due out in January 2012 and it will be released by Soliti.
It’s been great to notice that The New Tigers and their debut album has been so widely praised during the last months. The boys definitely deserve it. One of the loveliest things about the new indie label Soliti has been the fact that Nick Triani has showed that it’s possible to create a truckload of positive interest and hype around wonderful indie releases and bands. Has it really reflected on record sales? Don’t know. But it can do no harm that good bands have a little bit of buzz going on around them.
Last week Soliti released two songs that didn’t make The New Tigers album. The songs are Toffee and Chocolate. The instrumental Chocolate is a thing of beauty, but after all this positive vibe, I got to say I don’t like Toffee one bit. Well there’s actually a really beautiful and most likely amazing song somewhere under there, but I can’t hear it, because it’s buried under the noise. I’ll take just the Chocolate to go with the great debut album. Thanks.
I think it will go close to Christmas (or even after) until I have the albums and songs of the year lists ready, but I thought I post a couple of quick round-up posts before that. Maybe I should ask Suburban Home is that Micah Schnabel album coming out before the end of the year, before choosing the album of the year. At the moment it seems to be a contest between The Deep Dark Woods and Glossary with Dawes lurking on the 3rd spot and Mummypowder leading the local contest. But last minute changes are always possible.
I’ve become more and more addicted to folk singer-songwriters during the year and Jeremy Quentin (Small Houses), Raphael Cutrufello (Hezekiah Jones), Chris Bathgate and Yann Tambour (Stranded Horse) are new musical heroes of mine. I think I’ve found the first three from the wonderful Canadian blog Slowcoustic and if you like these videos below you should bookmark it (or just make it your home page).
Without further ado, I’ll bring you these great folk songs. Also known as the most beautiful songs of the year 2011 here at the onechord.net headquarters. I’ve listened these so many times that you need master’s degree in mathematics to be able to count that far. The albums are also fantastic. Well at least the first three. I don’t actually have the Stranded Horse album yet, which is criminal because I love that song. I have to do something with that if the rest of it is even half as good.
