International music, News

The See See & Pale Sunday

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THE SEE SEE

London-based The See See has delivered excellent psychedelic pop music right from the start. Their second album Fountayne Mountain came out in late may on Dell’Orso and I’m enjoying it a lot. All kinds of great things like 60s psych-flavoured pop and west coast comes to mind. Full of great songs like Fix Me Up which isn’t million miles away from Teenage Fanclub.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/33368482″ iframe=”true” /]
 
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmei5kX_Zu4]

The See See Website
The See See at Facebook

PALE SUNDAY

A blog favourite Pale Sunday returns with a new EP entitled The Fake Stories About You and Me. They are a great brazilian indie pop group and I really loved their early releases Weekend With Jane EP (2003) and Summertime? album (2005). Based on the opening track of the new EP Happy (When You Lived Here), the band is still more than capable of creating magnificent indie pop tunes. The Fake Stories About You and Me was released by the wonderful Matinee Recordings and is already available directly from the label (matineerecordings.com).

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52286574″ iframe=”true” /]
 
Pale Sunday Website
Pale Sunday at Facebook

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Featured, International music, News

The Tallest Man On Earth, The Great American Desert, Nathan K & Paul Otteson

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The last month kind of flew by and my life revolved around new job and the Euro 2012. Therefore it’s time to go through some of the great folk albums that came out during that time. More to come during the next week or so, because I try to get on track and there’s tons of albums I need to write about.

The Tallest Man On Earth – There’s No Leaving Now

Swedish Kristian Matsson aka The Tallest Man On Earth is quite a well-known folk singer-songwriter and doesn’t really need an introduction. Of course that’s partly a perspective illusion and he is not such a big star outside the world I live in. But he should be. The new album There’s No Leaving Now came out on june 12th on Dead Oceans and it is excellent. This is 1904 from the new album.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/46454451″ iframe=”true” /]

 

The Great American Desert – Carson City

Yer Bird’s latest signing is The Great American Desert. The Great American Desert is Max Holmquist who previously crafted captivating folk music under the name South Of Lincoln. His new album Carson City came out on Yer Bird Records on june 26th. Listen to the title track from this beautiful down-to-earth folk album below and hit that bandcamp link for more.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/46148966″ iframe=”true” /]
 

Great American Desert Website
Great American Desert at Bandcamp

Nathan K. – Dishes

Michigan-based folk musician Nathan K. featured in the video of the day section a while back, but it’s time for another entry, because his great new album Dishes came out on 26th of june. There’s also a new video for the song entitled Bob Seger, which is an outtake from the new album. Stream/buy at bandcamp.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DByTKl_yOEk]

Nathan K. Website
Nathan K. at Bandcamp

Paul Otteson – Robin Red

Well Robin Red by Paul Otteson was the album of the month in june and it is one of my favourite albums of the whole year. It’s such a beautiful release that I had to mention it one more time. February Fables was already pretty convincing, but Robin Red lifted Wisconsin-based Paul Otteson to the hall-of-fame for unknown folk singer-songwriters. Well I suppose hall of no fame, but magical music would be more approriate. Monstrously highly recommended. Stream/buy at bandcamp.

Paul Otteson Website
Paul Otteson at Bandcamp

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International music, Video of the Day

Video of the Day #104 & 105: The Kik & Marty Graveyard

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THE KIK

A bit of dutch pop for tonight. I stumbled upon The Kik at facebook a while back and recognized some familiar faces from great dutch pop groups Mark & The Spies and The Madd. Unfortunately I also found out that both Mark & The Spies and The Madd have split up. But no need to worry, The Kik has just begun and they are pretty amazing. There’s a minor language barrier though, but pop is a rather universal language and songs like Simone below are incredibly catchy 60s influenced pop songs. Debut album out on the finest dutch label, Excelsior Recordings.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiWFAgYhpA]

The Kik Website

MARTY GRAVEYARD

This next one is also Madd-related. Marty Graveyard was The Madd’s drummer who also wrote some of the songs. He recently released his solo debut Summer Holiday and based on quick previewing at spotify during the last half an hour, it seems to be a really good summery pop album. Maybe I’m not too thrilled about this video, but the song Do You Really Wanna Dance? is a great powerpop tune. And it’s not even the best song on the album.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1MG9dkuqfA]

Marty Graveyard Website

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General

No more gravatars

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A couple of minor changes. From now on, all comments will be held up to moderation and gravatars are off. This is because apparently blog commentator’s gravatar can cause legal trouble to the blogger. Yesterday I received a lovely settlement fee demand for 768,75€, because a certain stock photo agency claimed that there is an unauthorized image on my blog. As a proof they had printed the photo in question and an incredibly blurry screenshot which could be from on my site or not. It was impossible to tell for sure and there was no url present. The only two photos on the screenshot were gravatars of blog commentators. I couldn’t find the image/gravatar from my website and still don’t know has it been there at some point. The only possibility is probably some kind of spam comment that had gone through the filters and I had deleted it at some point later on. Even if it has been there, I really don’t understand how is it my responsibility if a blog commentator uses an unauthorized photo as his/her gravatar. Shouldn’t that be his/her problem or gravatar.com’s problem. I mean how on earth can a webmaster know if a commentator uses an unauthorized photo as gravatar. I obviously contacted the stock photo agency in question and we shall see how it goes. If there’s any common sense left in the world, I don’t need to pay them for an image I’ve never used or even seen before. Still this blog is a one man hobby and I don’t really want to fight these kind of battles and therefore gravatars are off. They don’t really add any value to the blog anyway.

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