Peaking Lights - Hey Sparrow

The Barr Brothers: Wild Honey Pie Session - Deacon's Son

WATERS - Back To You

[REVISIT SUNDAY] Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!

The recent release of Los Campesinos! new album, Hello Sadness, has set me off on a Campesinos listening kick lately. This song is off their debut album Hold on Now, Youngster..., which came out in 2008.

You! Me! Dancing! was the first Los Campesinos! song I ever listened to. I always come back to it because of that incredible minute-long build up into an explosion of sound. And exploding is definitely something Los Campesinos! has in their repertoire of skills. Evidence #1: just look at their use of exclamation marks. This is a band that yells in your face. Makes you want to dance and stomp around. Shoots you up with adrenaline. And I know I will always love them for that.

Check out their new album Hello Sadness here. (Recommended listens: By Your Hand, Hello Sadness)

You can also buy Hold on Now, Youngster... here.

Okkervil River - Your Past Life As A Blast

The Raveonettes - Let Me On Out

"'Let Me On Out' is probably the least commercial song on Raven In The Grave, in that respect you could refer to it as an anti-single. We really love the song. It's beautiful, haunting, loud, and dynamic. Everything a great song should be. We wanted to showcase the song in a static setting to draw the listeners attention to the raw sound."

Wow, humble much? Still, this I believe they've accomplished. It's reminiscent of Andy Warhol's factory screen tests on stars such as Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, and Bob Dylan. We've even got an Edie Sedgwick character, complete with extravagant black eye makeup and short almost white blonde hair. Looking down and away from the camera, or directly at it, no action, just focusing on the people themselves as they do nothing in front of the lens brings some sort of curious and aesthetic satisfaction to the frame.

Pick up Raven In The Grave over at amazon.

Bob Dylan's screen test
Dennis Hopper's screen test
Edie Sedgwick's screen test

Himan - Novalaise

Patrick Wolf - The Falcons

[REVISIT SUNDAY] The Shins - A Comet Appears

Sepalcure - Pencil Pimp

Ok Campfire - Brass

[REVISIT SUNDAY] Born Ruffians - I Need A Life

I Need A Life is off Born Ruffians' 2008 album, Red, Yellow & Blue. Buy it here.

The Joy Formidable - Moth's Wings (Passion Pit Cover)

I had the pleasure of seeing these guys yesterday at Fun Fun Fun Fest here in Austin at Auditorium Shores. I was waiting at the orange stage in order to be in front for tUnE-YarDs when they came up to play. I knew I recognized the name, and about 15 minutes into the set I realized that I not only knew, but really liked several of their songs. So, as I sit here spraying saline solution up my nose in order to clear the copious amounts of dust I have clogging up my sinuses and popping allergy pills and drinking orange juice and getting ready for day three of FFFest, I am hype machine-ing them. And whilst doing so, I discovered this.

I believe that a truly good cover does more than just put a new spin on the song, but also awakens the feelings one had during their initial listen, which is exactly what I just experienced while listening to this. Passion Pit, I've found you again. I've suddenly forgotten the entity that is currently the Passion Pit I know, and am remembering this band when Manners first came out in 2009.

I'm remembering driving to Dallas for Thanksgiving with two of my friends, seeing the city lights with Little Secrets blasting as we curve around the city. I'm remembering the joyous moment in the music video for To Kingdom Come when the moon explodes and rains down upon the earth. I'm remembering that this album was a originally a love song and letter, I'd forgotten that. It all is clear again. This music was good, still is good. Forget the hype.

But returning to The Joy Formidable, the songs I recognized during their set were Cradle and Austere, which have a much different sound than the cover above. In fact, all their music has a different sound, it's much harder and (obviously) electric, which made for a very energetic and solid set. They gave a lot to the crowd, and were clearly very excited to be playing the festival.

Also, 2,000 views? Huh? This needs to be seen/heard.

Buy The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable here.
Buy Manners by Passion Pit here.
Also, Pitchfork is live streaming Fun Fun Fun Fest all three days this weekend. Check it out on their website.

Real Estate - It's Real

Just a little over a week ago, we got a wonderful live video of It's Real from vimeo-lord 4eyes. And just incase I didn't emphasize how much I love the song in that entry, let me emphasize again: I love this song.

And also, just incase Real Estate was worried that my love was trivial (which it's not), or insufficient (believe me, there's plenty of it), or surface-y (are you kidding, this is a love to last a lifetime) they came out with a video circled around DOGS.

And so now that I've expressed my love for It's Real, let me just express my love for dogs:
I LOVE DAWGS.
Canines, pooches.
They are the ultimate example of unconditional love. Seriously, no conditions.
They are forever overjoyed to see your face.
They have a deeply ingrained passion for getting as dirty as possible.
They will cuddle with you until the world stops.
You want me to love your song even more, Real Estate? Well done. You win. I'm sold.

The video is directed by Weird Days, who also directed one of last year's popular favorites: Delorean's Stay Close.

It's Real is off of Real Estate's latest release, Days, which can be purchased here.

Foxx on Fire - March Into the Sun

This I found simply on the vimeo homepage.

The Kills - Baby Says

[REVISIT SUNDAY] Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You

Since nothing makes the end of the weekend/start of the week blues feel better (ok, with the exception of new secrets updated on PostSecret) except some good homegrown nostalgia (and you know as indie music enthusiasts we love our nostalgia), I've decided to try something new here.

It may be the new startlingly foreign cold weather in Austin, or the fact that my housemates and I have built the coziest giant sheet fort downstairs, but lately every time I've left my house in the past few days, I've felt this odd string tying me back to it. I've been perpetually wanting to go back home. Which, for the record, is completely unlike me. The solution? Familiar, cozy songs. I've been playing them constantly to keep me going.

So in light of that, I've decided to start Revisit Sundays, in which a cup-of-soup-good song from a few years back will be focused on so we can all get over the letdown of a weekend gone past, and play it throughout Monday to keep from retreating into shelter.

Today's pick is Band of Horses' No One's Gonna Love You, off their 2007 album Cease to Begin. This was filmed live at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, exactly 4 years ago in October 2007. Check out that beard, yo. Listen, and feel ok.

Modeselektor ft. Thom Yorke - Shipwreck

What's with all these kids having superpowers? Indie music is going all Matilda at the moment. First M83's music video for Midnight City, now we have a brand new music video from German electronic duo Modeselektor. The track features vocals from Thom Yorke and is off their latest album, Monkeytown. Don't know much about these guys, but with sounds and visuals like these, I'll be sure to keep an ear and an eye on them.

Directed by Tony T. Datis.
Monkeytown can be purchased here.

Monogold - Spirit or Something

Bombay Bicycle Club - Dust On the Ground: Watch Listen Tell Session

I Break Horses - Wired

Real Estate - It's Real

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite songs of the fall. Still a little summer-y sounding, it feels just like October in Austin: golden, warm, whispers of a crispness to come perfectly blended with a sweet drop of summer still saturating the air.

The video is done by 4eyes, an exclusively vimeo-based film production group that is swiftly establishing quite a name for themselves in the independent music sphere. (Check out their sessions with The Antlers and The War on Drugs in particular.) The coverage is great in these productions, the amount of different angles and shots they can get in a 3 or 4 minute song is incredible.

It's Real is from Real Estate's latest album Days, which was released October 18. Purchase Days here, and give a listen to the rest of the tracks that help make up an overall warm and expressive album.

Friends - I'm His Girl

Fanfarlo - Deconstruction

The Eastern Sea - The Snow

Here's a local! This song has become a sweet soundtrack to my going on 3 years living in Austin. I first saw The Eastern Sea perform at the 21st Street Co-Op during one of UT's student radio, KVRX's concert series shows. It was during fall and I was wearing a purple bandana and many were drunk and this song was being blasted yet played so graciously to a room full of enthusiastic people. I don't remember much other than that, but I knew after that I had to find the song.

Interestingly enough, I now live at 21st Street Co-Op. I don't know if the song brought me back to the place, but it certainly is a romantic thought. I just delight in the fact that the two combine in the same memory, and that The Snow continues to play in the background while I grow, realize, experiment, and weave my way through this city.

This music video is directed by Brittany Washington and released earlier this year. There also exists a previous music video for the song, filmed candidly at a house party by Danger FIlms. Check it out here.

mp3: The Eastern Sea - The Snow

Support Austin music! Purchase The Eastern Sea EP and The Eastern Sea EP II. You can also listen to Wasn't For Love off their upcoming LP Plague over at The Eastern Sea's website.

Also, support student radio! KVRX streams live 24 hours at their website, and in the Austin area at 91.7 FM.

Gregory Allen Isakov - Big Black Car

Not to get all emotional with you guys, but I first heard Gregory Alan Isakov at the most appropriate time in my life about half a year ago. I was going through a strange loss of my sense of self, and nothing seemed to help. But I heard Isakov's The Stable Song, and though I was feeling lost, I discovered something that gave me the sense of being home. Now, I will tell just about anyone that they should listen to The Stable Song, because I honestly believe that the world would be a better place if everyone listened to this song just once.

And just as before, I came across this video at exactly the right time a few days ago. Filmed in Isakov's Boulder home, Big Black Car takes on a much more raw and spirited energy than the album version. Music like this just feels good.

mp3: Gregory Alan Isakov - Big Black Car

Big Black Car is off off Gregory Alan Isakov's This Empty Northern Hemisphere, and The Stable Song is off The Sea, The Gambler. Both albums can be bought here.

M83 - Midnight City

mp3: M83 - Midnight City

Harlem: For No One Session

Calvin Harris - Feel So Close

mp3: Calvin Harris - Feel So Close

Henry Wolfe - Someone Else

Keegan Dewitt - Hearts Beat Loud

Keegan Dewitt is best known as a popular independent film score composer. He's written music for films such as Quiet City, Any Day Now, and Cold Weather.
All his film scores can be downloaded for free on his website.

Yet this song is off his pop-toned and lyrically driven EP Nothing Shows, which comes without a film attached. The album was released by Daytrotter, whom Dewitt has been touring under for the past year.

Alex Winston - Locomotive: All Things Go Session

Alex Winston is the woman I will never be. The pipes on this woman, the style, the sheer confidence and the way her songs confront the world in it's face. What else can be said about a singer who's lyrics that go "get the hell out, it's my night. You don't know the way to his heart like I do." So if I can't be Alex Winston, at least I can channel her aura. She's a badass goddess.

This live session was filmed for Washington DC blog All Things Go earlier this year.
Locomotive is from Sister Wife EP, released in April. You can buy it here.

Washed Out - Amor Fati

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. -Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road, 5

Oh man, doesn't this video make you want to experience the world? To go on a long road trip, shirk all responsibilities, Kerouac-ian style? I get itchy just watching it.

Director: Yoonha Park
Produced by: Neighborhood Watch

Amor Fati is off Within and Without, buy it here.

Wild Beasts: Télérama Session

This I cannot stop listening to/watching/fawning over. It's too good. I'm going to die. It's impossible.

As with anything Wild Beasts do, the music speaks for itself. Though I would like to make the comment that though Hayden Thorpe's vocals are astonishingly beautiful and deserve all the attention they get, Tom Fleming's deep and haunting voice is what gives me the shivers and makes me want to close my eyes and fall, especially in this acoustic session by the French blog Télérama.

All three songs performed are off their third album Smother, which was released in May of this year. You can buy it here.

Nurses - Fever Dreams

I consider it to always be a treat when a music video is both filmed and edited by the band itself. There's no middle man, no filter that the music must pass through before its visual manifestation. We can rest assured that what we're watching is singularly the band members' collaborative vision, and not just something they agreed to.

For their video for Fever Dreams, Nurses chose to make something dense and colorful to reflect such a rich song. Original? Maybe not, looks like a blend of every Animal Collective video I've ever seen. Enjoyable? Absolutely. The white light bouncing horizontally across the screen to the beat is such a mesmerizing vehicle for keeping the pace, and the whole serenading the lightbulb bit is a quirky touch. So, hey, maybe we would have gotten something a little bit more innovative if a filmmaker had had his or her hands in it, but this is what the band saw in their own song, and I think we can tell that based upon how the video and song seem to fit one another like warm mittens.

Download the mp3 for Fever Dreams for free at their Last.FM or Bandcamp.
Fever Dreams is off their 2011 release, Dracula, you can buy it here.

Neon Indian - Polish Girl

I've been a fan of Alan Palomo ever since he said that much of his music was inspired by hazy 3AM trips to I Luv Video while he lived in Austin to rent strange old movies.

"They have a really extensive selection and I went here a lot late at night during the writing of Psychic Chasms. I would go in there after working all day feeling kind of zombified and could always find a movie that complimented that mood."
Full interview: Paint the Town Neon: Electro Wiz Neon Indian's SXSW Guide to Austin 

But that was his first album. Time has passed since Palomo has lived in Austin, he's been playing the circuit of festivals, has been deemed a founding father of the "chillwave" craze, has had time to detach himself from the obscure local adventures that saturated the dazed tone of Psychic Chasms.

Yet I think that if "Polish Girl", directed by Tim Nackashi and off his newly released album Era Extraña proves anything, it's that our Indian is still fond of the retro and bizarre. Filled with old technology performing futuristic concepts (complete, of course, with monitor static), the music video plays as if it itself were a dusty spaced-out gem of a VHS found in the back of I Luv Video.

Era Extraña was released September 13, you can buy it here.