October 2009 Archives

Hallowe'en. 'Tis the season to be dark, ghoulish and scary. It would be easy for me to post a list of top five goth songs or death metal songs, or to be relevant and cater to the taste of the masses, maybe even have a run down of favorite songs from the Twilight soundtrack. But I won't.

It actually would be easier for me to just produce a list of my favorite noisy songs that have a nice mix of guy and girl vocals (good songs like these are quite the find!). But, I've never really been relevant in my posts. So in an effort to be timely, I'm fitting in my top noisy songs with a nice mix of guy and girl vocals, with a great hallowe'en genre that has yet to be fully exploited - the zombie love story. We've been bombarded with vampire love stories from all around, why not turn the spotlight on the true star of hallowe'en - the zombies. I'm not talking about rom-coms in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Let's make our zombie love story ridiculously romantic in a Twilight-like teeny-bopper kind of way. Have we ever seen something like that? (unfortunately, My Boyfriend's Back doesn't count).

Now if we did have a zombie love story movie, this would be the soundtrack -

We haven't had a new Fresh from the Post feature in a while,  so we've got something special. Here's a Dutch band who may or may not bring the in 'very' in the 'sexual' -- it's The Very Sexuals.

I had the pleasure of having a Q and A with The Very Sexuals frontman, Joep van Son, who shared some his thoughts about dutch indie music, making a sountrack for a post-apocalyptic love and how showers and great band names are correlated -

We've got more indie-pop this week, with Tender Trap's video for their new single 'Fireworks' -

Fortuna POP! has the new EP up on their site that they are giving away as a  free download. The EP includes the songs 'Fireworks' and  'Grand National'. You can head on over here to grab a copy :)

Also if you're in the area, you can catch Tender Trap live on Sunday,  Nov 15th at the Indiepop Alldayer, Lee Rosy's Tea Shop, Nottingham UK.

This has been long overdue - much like the site redesign (which is progressing quite nicely - see the brand spanking new header? ;)  I have put off featuring bands from Manila because I haven't the slightest idea about the indie music scene there. This, coming from someone who grew up in Manila most of her life, is a bit embarrassing.  Admittedly, my knowledge of Philippine bands is quite dated. To give you an idea of how dated it is, I'll give you three music related facts about my life that occured at the heyday of my music listening days in Manila - 1. My choice of university was governed mostly by what university members of The Eraserheads went to, 2. As far as Pinoy indie music goes, my earliest foray into it was having bootleg recordings of The Youth songs before they got signed, 3. I went to university at the same time members of Parokya ni Edgar did, since I'd occasionally see them up and about campus. I never did get a chance to meet them though, but on a somewhat related note, I did get to shake hands with Jeffrey Hidalgo in school while he was campaigning as a department rep for the student council. I do remember being set on voting for him after that - despite the fact that he was running for the department of engineering and I was in the department of social science ;)

I haven't been as keen on listening to Filipino bands since college, most especially when I moved here in Vancouver, where the usual word-of-mouth news about up and coming bands isn't as easy to get. So without a wide range of available music to listen to, my Philippine music knowledge floundered.

But then came the internet. And I was saved.

Following leads from music-minded friends on local Filipino bands they liked, I stumbled across this site that, lo-and-behold, offered a nice collection of songs by Filipino indie music artists. And not only that, it offered a wide array of songs from my favorite flavor of indie music: twee. So, this week, I'm finally able to have some Filipino flavor our weekly list courtesy of the burgeoning Filipino Indiepop scene. 

1. Outerhope - Lost in Numbers

My music surfing session began with this band which was a result of me googling Terno Recordings - an independent record label recommended by one of my friends. The label's site pointed me to the group's Myspace site and eventually, a link to download this whimsically sweet tune from the online compilation album 'Kissing Ballade' on the Filipino Indiepop scene site.

Lost in Numbers is a nice song in harmony,  sung by the musically talented brother and sister tandem of Mike and Micaela Benedicto. Their acoustic style reminds me of Sufjan Stevens with a bit of cuteness factor added into the mix.  Despite the lullaby-ish quality of the song, it kind of has the feel of quiet early mornings, with nice warm sunbeams and butterflies fluttering about.

2. Archaster - Kissing Ballade

Despite being named after starfish, Archaster's song won't remind you of stars or fishes, or even the sea - but it will most definitely remind you of`fields, the magnetic kind.

Undeniably influenced by Stephin Merritt, Archaster even sounds like The Magnetic Fields frontman himself.  Does he also share the same talent for mixing melancholy and humor as The Magnetic Fields do? I haven't heard his other songs, but with Kissing Ballade, what Archaster shares with The Magnetic Fields (besides Stephin's voice) is most definitely their talent for writing unique and heartfelt love songs.

3. Carnival Park - Moonlight Darling

Moonlight Darling has the classic elements of a twee song: the jangly guitars, toy piano sounds, the breezy female vocals and if they added some trumpets and handclaps it would've completed it even more. I'm actually imagining how it'll sound like with all the twee perks - it wouldn't be twee overkill would it? This song is a part of the online compilation album Summer Escape that the next song in the list is also featured in.

4. Soft Pillow Kisses - Just Like the Sky

Just Like the Sky actually has more of a retro-feel to it than indie-pop. It begins with drum thumping that kind of reminded me one of the songs of 60's inspired band Lucky Soul. I wondered what it would've sounded like if they had Dusty Springfield sing to it - or even, if it was featured in an early Sampaguita Pictures film with Susan Roces in it (complete with a music montage with some dance choreography of course!).

5. Arigato, Hato! - Kissus

There's a Japanese feel to this Filipino band, and it's not just the name. Kissus, is much like Japanese poetry, or a lot of other popular Japanese artform: there's no frills - so you can enjoy the beauty in it's simplicity. Much like their music, I also have minimal info about the members of this band, only that they go by animal names. Their lead vocalist is named Gato - which, slightly veering away from the Japanese theme, is Spanish for cat.

 ***

All songs in this post are available as a free download at the Filipino Indiepop Scene site . If you want to check out more Indie pop tunes from Filipino bands you can go to the Filipino Indiepop Scene site where a couple of albums are up for grabs.

Yes, we've reached the 120 mark! Considering how long this site has been up, I'm not sure if I should celebrate or not. According to my therapist  though, I'm on a negative thought stopping program, so...Hip! Hip! Hooray! 

And to celebrate the database reaching the 120 artist mark - what you see above, is a nifty collage of all the artists that you guys have submitted to the site. It's a hodge podge of groups from all over - so if you're the adventurous type, click away and discover something new ;) We've got 120 artists you can sink your teeth into, with information about 754 albums and 5195 songs, as well as 220 videos that you can watch while perusing our humble old database.

Not only that, as an extra bonus,  the search page is now equipped with a 'Browse by Artist name' feature. More for all you click happy interweb surfers out there ;)

Of course, we're not stopping at 120 - there's still so many bands out there that haven't been included.  So if your favorite band isn't in the list yet, you can contribute to the database (please, please do!) - all but for the pleasure of seeing your favorite artist included in your all time favorite site, so that others can discover and fall in love with them too.

And to all the artists and fans that have contributed, your efforts are well appreciated. I send you all a big thanks - THANK YOU. I know I still have that big mountain of emails to go over, so if you've submitted your info and I haven't included it on the site yet -  be sure to see it here in the next few days. We're still straightening out a few kinks here and there, but we're all on it.

In the meantime, look around and see, you next favorite band might just be a few clicks away :)