Where Fashion meets Music

Image via Mister Mort

So I just stumbled across this post. Its our lovely friend, Joanne Newsom, weraing a badass Comme Des Garcone trench. I would kill for a trench like that for SS10. I know this doesn't appeal to a lot of my readers, but I deeply love fashion and would love to find a way to look at fashion on my blog without losing my music readers. depending on my upcoming free time, I think I'll probably start writing a bit more and maybe I'll just throw in some fashion tidbits as I see fit. You can just avoid them if you don't like them, right?

Also, I found this because I am "acquiring" the new album as I type this. I'd like to absorb it tonight and write a few tidbits about it.

<3 The Elephant

Avi Buffalo Plays a NY Show (w/ Final Fantasy!!!)

Ahhh...I just read their myspace...they signed with Sub Pop. If you click the label below you'll see that I wrote about them in June of 2008, back when I wrote in my blog religiously, and had a passion for finding amazing new music. Remember that post? I said that they needed a couple of years to "marinate". They album drops this spring. Thats about 2 years. Sometimes I amaze myself. And I'm really modest. As a side note: my mom read that post and called me about "smoking bowls and stealing traffic cones". Thanks Mom.

Anyways, they are playing on January 16th at Pianos, and the 18th at Bowery Ballroom. I think I might try to stop in and check them out...They are very california sunny etc. Check them out here.

<3 The Elephant

New Animal Collective EP Streaming

Here

I know you're shocked, Love to Hate gave it an 8.9....Are they going to run out revise their prematurely released best of '09 lists? I haven't listened to it yet so I have no comment, but just thought you'd like to know!

<3 The Elephant

Guilty Pleasure-New Moon OST

This shouldn't be a Guilty Pleasure, the soundtrack contains Thom Yorke, Grizzly Bear, Lykke Li, and Bon Iver among many others. When the track list was released there was all of this fury and hubub around the blogosphere about selling out to something that so blatantly opposes indie culture. I couldn't disagree more about "selling out" as I have probably said many, many times. I saw New Moon, and honestly, enjoyed it. Aside from the obvious porn-y quality, the soundtrack is far above that average teen movie and the artist who participated were undoubtedly handsomely rewarded. This handsome reward allows these artist to take a break from touring and write new, progressive material.

That said, most of the album is a little too catchy. Lykke Li's track "Possibility" could have easily come off Youth Novels. It is perfect within the context of the film and will garner her a much larger audience of album purchasing teenage girls. The Grizzly Bear song sounds just like them, but its not going cause the shows to fill up with cougars looking for some action. It's not the catchiest track on the album and it's too simplified to sound like they wasted precious days working on it. It's stripped down backing up Victoria Legrands vocals for large sections of the track. No love lost there. Bon Iver's song sounds exactly like his work for Blood Bank, so it doesn't hint at what may be in the future for a new album (unless he plans to flush out that EP in this style).

On the whole the album is decent, and for the most part the artist wrote catchy songs, so in some cases it feels like a bit of a departure from the artists' natural instincts. That's fine with me though. I am not sure why indie artists are held to different standards than everyone else, they apparently are not supposed to be interested in supporting themselves and their families. By all means write a catchy song, get these teeny boppers to buy your album, and let them feel overwhelmed by your actual music. Maybe I'm trying to be too much of a soothsayer, but that is my hope for the future of these kinds of projects: more money for the artist, not overcrowded shows.

Happy Holidays friends...

<3 The Elephant

Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack Streaming

If you have a pulse you know about Where the Wild Things Are. If you are even remotely into music, you know that Karen O did the soundtrack (even though the film was supposedly inspired by Arcade Fire?) Anyway, the soundtrack is streaming here.

Enjoy!

<3 The Elephant

Cymbals Eat Guitars Write Up

NYTimes did a nice little write up of one of my new fav bands....you know, my current music love child.

<3 The Elephant

New MBAR album streaming free! And some other random stuff

Well, it has been about a month since I last wrote anything for you all to enjoy (ha!). My awesome new friend N posted a link on my facebook wall to a stream of the new Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson album. I'm telling you folks, I think he's going to be something. I haven't listened to it fully yet, but I am sure that I will write a review of this one for you. Maybe around thanksgiving at the rate that I seem to be writing these days.

On that note, I'm going to throw in a few other things here, since I've been meaning to write about them for weeks, and I haven't...because I'm busy. And reading a really good book. And not going to many shows lately. Enough excuses, I hate excuses. So here are some new bands to check out. Well, I mean new to me in no particular order:

-The xx

-Fanfarlo

-Woods (maybe... haven't listened enough yet)

-Florence and the Machine (and the awesome xx remix of florence)

-The Antlers

-Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

-Fool's Gold (which I think is a Luke Top band, who has some pretty cool solo stuff these days too)

-Foreign Born (also some members of Fool's Gold I think?)

-Horse Feathers

-Jack Penante

Did I tell you I saw Cymbals Eat Guitars? Maybe I did, in my last post? It was a while ago, so I can't remember, but they were killer. Seriously, they don't suffer from "new band, bad performance" syndrome. There's nothing wrong with a healthy case of NBBPS, Bon Iver was awful the first time I saw him, so hey, lets not be judgey.

Other thoughts: The newest Regina Spektor, which came out over the summer is incredible. Seriously, pitchfork gave it a 4, but they're asshats, so don't take anything they say for real. They criticized how cute and sweet the album is, but its Regina...thats partly who she is, and if you listen to it and all you get out of the whole thing are cute and sweet, then you didn't listen carefully enough to her words. She's pretty damn insightful. I guess they have higher standards for her than they do everyone else. Not cool folks, not cool at all.

Speaking of pitchfork, you should check out their top 200 albums of the last decade (which is also stupid, because it has nothing to do with the album rankings in each year...it seems to take into account how well the album aged. Music ages in very personal ways.) Anyway, I like the Stereogum summation and comments as always!

Anyway, I wanted to put myspace links up for each band, but i'm lazy. Talkto you soon!

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