Album Review – Leap Years by The Little Hands of Asphalt

Leap Years by The Little Hands of Asphalt

From Sweden (see previous post) to Norway now. The Little Hands of Asphalt is a side project of Sjur Lyseid, the lead singer of Monzano. If you’ve heard of Monzano (bonus points for that) then you’ll find this to be slower and more gentle. The lyrics are well-crafted and the vocals effortlessly move between soothing, plaintive and excited.

I think fans of Elliott Smith or Conor Oberst will likely find something very appealing about this album and Lyseid certainly deserves plenty of credit for putting together such a beautiful collection of tracks. The album works as well as a sum of the parts as it does as a bunch of pleasant singles. I’d highlight Highway’s Pull, Eating Fish In Hamburger Heaven, Bait and Sex & Loneliness as the tracks that jump out at me initially but, really, the whole package is worthy of some attention. 7.5/10.

Album Review – Crossing The Rubicon by The Sounds

Crossing The Rubicon by The Sounds

The Sounds are a Swedish indie band who formed in 1999. I have joked with friends a few times that Sweden seems to have a production line of good bands and churns them out at an amazing rate. I’m certainly into a few of them.

I listened to this album based on hearing a single track of theirs previously (4 Songs & A Fight) and, now that I’ve listened to the whole album, I can’t say I’m overly excited by it. I was never very sure what they were trying to be. Sometimes they wavered toward sounding like Be Your Own Pet and at other times seemed a bit like Paramore. They even sounded a bit like No Doubt (who I believe they are supporting in California this month) in places. The lyrics aren’t very strong and guitars have been turned down in favour of upping the synth volumes.

In terms of individual tracks, I’d probably pick out Dorchester Hotel as being the strongest. There are so many great Swedish bands out there though – search some out rather than spending too much time on The Sounds. 6/10

Episode 15 – Hot 100 (part one)

I have been asked a few times to put together a podcast containing my absolute favourite tracks. As this would be an impossibility, due to changing my taste and mood so often, I decided to do something a *little* more scientific.

I have checked my listening history for the past 6 months and will be counting down my 100 most listened to tracks over that period. I’ve split the tracks into segments so that each podcast isn’t too long. Episode 15 covers numbers 100 to 91. Hope you enjoy the first bunch of tracks. Please let me know

Podcast available via links on right hand side of the page or via Indie Music Hour Podcasts

Tracklisting

100. Loop Duplicate My Heart by Suburban Kids With Biblical Names

99. I Love You Ono by Stereo Total

98. Creep by Radiohead

97. Time For Heroes by The Libertines

96. Lua by Bright Eyes

95. Shamemaker by Ween

94. Georgette Plays A Goth by Tullycraft

93. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division

92. Party by Envelopes

91. Back In Your Head by Tegan and Sara

Unsigned Artists

Listening to Juston’s album (see previous post) reminded me that my original intention was to heavily feature true independent (indie) artists and focus more on unsigned artists. Unfortunately time hasn’t really allowed me to carry out the necessary research.

So, this is a shout out to anyone who is an independent artist or knows one. If you would like your creations featured on Indie Music Hour’s “Unsigned Artist Alerts” in the same way as Juston’s album has, please get in touch with me and we’ll work out the details:

Email Jack

Thanks!

Jack

Unsigned Artist Alert – Juston Payne

Full album available to download and enjoy!

Having already treated you by providing links to the Indie Rock playlists, I’m about to spoil you all even more. Feel the love from Indie Music Hour!

I was contacted by an independent singer-songwriter by the name of Juston Payne. Juston was kind enough to provide me a link to his latest release and, now that I’ve had the pleasure, we’re going to make the whole thing available to Indie Music Hour readers too.

The album is called The Meat That I Am Made Of and contains 9 very well written tracks. Juston’s lyrics are the type that cause you to stop and think and, ultimately, the type that we can all read our own individual meanings into. My personal favourites on first listen are Troubles In My Brain and There Is No Escape whilst Juston highlights An Effigy, A Damn Fine Shot and Wolf Song so download from the URL at the end of this post and choose your personal favourites!

I put Juston on the spot and asked him to provide his own blurb:

“Juston Payne is a Los Angeles transplant living and working in New
York City. He performs his music around town and in his apartment
with equal gusto and even occasionally produces his own albums. “The
Meat That I Am Made Of” is his follow-up to 2008’s “Look Past The Dust
Storm” and features nine songs written, performed, and produced by
Juston. He prefers to not elaborate on the album’s content, believing
it’s more meaningful when people bring their own interpretations. His
parents spelled his first name strangely to avoid a phonetic
playground joke.”

Grab the full album at Juston’s website: JustonPayne and please do provide him with some feedback via his website or by commenting here.

Music Sources – Indie Rock Playlists

When I have DJ’d in the past, the search for fresh bands/tracks has always felt like a full-time job. Lastfm and other similar resources help a lot but I used to remember thinking “wouldn’t it be great if somehow I could be presented with a whole bunch of songs by different artists for me to pick out the good stuff?”. You see, a 2 hour setlist can involve having to find 40+ tracks by different artists and audiences don’t want to hear the same stuff churned out week after week.

Anyway, enough about my ‘poor DJ’ stories. Last year I discovered that what I had been wishing for had actually come true. I found out about the Indie Rock Playlist. It was a magnificent research tool and it alerted me to many, many great bands that I might not have otherwise found out about.

Unfortunately the original collator of the Indie Rock Playlist had to stop for some reason but the torch has now been heroically picked up by Blalock and he puts together a wonderful selection of around 100 tracks each month. Some bands you will recognise and some you will not. It really is paradise for those of us with insatiable desires to keep finding new material.

Head over to http://www.myspace.com/blalocksindierockplaylist and you will find download links for the past 5 episodes – that is over 500 tracks at your fingertips – Enjoy!

Jack