Musical Discoveries May 2021 #5

See also: April 2021 and June 2021 (View all)

Oops. I forgot to start my May musical discoveries blogpost until May 13th!. Luckily though I have been listening to a lot of great music on YouTube and emusic and bandcamp. Eventually I get caught up though. I’m totally looking forward to Eurovision next week though apparently I will have to go through the usual ruses to view it.

Capsule Reviews from my Collection

Harmonium by Soundcarrier. Psychedelic rock, full of sunniness a la Stereolab, except there is less playfulness, more energy and lots of exciting drum-crashing crescendos (like the Doors minus Jim Morrison). On the one hand, this album is traveling in well-trodden territory of Stereolab, Ladytron, Komeda, The Clean — and doesn’t seem to try anything outrageous or radical. But really I like how fierce and funky the guitar can become, how many odd sounds creep in and how the vocal male-female duet usually enter mid-song and blend in with the rock sound without overshadowing it (Let It Ride).

Books & Articles about Music

none here yet

Playlists/YouTube

While listening to a British electric pop group named Soundcarrier, I was feeling nostalgic about Stereolab — and remembered that although I possessed a few Stereolab, I was missing a few others. Then I stumbled upon this live appearance.

Youtube has several awesome live appearances including — amazingly, a 1996 concert at Fitzgeralds in Houston.

Emusic Purchases

Finally I’ve gotten around to spending all my credits due to expire on May 14; indeed, I found so much great stuff (with the help of omnifoo I have no shortage of bands I want to explore. To be honest, even though I generally enjoy most of omnifoo’s recs, when I go on my listening sprees, I find so many interesting things on labels not on omnifool’s radar — which is saying a lot; he knows a lot.

1. Harmonium by Soundcarriers. (BC) (See Above)
2. Entropicalia by Soundcarriers. 48 minutes, later album
3. In Search of Sunrise 16. Various. 4.49. Basically 3.5 hours of music — not including the full mixes. The trance music series goes on even after DJ Tiesto does it no more. In this case Markus Schulz, Giuseppe Ottaviani and Sunlounger divide the duties to great effect.
4. Smoke From A Future Fire by The Howard Hughes Suite
5. Odd Songs by Marc Cunningham.
6. OOYes by 13 year Cicada.

Bandcamp Purchases

I’ll probably be talking in a podcast about the amazing Austin band, Many Birthdays. I’ve been following this band for more than 15 years, and only recently learned that John Dixon has been doing a sidegig as an experimental art rock musicmaker. His new group Bass Earth Sun focuses on making experimental instrumental pieces. I’ve only started to listen.

Jon Dixon of the band Many Birthdays

Freegal & Library CDs

1. Deerhunter
2. Olga Guillot
3. Teena Marie
4. Mercedes Sosa