Marnie Stern's video for 'Transformer'

I just finished writing my review of Marnie Stern's new album, which I mentioned on here before. You can still find her full album on imeem, although she took down the link to it from her myspace. Anyway, THIS is why I'm so astounded by this woman.

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Playlist 5

Playlist 5 is up, it isn't very long. I will admit I haven't put TONS of time into it, I've been in a very strange music mood lately, you'll notice there is a lot of fuzzed out synth stuff.

I am obsessed with the first song by Pidgeon. I need to get their CD as soon as possible. It's a really good balance of music styles--grungey metal guitars and screams with some indie pop moments, and I love anything with male and female vocals. Excellent, really excellent.

I may add another song to the mix, I just heard some amazing stuff by Jenny Hval. If you go look at the blog Obscure Sound, you'll notice a few other songs are from there. It's a great site if you want to find new indie rock artists, although you'll have to look elsewhere for other genres. Jenny Hval sounds very original and amazing, Bjorklike. Read More......

Process

When I'm looking for the next artist for my music column for my college's feminist music column, I never really know what I'm looking for. I generally have an eye out for women and women-fronted groups, but I don't necessarily want to discount people because of their gender. I've actually been very open to the idea of featuring a guy for once.

I run into a lot of good music on my journey to find the topic of my next column, and I always feel unsure about who I'm going to choose. Until I find it, that is, and then it just seems ridiculous to have imagined anything else would work. I love that I pretty much always end up finding the perfect thing, an artist whose work I really care about and connect with. But I find plenty of other good stuff, too, even those aren't what I find most useful for my particular mission. I won't give too many of my potentials away, because who knows.



I was very excited to find The Depreciation Guild, The Depreciation Guild, and the free album on their site for download. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to it, but I was really siked even though it doesn't really fit for the column. It's sort of Crystal Castley but different.

And you can check out Marnie Stern's myspace to hear her album, too. I was really really excited to find out that she had a new album, she is freaking amazing, and the obvious choice. So to be continued on that one. Read More......

Life

I know this blog has gone by the wayside since I went to school, to be honest I haven't really been listening to much new stuff.

I feel like so much has happened since the day I left for college, this year, my last year. On that day I just had this watershed moment of self-realization and reassessment of everything I've taken for granted in my entire life. It was like waking up from a dream, or lifting a curse, or stepping into a different reality.

Since then I've come to realize that the only motivation I've had my entire life has been to avoid being considered the worst. Music for me has always been this wonderful thing, an escape. I definitely have held back a part of myself for a really long time, and to some extent I have perpetually felt alone. Music will always be your friend, and it will always understand you.

But at the same time, music was also its own source of stress. I hate the whole hipster music culture, where music taste becomes this competition. Music, this part of my soul, felt like yet another opportunity to be judged lacking.

Coming over this hump, living the life of what feels like an entirely different person, I've lost that motivation and fear of failure in many areas of my life, including music. What used to give me motivation to follow music blogs and stay on top of new music, now leaves me untouched.

I need to create new motivations to do things. This is part of that--doing things for myself. Read More......