Will Stratton Is a Badass . . .

and a kind gentleman to give away his excellent tunes.

Here is another bandcamp freebie, and it will please the folk out of you.  Listen to opening track "You Divers" from Vile Bodies and once you get to the 1:38 mark, you'll see what I mean.  Vile Bodies is one of the best free EPs on bandcamp.  His other albums are certainly worth a listen and a buy.  Stream the beautiful "Who Will" from 2009's No Wonder or check out his latest New Vanguard Blues.

Free and legal Mp3: Ben Talmi - "Scales of a Fish in The Sky"

Who is Ben Talmi?  I don't know--some dude who records music in his bedroom, but his bedroom recordings sound much more polished than your average bedroom tune.  His For the Dreamers EP is a collection of inventive pop tunes with varied beats, moogy goodness, precise guitar work, and enjoyable vocal harmonies.  Mr. Talmi, your songs a good, and more people should hear them. I hope you inspire more like you to pick up their instrument of choice and sing and record a song for its own reward.  Long live bedrock! (RIYL Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie)


Edit: OK, so Ben Talmi is not the anonymous amateur confined to his bedroom and meager recording gear I had imagined him.  He also records music in a studio and sings and writes for Art Decade, a band from Boston.  Here is a pretty fresh video of an Art Decade performance with a string quartet.


Royalty (Acoustic With String Quartet) from Art Decade on Vimeo.

January 2011 Playlist - Ride the New Year Waves

Cold Cave - "Life Magazine (Delorean Remix)"
Tree Wave - "Sleep" [Mp3 via official band site]
Crystal Castles vs. Health - "Crimewave"
Washed Out - "New Theory"
The Crystal Stilts - "Love is a Wave" [Mp3 via stereogum]
Wavves - "Baseball Cards"
The Drums - "Let's Go Surfing"
Surfer Blood - "Floating Vibes"
Ducktails - "Killn' The Vibe (Ft. Panda Bear)"
The Shins - "Black Wave"
The Decemberists - "The Wanting Comes in Waves"

My Favorite Albums of 2010

10. A tie between Vampire Weekend's "Contra" and Gorillaz's "Plastic Beach"





9. Delorean - Subiza

"Real Love" is one of my favorite songs of 2010.




8. Caribou - Swim

The best track on the album is free on the Merge Records 2010 Digital Sampler.



7. Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

Free mp3 of The Golden Archipelago track "Castaways" from Matador.  It is a beautiful song. Give this one a listen.

DM Stith's "Riverbody Chorus" Is Good For Slow-dancing in The Clouds on Christmas Night

Asthmatic Kitty, thank you for the wonderful new tune from DM Stith.  This track comes from his new limited edition Spirit Ditch, EP.  If you like this one there are more free songs available here and here.  DM Stith is one of my favorite song writers.  His faerie spirit soul jams, swelling with eerie falsetto harmonies, are perfect dance music for the disembodied.  This song is no exception; it takes me down my particular river to the universal sea.

More Free Amazon Mp3 credits = More Hastily Conceived 2 Buck Chuck Metaphors

Amazon has two free Mp3 credit codes you can enter for a total of $3.29 of credit.  With 1,000 albums at $5, and some even cheaper, there are many great albums to choose from for less than $2, making for another round of bad two buck chuck image metaphors.  Enter GIVEMP3S for a $2 credit, and give Bing your email here: http://www.discoverbing.com/celebrate/index2.html for an additional code that will give you $1.29.  You can enter both codes here. Simply click the "enter code" button on that page. [More info at Slickdeals]

There are way too many good options to give an exhaustive list, but here are some gems:

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Roots.Run.Deep. Legit Indie Hip Hop from God

Roots.Run.Deep. is hip hop anointed by God and refined by fire. Philip H. simply writes the most refreshing hip-hop lyrics I have ever heard.  He takes a genre over-saturated in tired self-congratulation and braggadocio, and imbues it with real truth and humility.  This is not mainstream Christian Hip Hop (if there is such a thing)--this is Kingdom Hip Hop--music for a generation called to walk with God and change the Earth.

Here is a video he made with a few of his friends; they shot it in three hours and edited it in a few nights on a budget of zero dollars.  Now that is indie-core. The Holy Ghost makes good music.