Sobota 17 Maj 2008, 13:08

Aura Navarre (played: don't look further for the devil)
A stern-sounding lady sings seemingly at random over music played seemingly only slightly less at random.
from “Music Is My Girlfriend“

Miami Scissors (played: iamnokia)
Their bio pegs them as "noise-rock/post-rock/experimental punk" but to these ears they sound like collegiate emo with maybe a slight nod towards the end of Britpop.
from “Fugazi“

Ben's Imaginary Band (played: The Last Living Man)
Quite pleasant jangly acoustic guitar-y indie with perhaps slightly weedy vocals which nonetheless probably directly appeal to the kind of doe-eyed indie girls that the band bio seems to hint wistfully toward. The little xylophone thing is quite sweet.
from “People with inconsistent musical taste - who yet prove a certain indy-attitude“

Spatial Unity (played: Postcard From My Heart)

Spatial Unity is a class new music project from Scotland. Although predominantly Rock and Indie influenced, music is flavoured with various genres ranging from Pop, Ballads, Latin-Jazz to Electronica.

So yeh, it's indie rock then.
from “Alternative rock“

Nachtzug (played: Do! (numa3 5 Sinne Remix))
German electronic duo. Chorus makes me want to smirk "electroclash lives!" ("you have your eyes to see it / you have your hands to reach it / you have your mouth to eat it / you have your nose to breath it" indeed) but then goes into a sort of Human League-y synth concern in the middle. Not sure what to think of this really.

J-Live (played: Audio Visual (Album Version))
i sort of already know i'll probably like this cuz i like other J-Live tracks, but i leave it in the recommendations anyway cuz i haven't heard that much of his work and would like more. Is this cheating the recommendation system?? You can see my dilemma. Anyway, this is a pretty nice beat and a decent rap, if nothing mind-blowing.
from “DILLA“

Duo Oszedo (played: I feel the Love L)
Duo Oszedo is one of those names that i've seen before, being as how it is constantly appearing in my recommendations; unlike most serial recommenders tho, Duo Oszedo have the good grace to actually be quite listenable. Band members Wolfgang and Lucas live in different cities and compose remotely (presumably by post or email), marking their initial on the loop they've come up with. The result is some pretty good up-tempo if sparse beat-y grooves.
from “Music is my girlfriend“

Wax Tailor (played: Behind The Disguise "Closing" (feat. Marina Quaisse))
Yes mate, this is another of those "name" artists that i should probably be listening to anyway but hell, i can't have listened to everything!! (yet). Anyway yeh, even though this is a pretty short track there is obviously a skilful practitioner of sampling at work here. Great big string bit in the middle is ace. More of this sort of thing pls.
from “Definitive Jux Records“

My Endeavour (played: Return To Me)

My Endeavour are a 4 piece alternative (melodic) rock band from the south coast of England U.K.

Mm-hm, is that the south coast of England U.K., Arizona, then? Similar artists: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alter Bridge, Nickelback, Bush, The Calling. Sorry guys, this is horrible, but if it's any consolation it'll likely be enormous.
from “Alternative rock“

Ruckus Collective (played: imposter)

What do you get when you combine a rhythm section who think they're the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a richly innovative guitarist exploring the limitless possibilities of the instrument, two furiously funkadelic saxmen and one conscientious MC?

A sense of wonderment at why essentially decent-sounding acts are always killing your desire to listen to them with painful bios like that one. Nevertheless, i'm a trained professional and therefore steeled myself against the PR effluent to find a tune more reminiscent of something like a beefy, updated dick dale track - that's a good thing, incidentally.
from “Music Advice Center“

Pehmetapja (played: 5 Sammu Ees ft. Draco)
Estonian mc/producer. i'm a bit lost with this cuz i don't speak Estonian. the beat's nice in a late 90s atmosphere sort of way, and someone has a nice flow on it… dunno if that's Pehmetapja or Draco tho. and i've no idea what anyone's saying.
from “Fans of real Hip-Hop“

A Secret Sense (played: Tell me why - Instrumental)
Like the embedded file that plays in a tribute site to a faded celebrity in a Netscape Navigator window in 1997.
from “People with inconsistent musical taste - who yet prove a certain indy-attitude“

Gabor Varadi (played: Live at Sziget 2005)
Bleepy, ambient, spaced-out live ambience, apparently live at a festival or something. Might well have crescendo'd in the middle or something, but i listened to about 5 or 6 minutes and then noticed there were still about another 27 to go - fuckin' 'ell man, how long do you think my attention span is?! Wasn't bad while it was on, tho.
from dunno

J. Blitz (played: Da Craziest)
Decent soulful beat and confident rhyming from a (now displaced) New Orleans rapper who may or may not be something to do with that city's quotable.
from “Underground hip-hop“

General Purpose (played: Dust)
Ummm…? Minor-key rock thing, thought it was going to go all Kerrang! radio-heavy but to be honest was even more nondescript than that. About as memorable as the band name and title would suggest.
from dunno

Pilot of the Future (played: neb drums rough)
Someone from serial recommendation deepspace and his brother making sort of bleep/ambient. Washed right over me, and then straight past me. Man, these recommendations are just making me want to write the same things for each of them.
from dunno

Cowardice (played: Lost in Hell (part 1))
Either those are exotic vocal harmonies i'm too ignorant to understand, or the singer is actually out of tune with himself. See what you think.
from “Noise and drone“

IAM JORGE (played: Ghosts)
Guitar and string instrumental. Sounds like the soundtrack to an indie film, but in a good way. Apt title, as every so often the voice of a little girl appears saying "Hello" Boards of Canada-style, but this adds to the effect instead of being annoying.
from “its my noise“

Harumpotlash (played: The Old Man and the Sea)
Pretty good stuff here, an acoustic guitar played by a pint-drinking man who is presumably also the one singing. Immediately endeared itself to me through Hemingway reference, but also holds the attention with some vaguely six organs of admittance-esque Eastern guitar layering.
from “Music Advice Center“

GOMO PaRK (played: Polaris)
Heard these guys on here before, they're a German instrumental outfit playing a cross between "modern clubsounds", ambient soundscapery and krautrock, and, while i can't hear anything that club-by particularly, they still pull it off with aplomb. Good shit, might appeal to fans of rovo etc.
from “Can“

Tigerlilly (played: Journey)
Apparently Austria's finest hard rock band, which is ample warning to never listen to any other Austrian hard rock. As soon as the Poison vocals started this one was off.
from dunno

moskoff! (played: uz)
Surprise, two cool Kraut-y instrumental bands in one recommendation session. These guys are from Istanbul, and layer their grooving rhythm section with arrays of woodwind, didgeridoo and electronic squirty noises. Again, pretty good stuff for psyche-out/kraut fans.
from “its my noise“

Altar of Plagues (played: Promise and Purpose)
Irish death metal. Not bad at all, if a little sort of recorded-in-a-cupboard-y. Cool electronic bit at the end, i mistook for it for an entirely new song.
from “its my noise“

Conclusions
1. the larger a last.fm group becomes, the shiter its recommendations get.
2. i should really leave "People with inconsistent musical taste - who yet prove a certain indy-attitude" (not least because of its horrible English-language-reduced-to-a-twitching-wreck name) and "It's all about the LYRICS".
3. but i can't because i'm kind of masochistic like that.