Bon Iver: Skinny Love

The band Bon Iver or 'Good Winter' and their album "For Emma, Forever ago" is one of the most recommended and critically acclaimed albums I have heard of this year. Everywhere I turn someone is saying something great about it. While I haven't heard the whole album, I have listened to this track several times actually. And I really like what I hear.

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

The Last Shadow Puppets: "Standing Next to Me"

Occasionally while searching for new music on the web, I trip across something really special that is new and exciting to me.  Yesterday it was The Last Shadow Puppets.  This duo is made up of the Arctic Monkeys lead singer, Alex Turner, and the lead singer of The Rascals, Miles Kane.  The boys met while on tour and began to write music together that is a clear departure from the sounds of their own bands.  Together their music feels straight out of the 60's and the British invasion. 

However, what really annoys me about these guys is that they are younger than me.  But I can get past that.  I really love this little song.  I have played it so much that my wife is beginning to hate it now, but I am telling you the song is  brilliant. 

Acoustic version of 'Standing Next To Me' 

Noah and the Whale: 5 Years Time

I actually really enjoy this song.  I can't say much else for the rest of their work simply because I haven't heard much of it, but I like everything I have heard.  I can't seem to get this song out of my head.  Granted, the melody is ripped of from somewhere (not sure where), but it's still a nice track.  The directing of the video looks like it could have been done by Wes Anderson, who actually helped produce one of their songs.  What I really like about this song is the fact that that you can hear their english accents clearly. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this song is the part it plays in the bigger picture - specifically the emergence of a Indie rock scene in the UK, which promises to delight listeners in the years and months to come.  Once they actually make it over the big blue.  

5 Years Time

Glasvegas: Geraldine

Here is a band to watch out for.  They have taken that classic 1950's rock and roll sound and given it a modern edge.  The sound on this recording isn't great, but it's good enough to get the idea.  I give you Glasvegas. 

Glasvegas: Geraldine

Sufjan Stevens: The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!

I can think of only a handful of albums that I have thrown on the hi-fi that have totally stopped me dead in my tracks.  The kind of album that I have listen to in their entirety while lying on the floor with eyes closed.  Albums like the Beatle's "Abbey Road" or the Flaming Lip's record "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." The type of album that was intended to  be listened to from beginning to end without interruption.  An album whose songs bleed effortlessly into one another forming a cohesive whole - true audial works of art. 

Sufjan Stevens album "Come On!  Feel the Illinoise!"  is one of these albums.  If Paul Simon and Phillip Glass came together to make an album it might sound a lot like this one.  Not only does Sufjan write the music and lyrics for these songs but he also writes the orchestral compositions for them as well.  On top of that his lyrics are astounding.  Here is one of my favorite tracks of "Come On!  Feel the Illinoise!." 

Sufjan Stevens:  The Predatory Wasp Of the Palisades Is After Us!