O’Death is fucking awesome. This band from New York spins crazy and sinister tales while weaving elements of dirty indie rock, punkass bluegrass, and gypsy music into something that’s uniquely O’Death. Their 2008 full-length Broken Hymns, Limbs And Skin is hard to describe but just imagine if the offspring of Issac Brock and Neil Young was from West Norton, Virginia and fronted the Zydepunks.
MP3 | O’Death – A Light That Does Not Dim Broken Hymns, Limbs And Skin
Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Nomo blends funky afro-beat grooves, acid jazzy horn wailing, dense percussive polyrhythms, and electronic flourishes to great effect on their latest album Ghost Rock. Funk isn’t normally my thing, but this shit is just mesmerizing. In fact, I think they are playing Schubas here in Chicago tonight. Might have to check that out.
MP3 | Nomo – Rings Ghost Rock
The music of Philadelphia’s Man Man is absurdly captivating and sounds like it would be the perfect soundtrack to a three ring circus in hell. Their most recent album, Rabbit Habits, is a hodge-podge of Baltic music, Dixieland, surf, zydeco, freak folk, and Tom Waits-ian indie rock that is like acid for your ears. Listening to this makes me feel like I’m in an animated horror movie.
MP3 | Man Man – Hurly/Burly Rabbit Habits
Once you get past the horrible band name, you might just find that you really like Makeout Party. On Lengths & Limits the band crafts textured and melodic indie-emo tunes that aren’t necessarily bad. Honestly, they aren’t. It just sounds like what might happen to Jimmy Eat World if Chris Carrabba replaced Jim Adkins and neutered the rest of the band.
MP3 | Makeout Party – Conditional Needs Lengths & Limits
If you like fairly traditional sounding folk and/or deep blues music you should have a listen to Chris Cotton’s latest album The Big Sea. There are the raucous hill-country guitars and the soulful vocals. It is uncomplicated and (within the stylistic confines of what it is) wide-ranging and I like it more every time I listen to it.
MP3 | Chris Cotton – .44 Pistol Mama The Big Sea
Thanks so much for your post. Like most of the songs on the big Sea, .44 Pistol Mama was recoded completely live to analogue tape. The musicians on this track are Justin Markovits/Drums, Vance Ehlers/Bass, Jimbo Mathus/Electric guitar, and yours truly on National and voice. Heres a video from a local cafe that we did that song as a three piece totally acoustically:
Thanks for the O’Death post. I first heard them on Some Velvet Blog with a tune from their last release. They are a unique band – my wife told me to never play them again in her presence!! Fortunately, she didn’t remember the band’s name and she picked up the new CD as a christmas gift.
PS I feel your pain re: SBSW. Good luck with planning for the new baby and thanks for living in the real world with the rest of us!!