This will be the final track of the week for the semester!! The song is "False Alarm" by the band Wooden Birds off of their only LP, titled Magnolia. Wooden Birds is signed to Barsuk Records of Seattle, and the band is led by Andrew Kenny who has worked with Album Leaf, Her Space Holiday, and Arthur & Yu. Enjoy (download HERE!)
This weeks's track of the week is a pair of Harvard grad indie rockers that go my the name of Chester French. They started creating buzz over the last few years hip-hop superstars Kanye West and Pharrell Williams both heavily pursued signing Chester French to their respective labels. Chester French ended up signing to Pharell's Star Track Records and released their debut album Love The Future this last April. They produced and engineered the entire album themselves in their college dorm at Harvard.
Meet Castledoor. They're legit. They're only full album was released earlier this year, it's called "Shouting At Mountains". And it's legit. This CD consumed nearly all my zune's plays for at least a week in the summer when I found out about them. No YouTube preview this week; just download these songs and enjoy them because they're great. Then go and get their album. And then their EPs.
Backseat Goodbye is just one person, Chad Sugg, and he started this solo project back in 2004 when he was only a freshman in college. He's released several EPs but only one full album (in 2008) so far. If you enjoy this song, you can download it here:
The Wombats- Let's Dance to Joy Division (Download Link) This track comes from my guest on the show this week, Spencer. The song has a bit more elements of punk to hit than what I normally play, but not too much so it makes for a good, upbeat indie rock track.
Nada Surf is an indie rock band that has been around for a decade and a half now, first releasing their debut album High/Low in 1996, "Popular" is actually the single from that first album. They've changed a lot over the years, they started out with a much more alternative sound, and now have developed into a much lighter indie rock feel with songs such as "Always Love" coming from them in recent years. I do enjoy their newer stuff more, their last 2 albums have been released under Seattle's own Barsuk Records and one of them even being produced by Death Cab For Cutie's lead guitarist Christopher Walla.
This song, even though it was recorded in 1995, is still classic to me. Not only is it super catchy but it is easily relate able to anyone who has been through high school.
Hey Marseilles is a band out of Seattle. Sound Magazine ranked their album, To Travels & Trunks, as the 23rd best Northwest album of 2008. They're still pretty small, but apparently they were the opening act for the "Bumbershoot Music Lounge" at Bumbershoot... they also have a Wikipedia page so they're on their way to living large.
Also, their album came out last year on December 13, which is my birthday and so that decision provides even further credibility to the band.
Jamie T is from the UK and crosses hip-hop and indie rock genres. For those of you that listened to me filling in for a hip-hop KZUU radio show from 10pm-12am, I opened with a more rap sounding song by Jamie T. In this song the sound is similar to a mix between the Kooks and the Arctic Monkeys. Most commonly I find that he sounds like a mix between the Arctic Monkeys and the Streets (a British rapper). This song is from his 2007 debut album, but he also just came out with a new album entitled "Kings & Queens" last month which I enjoy even more than the first album (but contains more explicit content so I couldn't play it).
SORRY IT'S LATE!! I had it saved as a draft post last night but didn't want to post it until my show, I know a person called in and asked for the address again so they could download the song... I forgot to say that I hadn't posted it to the blog yet!
Barcelona is an indie rock band from Seattle and released their album "Absolutes" in 2007. They played at Bumbershoot in 2008, and just this year they have been signed to Universal and did a re-release of the "Absolutes" album, so with a big label budget behind them, maybe Barcelona will cross into the mainstream in the future.
Each week during my show I will play a song that I'm featuring as my "Track of the Week", it will be played around the 5pm middle mark of my show. Also each week I will be posting the song on the Crimson Culture blog along with a link to download the track if you like it.
This track is featured in the Indie Comedy Rocket Science and is a cover/remake of the old hymn by the same name. Not trying to get religulous on you guys, but I just like the musicality of the song more so than the content.
