@somevelvetblog

Download: “I’d Like To Know” by Filthybird; the latest Shaking Through

Bruce — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:13:28 +0000

The latest episode of Shaking Through features North Carolina’s Filthybird. The band includes singer Renee Mendoza, her husband and guitarist Brian Haran, and the rhythm section of Chris Girard, Nick Jaegar, and drummer James Wallace. The song was recorded in November at Miner Street Recordings in Philadelphia and was produced by Brian McTear. The episode was curated by Grayson Currin of Independent Weekly, IFC, and Pitchfork.

download: justin townes earle covers the boss; “racing in the streets”

Bruce — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:56:40 +0000

download below: justin townes earle covers Bruce Springsteen’s “Racing In The Streets” from a live show at the Six Strings Lounge/February 11, 2011, Bloomington, Illinois. justin’s new album, nothing’s gonna change the way you feel about me now is out on march 27th on bloodshot records.

download: Racing In The Streets by Justin Townes Earle

download the title song to justin’s forthcoming album via rollingstone.com Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now – Justin Townes Earle

welcome to team me

Bruce — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:06:30 +0000

welcome to team me, a six piece norwegian pop band who are releasing their debut album called to the treetops in the states in march on propeller records. i missed the blogfamous buzz around the band on the ep they put out last year, however now they’ve hit my radar i’ve got a crush. the songs that team me craft are quite impressive; it’s joyous reach-for-the-skies indie-pop at it’s most melodic, with warm instrumentation and classic pop drive. think prefab sprout, the la’s, fanfarlo, deacon blue…i could go on, but i won’t cause really it’s about a unique voice that team me have as a band. listen/watch below.

Show Me – Team Me

With My Hands Covering Both of My Eyes I Am Too Scared To Have a Look At You Now

Team Me – Show Me from APPARATET on Vimeo.

stream the new rodrigo y gabriela album via npr music

Bruce — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:02:16 +0000

Rodrigo y Gabriela are releasing their new album Area 52 next Tuesday, January 24th. The album, recorded mostly in Havana with a 13 piece Cuban orchestra is streaming now in its entirety at NPR Music here.

i’ll tumbl for ya at somevelvetblog.2

Bruce — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:27:27 +0000

maybe it’s that the interwebs have just turned my brain into having no attention span, or maybe i just dig the nimbleness of tumblr, but i’ve been finding myself posting alot to my tumblr recently and i’m feeling the way it handles. i started my some velvet blog.2 tumblr to post about some of my non-musical interests but i soon found i would resort back to the music since it’s mostly my life. and as i started posting music to my tumblr i would ask myself, should i post this to my wordpress blog or my tumblr. ultimately it came down to my being able to post stuff to tumblr almost immediately. no fuss no muss. so, for now that’s where i’ll be hanging with the occasional post here, where it all started in december 2004.

if you’ve yet to follow my musical hijinx on my tumblr, please follow me on somevelvetblog.2 tumblr here

The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 2

Bruce — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:15:28 +0000

In case you missed it: The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 1 is here featuring The Roots, The War On Drugs, Work Drugs, Purling Hiss, Lushlife, Hezekiah Jones, Chill Moody, Vintage Kicks and Gracie. Now, on to The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 2.
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Cough Cool
Cough Cool’s Dan Svizeny has two very cool things going for him: he loves lo-fi blissed out jams as much as he loves Philly sports teams. CC’s new album, Lately is on Bathetic Records and has 13 mind expanding tracks of MBV-styled shoegaze wax.

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White Birds
This past summer Drink Up Buttercup morphed into White Birds featuring three of the Buttercups; James Harvey, Farzad Houshiarnejad, and Mike Cammarata. The White Birds’ ambient sun kissed four song debut EP on Grizzly Records is a gorgeous, reminiscent-of-the-Fleet-Foxes-meets-Beach-Boys-Surf’s-Up collection of breezy pop songs. The band recorded a Key Studio Session for WXPN’s local music web site, The Key back in November that you should check out here.

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Zilla Rocca
Rapper, producer, storyteller, hip-hop provocateur Zilla Rocca has got a very cool self-contained little cottage industry going on working with the likes of Curly Castro and Has-Lo as The Wrecking Crew and working with producers like the Small Professor and Dr. Quandary. Rocca had a busy 2011 busting out singles, EP’s, various videos and is currently at work on a Wu-Tang remix tribute project (check out the track below). Listen to one of Rocca’s highlights of 2011 below, the Nights & Weekends EP.

Zilla Rocca x Curly Castro x Has-Lo – Scallops (prod by Y?Arcka) WU-TANG PULP

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Photo by Michael "Kraus Phade" Béon | krausphade.com

Saturn Never Sleeps
Long time DJ/musician/producer/global musical entrepreneur King Britt collaborated with Rucyl on Yesterday’s Machine, a collection of mellowtronica with R&B, silky soul and post-dubstep flourishes. You can download the album for free here. Rucyl’s voice has that sexy-as-Sade vibe to it and the album from start to finish feels like a distant cousin to Massive Attack. Smooth as silk.

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Lantern
Lantern is a three piece fronted by Zachary Devereux Fairbroter and features Emily Robb on bass and vocals and Sophie White on Drums. The band first caught my attention with this cover of “I Just Want To Make Love To You,” written by the legendary Willie Dixon. Since landing in Philly last year the band has put out a series of EP’s, singles, etc that capture early blues with some hot indie-rock lo-fi punk-rock psychosauce urgency. They’re a little bit Capt. Beefheart, a little bit early Stones, a little bit Jon Spencer, a little bit Charlie Christian and now that’s he’s come to his senses, a little bit Elvis P. The band’s latest jawn is a live EP they released with Dirty Beaches that you can grab here. This cat and kittens can really distill the jams.

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Scot Sax
Scot Sax is a one man rock and roll classic rock machine. “Classic” not so much in the sense of the same 250 songs we hear on classic rock radio (although you can feel that) but classic in the sense that since his days in Wanderlust, Sax has a sense of classic pop/rock songwriting that is just sort of off the charts. Whether it’s power pop, glam, indie rock or yes, “classic” classic rock, Sax just never sits still musically and this year put together Queen Electric, a power trio featuring Phil D’Agostino on bass and Mike Pietrusko on drums. With Queen Electric, Sax continues to showcase his versatility as a musician who is an excellent songwriter, player and pop craftsman. And yes, a massive Bowie fan. You can QE’s album for a “name your price” price below.

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The Wurx
You may not be familiar with rap duo The Wurx but that’s all about to change real soon. G. Moolah & Trons are coming up quick, with some high profile joints and an even higher profile moment they had recently with The Roots’ Black Thought when they dropped by Tony Touch’s radio show that you can check out here. Keep your eyes (and ears) on these guys; listen to a couple jawns below. It’s like 1995 all over again. I am definitely looking forward to hearing more from these guys.

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Arches
With each new release, these dreamgazers keep getting better and better. Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller said it best about this band: “Arches music straddles that fine line between the beautiful lull of the undulating waves of an ocean and the part of the scene where you feel a tug on your leg from below.”

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Nicos Gun
With a string of singles, lots of hard work and now their debut full length debut (download below), Nicos Gun are about as fun a band that you can experience live. Prince, Bowie, Robert Palmer and LCD influences abound however these guys have found the rock flavor in the funk and push it push it push it.

The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 1

Bruce — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:00:43 +0000

This is part one of my look back on some of my favorite Philly based music that came out in 2011. Right up front I want to say that The Roots and The War On Drugs put out two of my favorite records of the year. I’m not going to dwell on the massive goodness of these records cause, let’s face it, these two bands have a profile that transcends the illadelph; although it wasn’t too long ago that the only Google search for The War On Drugs was this. It’s great that Adam and the boys have improved their ranking, right? That said, let me state broadly and emphatically that the local Philly music scene particularly over the last few years has been on fire. Genre wise, there’s a bit of everything for everybody; indie-rockers, chillwavers, hip-hoppers, punk rockers, dubsteppers, soulsters and singer-songwriters; it’s all here. Let’s rock The Best Of Philly Music 2011, Part 1.
Check out The Best of Philly Music, 2011 Part 2 here

Work Drugs
These chillwave yachtrockers came on the scene a year ago and every month have been releasing excellent new free jams. They released their debut album Aurora Lies in November. These guys musically tap in to the worlds where Steely Dan and Steve Winwood collides with chillvibes of the Oughts. At their music loving hearts they write catchy as anything pop songs and layer it all with some cool stoner dance music vibes. Buy the album here. Download some tunes below.

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Purling Hiss
The Hiss are a power trio of remarkable psychedelicness. They released a pretty hot collection of rock and roll tunes this year called Lounge Lizards on Mexican Summer. If you want to hear them work, check out this recording from a show they did in November at the Cameo Galley in New York. It’s blistering. if Philly had a guitar army Mike Polizze would be on front lines right up there with Adam from War On Drugs and Kurt Vile. Back last March Mike and the band recorded a session for WXPN’s local music web site The Key. You can download the full session here or cop the song “Voices” below.

Download Voices – Purling Hiss (from The Key Studio Sessions)
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Lushlife
I have yet to see Lushlife live but since he dropped his No More Golden Days cassette/mixtape it’s been in heavy rotation. Lushlife is Raj Haldar and the breadth of musical influences and samples on this new free mixtape is staggering. From Frank Ocean and Fleet Foxes with some help from Heems and homegrown appearances from Dice Raw and Tim Meskers from Brown Recluse, Haldar’s also got some serious flow. He drops lyrical references to Jesus and Mary Chain, Maxi Priest and Ice Cube with as much agility as he spins out some excellent samples from Clams Casino and Gerry & The Pacemakers.

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Hezekiah Jones
Hezekiah Jones is the band; the man behind it is Raphael Cutrefello. Philly’s got some very fantastic singers and songwriters and a very active acoustic/folk music scene (see Strand of Oaks, The Philly Folk Parade and Andrew Lipke). Raph is perhaps the most creative and innovative of the lot. This year Hezekiah Jones released the incredible Have You Seen Our New Fort produced by the forementioned Andrew Lipke.

Download: Mind Malaise – Hezekiah Jones

If the release of Fort were not enough, Cutrefello and his crew along with Andrew Lipke collaborated on a song for WXPN and Weathervane Music’s Shaking Through. “Borrowed Heart” was written to sync with a scene from the 1935 classic film, Bride of Frankenstein. Okay, so admittedly I had a hand in the project, but what Cutrefello and the 11 piece band put together was absolutely fantastic. Download the song/watch the video below.

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Chill Moody
You say you don’t know Chill Moody? Well folks, that’s likely not gonna be the case for too long. The West Philly rapper has had a busy 2011 that started at the end of the ’10 with a solo album. Chill recently blasted out parts one and two of The Gam3Plan (produced by Joe Logic), dropped “My Eyes” w/ Cody Kahmar (see video below) and recently made his first Gam3Plan related video. It would be wise to keep your eyes on the Chill. He’s also pretty entertaining to follow twitter. As Drake says, “well fuck, let’s get it then.”

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Vintage Kicks
Formed in the spring of 2010, Vintage Kicks released their free to download debut album Geeks in September. It rocks relentlessly for 28 minutes. Lead singer Alex Marlys comes out fighting and throughout, the band pack a lot of music and sounds into it’s songs. The band are in the process of making a new EP called Math And Sciene that you can follow here. Joe Strummer would be proud. Download the album below, and check out the video for the anthemic “Jetty Jump”

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Gracie
A recent addition to the Phillwave scene and a welcomed one, Gracie released his (still) free EP called For Summer on the always excellent Absent Fever label last June. His Treehouse EP is on the way, coming out next month on Small Plates Records. Video; music – below.

meet stone darling

Bruce — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:29:57 +0000

photo by lauren ward

stone darling are a retro-countryphonic girl group from los angeles making some pretty righteous noise these days with a new ep on analog edition and a handful of pretty cool tunes including a cover of funkadelic’s “can you get to this.” music below.

listen to philly’s small professor and has-lo rock a tight phat new joint

Bruce — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:24:03 +0000

Philly beat maker, beat collector and producer Small Professor has a new album coming out called Gigantic, Vol. 1 on January 24th featuring some pretty strong voices including Guilty Simpson, Von Pea, Blueprint, Buff1 and Stik Figa. Also appearing on the album are Philly’s Wrecking Crew, featuring the wildly talented Zilla Rocca, Has-Lo, and Curly Castro. You can stream “When The Last Leaf Falls” featuring Has-Lo below. It’s a pretty strong, pretty tight jawn.

download a new lee fields song, “you’re the kind of girl”

Bruce — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:30:30 +0000

soul man lee fields has a new song “you’re the kind of girl” that you can download below from the folks at truth and soul. it’s from a forthcoming album out march 13th called faithful man