Midlake - Trials of Van Occupanther

Midlake's "Roscoe" is currently my favorite song. Songs that give me this indescribable feeling in my gut don't come around too often. Their haunting vocals laced with longing combined with piano results in a high play count on my itunes. Midlake is another up-and-coming band from Texas...Denton, to be more specific.

I'm looking forward to July 25 when Midlake's second full-length Trials of Van Occupanther is released stateside. It's a concept album following the adventures of a dude named Van Occupanther. The word is that it could end up on many a best of 2006 list...it's beautiful stuff. I just realized I've posted two Bella Union releases in the past week. They must be doing something right over there.

Track listing:
1. Roscoe
2. Bandits
3. Head Home
4. Van Occupanther
5. Young Bride
6. Branches
7. In This Camp
8. We Gathered In Spring
9. It Covers The Hillsides
10. Chasing After Deer
11. You Never Arrived

Preorder Trials at Insound.

Midlake - Roscoe
Midlake - Bandits
Midlake - Head Home
Midlake - Young Bride

Oh No! Oh My!

It's a summer Friday, my weekend started at 3:00, and I'm in the mood for some fun pop music. Maybe you are too? Former Austinites, current Nashvillains Oh No! Oh My! will be our soundtrack this afternoon. Their sound evokes comparisions to The Shins and The Boy Least Likely To especially on "Walk in the Park." Enjoy and have a great weekend, lovelies!

Oh No! Oh My! - Walk in the Park
Oh No! Oh My! - The Party Punch
Oh No! Oh My! - Oh Be One
Oh No! Oh My! - Jane is Fat (she not fat, she just big-boneded!)
Oh No! Oh My! - A Pirate's Anthem

The Dears - Gang of Losers leak

So the upcoming Dears album, due in stores late August, has leaked. So far I've only heard four songs but a friend keeps taunting me on AIM about how he has the whole thing and it's great. But it won't be long until I virtually strong-arm him into sharing it with me. For those of you unfamiliar with The Dears, they're another great Canadian act. Formed in 2000 by Murray Lightburn, one of the few black lead singers in the indie world, they play "darkly romantic" rock that combines "Britrock influences and soulful, Bowiesque vocals" with dramatic orchestral sweep.

Random fact: Murray named his kid Neptune Lightburn. I'm going to take that as a big ol' shoutout to the best show on television, Veronica Mars because she lives in Neptune, CA.

The Dears - Whites Only Party
The Dears - Death or Life, We Want You
The Dears - Fear Made the World Go Round

Very few blogs have posted these songs so it's practically a Red Blondehead exclusive (for now)!

Update: My friend was kind enough to share the whole thing. It's good.

The Dears website

Jamie Lidell

For all the fans of soul and funk out there, a few songs from British "whiteboy soul" singer Jamie Lidell. Jamie's currently touring with Beck and he's creating quite the buzz. Imagine an amalgam of Prince, Otis Redding, and Sam Cooke. (I'm not saying that he's at the level of these musicians but he could be if he keeps it up.) Mmm...that voice. And he's not bad on the eyes either.

Jamie Lidell - Multiply
Jamie Lidell - What Is It This Time?
Jamie Lidell - What's the Use?
Jamie Lidell - A Little Bit More (Luke Vibert Mix)

Interviews, pics, and a live performance at AOL Music.
Buy Multiply here.

Speaking of Beck...I wish I hadn't missed his performances in Atlanta and Bonnaroo last week. There were puppets and a Puppetron. Beck had hired the puppeteers from "Team America" to travel with him and perform a real-time puppet show of the band right on the stage, directly behind the real band. The results were shown on a huge video screen. There was also a guy dressed like a librarian/science teacher/Bible salesman whose sole job on the stage was to dance and shake a tamborine.



Funny Bonnaroo puppet video


Another puppet video

The show must go on...

Nothing will stop the music! The mp3's hosted by us are inaccessible for the moment...they should be up again within 24 hours but there's a good chance they'll also be down again within another 24 hour period. If our server space was a pair of pants, we would be sporting high waters because Red Blondehead has had a growth spurt. We'll be moving to a new host with more server space later in the week, so please bear with us until then. Since our hosted files are currently unreliable, here's a few tunes hosted elsewhere, including Birmingham favorite Wild Sweet Orange. They've been getting some regular play on KEXP and they'll be playing a show with Margot and the Nuclear So & So's at Bottletree on July 8.

Cities - A Theme
DeVotchKa - Venus in Furs
Elefant - Lolita
Field Music - You're So Pretty...
Grandaddy - Elevate Yourself
the IOs - Resident Alien
Irving - Jen Nothing Matters to Me
Murder by Death - Brother
Say Hi To Your Mom - These Fangs
They Shoot Horses, Don't They - Emptyhead
Tilly and the Wall - Lost Girls
Wild Sweet Orange - House of Regret

Buy all these albums (except for Wild Sweet Orange) at Insound.
Wild Sweet Orange's Myspace

2 for the price of 1! Sound Team and Grand National

Friday is two for one day! Two bands that I've really been enjoying lately: Sound Team and Grand National.

Sound Team is six-piece of musicians from Austin, Texas, where they formed in 2001. Sound Team released Movie Monster on 6/6/06. 6 musicians...6/6/06...happily the world didn't end so we can all enjoy this album for longer than a day. I can't stop listening to "Your Eyes Are Liars." At least my officemates haven't started complaining yet. I think they like it. When you buy the album on iTunes you get a Tunebook that includes a music video, other short videos, a short movie, photos, etc. etc.

Sound Team - Your Eyes Are Liars
Sound Team - Movie Monster
Sound Team - Handful of Billions
"Your Eyes Are Liars" video
Clip of the video for "Handful of Billions"

Grand National is churning out some guitar pop/rock that's sometimes dancey, sometimes introspective and I'm digging it. They're a Brit duo whose debut Kicking The National Habit was released in the UK and Europe in August 2004. It took two years for them to finally release it here in March. The band describes their sound in the following statement: "There's a duality to it. It's half-light. Melancholic. British people do that well."

Grand National - Drink to Moving On
Grand National - Talk Amongst Yourselves

Stars Go Country

Well maybe not all stars of Stars have gone country, but the lovely Amy Millan has. The sweet-voiced pop princess has veered off her typical course and given into the sweet, sweet pressures of rootsy, guitar-plodding folk. Honey from the Tombs, set for release next week, is not groundbreaking, but it sounds so good. Pitchfork has whined about it, as will some fans of Stars and Broken Social Scene, accusing her of catching Jenny Lewis's Lucinda Williams- wannabe fever, but Millan doesn't come across as a smug, saucy bint. The music is simple, the lyrics are earnest, and Millan's voice is as clear and sweet as it is in any pop song.

Baby I
Come Home Loaded Roadie

Sunset Rubdown of Montreal

Sunset Rubdown (Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes) put out a new record May 2, and by the time I've gotten around to posting this, there's a good chance you've heard some of it. I want to make sure you do, though, if you haven't! Tinymixtapes.com writer Nicole Chavas attended a Sunset Rubdown show at Schuba's a few weeks ago, and she proclaimed Krug "the heart of Wolf Parade." I would venture to say that anyone who enjoyed Wolf Parade's 2005 release Apologies to the Queen Mary will love Shut Up I am Dreaming.

Good stuff, yes indeed, but it seems to still be flying under the radar a bit. Enjoy!

I'm Sorry I Sang on Your Hands that Have Been in the Grave
Us Ones in Between

You can pick this up at Amazon and write it a quick review while you're at it.

Lansing-Dreiden

The first time I heard Lansing-Dreiden was on the Urban Outfitters/Filter Mag Hurricane Katrina benefit comp CD. The song included, "First Response," was so full of synth and general New Order-ness that it prompted a friend to say that it wasn't new wave revival, instead it was a result of the band jumping in their time machine to journey to the early 80's to record the song, then putting it in a time capsule to be unleashed upon the world in 2005. And that may very well be possible given the "mysterious" nature and general anonymity of Lansing-Dreiden.

This New York-based collective works in a variety of medias: music, visual art, installation, and print and they issued the following artist statement: "Lansing-Dreiden is a company that sees no distinction between art and commerce - or anything else. Hence, the output of the organization may manifest itself in various forms, from video to music to product design to the construction of narratives. All Lansing-Dreiden projects are fragmentary, mere stones in a path whose end lies in a space where the very definition of 'path' paths." Well, alrighty then. Let's forget about the pretentious musings on where the path paths and listen to some music.

Here's 3 songs from the 2006 release A Dividing Line.

Lansing-Dreiden - A Line You Can Cross
Lansing-Dreiden - One For All
Lansing-Dreiden - Two Extremes

You can find 3 songs from The Incomplete Triangle at Epitonic.

www.lansing-dreiden.com