While it's unusual to bestow such an honor on a release that plays less than 24 minutes, it's not much of a stretch to call Iron and Wine's six-song EP The Woman King one of the best albums of 2005. Folk singer Jim Beam grows into something more than 2004's fantasic release Our Endless Numbered Days - in all it's beautiful lo-fi, Beam shows that he ( Read more... )

I got a message from Soul Daddy last night ( Read more... )

I first heard My Morning Jacket about 3 years ago after getting reccomended the album; everything I heard about the CD At Dawn was true: it was haunting, unlike anything I'd heard before, and lead singer Jim James's voice was beautiful. I hated it. Iron and Wine dipped in two tons of reverb did not appeal to me in the slightest, but I couldn't ( Read more... )

Like most others, I heard the hype of Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary. Before I'd even pushed play, I'd heard all about how the band's good friends with the guys of Arcade Fire, how Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse had produced much of the album, how it's one of the best releases of 2005, and how if you don't like the album you're a fag. I'm ( Read more... )

In 2003 you couldn't discuss indie rock without hearing somebody rave about Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People. It inspired a wave of people to proclaim it the best record of the year, and another wave of people to say "eh, 'Cause=Time' is nice.'" And while many of the first group are disappointed with Broken Social Scene's self-titled ( Read more... )

The first track I'm posting is Why?'s "Sanddollars." Why? refers to a band fronted by Jonathan Wolf, a member of cLOUDDEAD and a former Anticon MC (that went by the moniker). If you don't know what Anticon is, you'd probably hate them. They were a label full of angsty white rappers that occassionally said something witty, but usually made you want ( Read more... )