I usually star the Guardian’s “Band of the Day” picks in my Google Reader and go back and listen when I have time. The best one I’ve run across lately is Paul Lester’s pick of I Blame Coco, who just happens to be the daughter of Sting. Now, regardless of what you may think of [...]

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Hearing that a band is from Brooklyn may predetermine your attitude towards it, but good music rises above petty biases, good or bad. Soren Well is a quintet from the aforementioned trendy borough that plays a frighteningly accurate amalgamation of Loveless-era shoegaze with showers of guitars and dreamscape vocals. The tonal similarities to My Bloody [...]

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Via Swedesplease comes word of the swedish garage/postpunk sounding band, Makthaverskan. Swedesplease has the mp3. Check it out.

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So, I was just browsing for records recently at Lunchbox Records in Charlotte, NC (an awesome record store, by the way) when I happened across a 7″ by a band called Cotton Candy. The clerk had written “Mark Robinson” on a sticker above the price tag, which is why I picked it up. Well, because [...]

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Raves from the English press still manage to thrust artists into the limelight, despite having cried wolf too many times to remember. But I think The Guardian is onto something with Dave I.D. This guy evidently makes Buriel look like a fame-whore by comparison, even though he does have a MySpace page, inscrutable as it [...]

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The garage rock schtick has been done to death, but there’s always room for when it’s done well. Harlem is your band. Mixing in a bit of frantic, Pixies-style unpredictability with its retro-kitsch harmonies, Austin’s Harlem knows how to make a glorious lo-fi racket. I recommend listening to “The South of France” on the band’s [...]

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It’s always a pleasant evening when you can attend a free show by a band you’ve liked but never seen (Stricken City) and get introduced to an interesting new band (Screaming Lights) in the process. Stricken City’s single Tak o Tak was one of my faves of ‘08, so I was quite chuffed to [...]

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Found out about Kat Bjelland’s new band by way of one of Courtney Love’s illiterate and indecipherable blogs. Evidently, Bjelleand’s home is in danger of being "reposeesed", which one can only assume by context should read "repossessed." Sad news. But on the plus side, Bjelland’s new band is awesome. Her vocal stylings don’t stray [...]

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A few weeks back, I caught Stephin Merritt and his merry quartet for a lovely acoustic show at GW’s Lisner Auditorium, and while that show was amazing, it was like the bazillionth time I’d seen Magnetic Fields in the last 15 years. It was, however, the first time I’d ever seen Shugo Tokumaru and [...]

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I’ve been enjoying the new album from Brooklyn’s School of Seven Bells lately and figured I should mention it here on the Drawer, seeing as they’re on tour and playing with Drawer B faves, M83. Speaking of M83, that’s a good starting off point for comparison. Lush, gauzed ethereal vocals, electronic walls of [...]

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Caught this on 3hive. Fun stuff from Germany.

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Via the always interesting Pop N Cherries comes word of Reading’s Happy Robots Records and their new compilation BotPop. Preview the album @ LastFM.

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Listening to Incredible Weapons courtesy of Pop’n Cherries.

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Roses Kings Castles, a side-project from the drummer of Babyshambles. I rather like this, but I’m not yet sure why. (swiped from Winnie Cooper)

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With its phonetically malapropistic name, Columbia, South Carolina’s Cassangles defies any qualifying genre distinction. There are scraps and strains of familiar sounds to be sure, but they’re fused together loosely in chaotic bursts of energy and underscored by the youthful disdain of form and structure. The brashness of this band’s ethos and execution is infectious. [...]

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“Two men in love with German minimalist techno, disco trash, early ‘80s synthpop and lush, moody soundtracks”  That’s enough for me on a sunny, chilly afternoon Friday.  MySpace, Official Site, free mp3.

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I mentioned the Boy+Girl remix of the Young Lovers‘ track Talking in French the other day but I neglected to mention the band themselves, who have a non-unique sound, but they manage to pull it off, at least on the track Talking in French. Check it out on MySpace.

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First The Presets, then Cut Copy, now via Big Stereo comes word of the ’80s inspired dance pop of Boy + Girl. I don’t know what they’re feeding our antipodean friends down in Australia, but I hope they keep it up.
Additionally, it seems Melbourne, home of Cut Copy and Boy+Girl (among others), is moving [...]

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You can change the perspective of the video while watching. Fascinating concept. Bad song.

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I’ve been meaning to post about Air France for what seems like months now. They are Swedish and from Gothenburg, which means I am oddly genetically predisposed to liking them. They also remind me of a more mellow version of Land of the Loops combined with some of Jens Lekman’s schmaltz and cheeky [...]

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