Kinit Her be monsters

Kinit Her are one of the rare few actually-good bands that have 'cold-called' me with their add request on myspace. I'm glad I decided to listen instead of dismissing straight away. Their sound was so different that I loved it straight away. They still sound to me like crazy little goblins singing little scary songs in the middle of the night, but it's still a good sound to have.

Their first release is a cdr in late 2006 called Menial As Archivists- different handmade versions of it are probably still available from them via their myspace, complete with wallpaper tracklist and flower petals placed in the packaging. 7 cool songs, with my favourite being The Pin Globes, followed by Heart Murmers and the interestingly named and disturbingly sounding Aids in The Milkbowl. They are strange. They are nice.

Their next release was initially the download only ep, Bone Marrow Artifacts, but a free download ep for y'all!

It initially didn't grab me as immediately as ...Archivists, but I've been listening to it quite a bit since December, and have since grown to love it also.

For physical-loving folk (like me), you can get ...Archivists and ...Artifacts both on a snazzy white cassette tape with some more sweet handmade'ness paper/drawings/sticky paint stuffs:




& finally. There are four more new songs on their myspace that I think will possibly be on their next release/album. A bit more electric guitar type sounds that I'm not too keen on, but still has their weirdness and will hopefully warm the goblin cockles of my heart.

I miss your breath(e owl breathe)ing

woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-owwh!

Goes my favourite song of bob's: Run Off. It starts off slowly enough, and then the cello, and then the woo-hoo's. All the while the geetar continues, a piano in the background with the lady's backing vocals, all complimenting the deep and lovely voice of the main singer, who sings the word 'me' in a way that I love more than I should, and then the piano and the cello come more to the front of the song, and some banjo too, and then the woo-hoo's start again and the song feels too short, even though it's a nice decent 4 minutes 46. So I play and listen to it again. and again. I did that a lot last year. and then I listen to the rest of the album which is also beautiful, but Run Off has the focus of my attention forever.

This slightly nice song and it's album-mates are from last year's album by the name of Canadian Shield. Here is a picture of it so you know which one to buy when you search online. The picture will help you. You might possibly want to buy it from their label's site, which may posso be here.




Their myspace has some songs from Canadian Shield on it, but unfortunately not Run Off, or the sweet song with lady cello singer being the main singer in it: Your Cape. But the other songs are still great, so do have a listen.
Oh wait, here is the best I can do, a good ol' youtube live performance in some tiny place, which is pretty cool with the floor-sitting audience woo-hoo'ing along, especially with the gender-switching audience part too. woo-hoo miaow miaow.





They also have two older albums which, while nice, don't have the utter charm that Canadian Shield has. But this year, ol' bob released an emusic-only ep, Ghost Glacier. Two songs from it are from Canadian Shield, but the others are new'uns, that shall probably be on their (hopefully) soon-to-be released new album of the same name- i.e. Ghost Glacier. Sabertooth Tiger is a great song from it, and Window is a short but quirky and different-sounding song, so I am looking forward to my owl-loving continuing and growing. Hopefully yours also. Hopefo.

You take envelopes I collect like a bowerbird...

I first came across Bowerbirds from a review on Pitchfork, and added it to my Excel list I keep (as should most people of course) of bands for me to investigate. I downloaded a few of their songs from various blogs, and listened to them for a while, not quite sure if I liked them enough for me to buy. But then the more immediate sounding of the songs, In Our Talons kept making me 'dee dee dee' along. & then I realised I was also quite enjoying the other more laid-back songs I had of theirs: My Oldest Memory, Dark Horse, The Marbled Godwit, and Olive Hearts. After this realisation of love I decided to buy their album, Hymns For A Dark Horse, from their website. & as often is the case for cds from America, it was a bargainous price- £7.11 says my other Excel spreedsheet...

Anyway. The album was brilliant, and all of their songs amazed me with their continued depths of nicenessness. My Oldest Memory became my favourite song from the album, but it could have easily been any from four or five others. They don't have the traditional listening bit on their myspace, but they have their own music player where you can hear some of their songs on their own website or on their myspace too.

I probably would have waited a while before posting about this band- more keen with even newer bands to sing about- but came across their recent performances on Blogotheqe. Seeing them sing Bur Oaks in that cramped shop is a joy to see (and hear). Then being even more cramped in the back of a driving vehicle thing for Dark Horse, playing The Ticonderoga beautifully on the roadside as people just walk and drive by, and then ending with the positively upbeat sounding song In Our Talons.


So yes. I love these guys. Go to their website to buy their album. Or you can wait for it to be given a wider release to the American label Dead Oceans this Spring, which will have a bonus two tracks. But surely it's more fun to just buy it directly from the band now? & their ep. Yes, i forgot to mention their ep, Danger At Sea, which has original versions of about half of the songs that were to be later given even more love and attention on the album.

& just as I was about to finally end this post, I thought I'd check youtube for any videos, and found this woodside rendition of My Oldest Memory there:

I can love Yoyoyo Acapulco in a wheelchair baby

This next band, Yoyoyo Acapulco, are from Norway, and to me sound sort of like a stripped down version of I'm From Barcelona, complete with kazoos and ukulele. They were recommended to me by a friend, who all-to-well knew how predictably I'd like them!


They released the following ep last year on vinyl (see following scanned copy):






I contacted them via their myspace, and the singer Arne Martin Barlund responded and was most nice. I paypal'ed some Euros to get the vinyl and a nice cd version of it also, so I was able to keep my vinyl all nice and shrink-wrapped. I imagine the vinyl itself looks something like this:



It's hard for me to decide which of the 5 songs I love the most, as they're all cool. But here are a couple of their videos from the 'tube:

F-Word:




& Indian Summer



The above song isn't on the ep, but I remember it from my investigating days, with the tree-playing, ukulele and kazoo appealing to my Barcelona'esque loving. The video looks like it is from (possibly?) a Scandinavian version of Blogotheque/Take Away Shows. A quick skim through seems like Handheld Shows my be worth further investigating.

...& listen to Hjaltalín

Another blog among millions, hooray. Should have nice music on it I would like to think.

I've decided that my first post will be about this lovely Icelandic band called Hjaltalín.



Their myspace says that they sound like: 'drums, guitars, bass, piano, violin, cello, bassoon, clarinet, bass clarinet, keybord, accordion, harmonium, banjo, trumpet, trombone, french horn and vocals' which I suppose is true. But they are even better than the sum of all those great parts.

Go to their myspace and download Goodbye July / Margt Að Ugga and be prepared to listen to it repeatedly. & still you won't become sick of it.

& then here is a youtube video of them performing on Icelandic tele, which cemented my love for them with their snazzy style of dress. They seem to dress normally, err, normally, but the big hats and cane in this performance just added to the greatness of it for me.



Their album was released last year at the end of 2007, and you can buy it from Iceland here: http://kimi.grapewire.net/
I've ashamedly not bought it yet, but apparently it's going to be released in Scandinavia in the next couple of months (with extra brass!), so I shall instead buy that 2008 release so that I can rant about it again at the end of the year.

New addition:
A lovely acoustic version of their Traffic Music has just been put on youtube, and sounds as beautiful as you could wish for.