Tag Archives: crystal castles

AmieStreet Download for Charity: Titus Andronicus & SF’s Lemonade

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I love AmieStreet.  It’s become one of my new favorite music sites and latest obsessions.  They have great music and a very cool, community-driven concept that makes it really cheap to get music.  But you have to be on top of your music game.  It works like this:

All songs on Amie Street are priced from free to 98 cents. Instead of the arbitrary $0.99 per song, on Amie Street the community determines the price of music. Every song starts free, or very cheap, and increases in price, up to 98 cents, as more and more people purchase it.

This variable pricing system ensures that you get music at a fair, community-driven price point, and makes it easy for you to find the type of music you want. Then you’re encouraged to talk about the music you like by putting money in your account for more downloads when you recommend songs that continue to rise in price. All the music is DRM-free!  Go get an account if you don’t have one already.  

And make sure you take advantage of these great album deals…

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Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances 

Listen to ‘Titus Andronicus‘:

Taking their name from a minor Shakespearean tragedy, this New Jersey punk rock band is making waves and getting compared to the likes of The Kinks, The Pogues, Bruce Springsteen, and even Arcade Fire. They’ve built a reputation for their rowdy live performances.  If you’re in San Francisco, you can see them tonight at The Rickshaw Stop opening for No Age.

Buy it at AmieStreet for $4.74!

 

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Lemonade – Lemonade

Listen to ‘Sunchips‘:

This San Francisco-based trio has already built a following around town with their energetic live performances of avant-electronic music that fuses psych heavy synths and spacey delays.  They’ve toured and opened for the likes of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Modeselektor and Crystal Castles.  Their self-titled debut is out now and you can get it at Amie Street right now for $1.32.  Drink it up!

Buy some Lemonade for $1.32 right now.

San Francisco Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of – Part 4

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Kid Mud

San Francisco’s Sean Duncan, aka Kid Mud, just released his first EP ‘Birds Will Move In’.  I really like this album.  It has a mellow Sparklehorse feel.  He records much of his work in his home studio and plays each instruments himself.  Very cool.

Listen to ‘Press it Out’

 

Lady Genuis

Lady Genius’ short, layered pop songs feature shimmering keyboards and echoing guitars coupled with crisp drums and boy/girl harmonies.  A SF Weekly article recently put it, “the result is like the Magnetic Fields crash-landing a flying saucer in New Pornoghraphers-land.” 

Listen to ‘New York Through York’

 

Lemonade

This San Francisco-based trio has already built a following around town with their energetic live performances of avant-electronic music that fuses psych heavy synths and spacey delays.  They’ve toured and opened for the likes of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Modeselektor and Crystal Castles.  Their self-titled debut is out now.  Drink it up. 

Listen to ‘Sunchips‘

 

Get this album free via eMusic’s 50 Free MP3 Promo

buy it at insound!

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Crystal Antlers | Crystal Castles [Black Crystal Bands, Part 9]

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First up in the ‘Crystal’ band category is the Long Beach, CA based group, Crystal Antlers, whose hard core psyche rock sound certainly puts my preconceived notion of all ‘Crystal’ bands as Indie Pop rockers to shame. The indie rock music world has been buzzing about their self-released, eponymous EP. The band has received many comparisons to Les Savy Fay. Check out the featured track, A Thousand Eyes.

Crystal Castles, however, falls squarely into my 80s synthpop stereotype. This Toronto-based group is all synthesizers and drum machines . Their self-titled debut album is a bits and bytes bump and grind fest. Featured track, Courtship Dating.

Get this album free via eMusic’s 50 Free MP3 Promo

buy it at insound!

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Trendspotting: Black Crystal Bands

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Scrolling through my music library recently – in alphabetical order of course – it became apparent to me that if you want to be a hip, cutting edge indie rock artist, you should insert the word ‘black’ or ‘crystal’ into your band name somewhere.  There have been three debut LP/EPs from Crystal bands alone this year:  Crystal Antlers, Crystal Stilts and Crystal Castles.  Not to mention the bevy of ‘black’ dubbed bands with new albums out like Black Angels, Black Keys and Black Mountain to name a few.

Personally, I find myself more drawn to the ‘black’ bands as these groups tend to be of a more dark and moody ilk. (You know, the kind that attracts a predominately male audience.)  For some reason, whenever I free associate ‘crystal’ bands, my mind immediately goes to 80s synthpop.  I just can’t help it.  I’m very judgmental toward the ‘crystal’ set.  Is this fair?  Is there any relevant basis for me to draw such a biased conclusion?  And why is there no band named Black Crystal yet?

Welcome to the first OCMD Trendspotting series – Black Crystal Bands– where I’ll explore some of the new emerging artists in this category (read: no Black Crowes, Black Sabbath, etc.), attempt to answer some of these questions, and hopefully turn you on to some great new music in the process!

I’ve got at least 10 bands to tackle in this series, but I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and additions of other worthy bands I may have missed.  

Tune in tomorrow for The Black Angels.