Today’s Free Download – The Decemberists

And a bouncy little number “Summersong” is, provided by the nice, if occasionally cranky, folks at Pitchfork:
Continuing in the vein of 2004’s The Tain EP, the Decemberists have crafted their fourth full-length, The Crane Wife, to be an enormous folk-prog monsterpiece. It’s a beautiful thing, really…This song has none of the multi-part progginess of others [...]

Local Rhythms – SpiralFrog is a Leap Forward

Appears in the August 31, 2006 Claremont Eagle Times:
Partially adapted from an earlier post
Watching the record industry come to grips with the new realities of the music business is a bit like watching Sam I Am’s evil twin at work. You remember the Dr. Seuss character? Sam tried to force an unwanted breakfast [...]

A Review of Kasey Chambers’ Carnival

Appears in the August 31, 2006 Claremont Eagle Times:
In 2000, when U.S. audiences were first exposed to Kasey Chambers, she was already a star in her native Australia. American radio programmers didn’t know what to do with the quirky singer-songwriter. “Cry Like A Baby” was a minor hit on country radio.
But the genre [...]

A Review of Ray LaMontagne’s Till the Sun Turns Black

Appears in the August 31, 2006 Claremont Eagle Times:
New Hampshire native Ray LaMontagne’s latest release is a sometimes too-deliberate move away from the successful formula that propelled his surprise 2004 hit “Trouble.”
“I never learned to count my blessings/I choose instead to dwell in my disasters,” he reports convincingly in a typical track (“Empty”). [...]

Why SpiralFrog’s Free Music Plan Will Work

Watching the record industry trying to come to grips with the new realities of the music business is a bit like watching Sam I Am’s evil twin at work. You remember the Dr. Seuss character, haranguing that poor guy, who’ s probably studying for his chloresterol test.
Trying to force an unwanted breakfast on him – [...]

Today’s Free Download – Stonewall

These guys always bring out my inner headbanger. Since they’re playing at Springfield’s Royal Flush this weekend (Saturday, September 2), it seemed like a good idea to link “I Choose Not” in spite of the inevitable Stone Temple Pilots comparisons.
I also like “Since the Day,” available as a stream (but not a download) on [...]

Today’s Free Download – Jody Watley

Watley’s re-make of “Borderline,” one of Madonna’s first big hits, insinuated itself into my consciousness though it seemed a trifle the first time I heard it. But I kept coming back to her slowed-down, sultry take, until finally I just had to link it as a free download and let others decide whether it [...]

Today’s Free Download – Mindy Smith

OK, it’s a MySpace stream, not a free download. But “Out Loud” is a strong advance track from Mindy Smith’s upcoming “Long Island Shores” CD, a record I’ve been anxiously awaiting.
She reminds many of Patty Griffin, but the deeply personal nature of her songs set Smith apart.
The upcoming record draws from childhood memories:
… [...]

Is Goombah MySpace Inside My Mind?

I’ve been playing with Goombah this weekend, and though it’s not perfect (what beta is?) it’s very intriguing. It’s an application that catalogues your iTunes library and feeds it into a database containing the libraries of other users. Goombah looks for matches between your playlist and other users, analyzing similarities. It then [...]

With Zune, Toshiba Triangulates

An FCC filing announced Friday indicates that the Microsoft Zune is being built by Toshiba. It will feature a 30 GB drive and a wireless connection for song and photo swapping, although early reports indicate that the music-sharing component is, typically for Microsoft, ridiculously restrictive.
According to documents filed Thursday with the FCC, Zune has [...]