2NE1 - I Love You

 2012; 1 track My absolute favorite South Korean girl-pop group 2NE1's new single "I Love You" is out today (or rather, yesterday), and I literally can't stop listening to it!! I am so in love with it. You can find it different places, or you can just hear it here. I am soooo in looove with itttt. Oops I already said that.

p.s. the spoken intro sounds a lot like lady gaga. :s


I love you every day, in every way

Googoosh - Googoosh

 2011; 11 tracks  Googoosh is Faegheh Atashin, an Iranian singer and actress who has been releasing pop albums since 1970 and is continuing to tour and spread her music throughout the world.

This release is a compilation of tracks that survived the destructive Iranian revolution of 1979, in which many of her pre-1980 songs and performances were hidden or banned, and sometimes even destroyed.


Download.

Iva Bittová & Vladimír Václavek - Bílé Inferno

 1997; 13 tracks  This is something truly unique and truly incredible. A "hybrid of Björk and Yann Tierson" (just to give a certain kind of idea). It will probably become one of your most-played albums.  

Bílé Inferno combines the talents of Czech musicians Iva Bittová, an avant-garde violinist, singer, and composer, and Vladimír Václavek, a singer/songwriter and instrumentalist. They perform an interesting mix of darkwave, contemporary classical, traditional folk, classical classical, and experimental or avant-garde jazz. Bittová has a voice that is at once bell-like and as strong and warm as a thousand suns, singing fascinating fairytale words. All in all, you will not be disappointed with this.

01 Vzpomínka
02 Uspávanka
03 Sirka V Louži
04 Sto Let
05 Kdoule
06 Zelený Víneček
07 Moucha
08 Moře
09 Starý Mlýn
10 Je Tma
11 Churý Churůj
12 Zvon
13 Huljet

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Scrawl - Velvet Hammer

 1993; 12 tracks  Scrawl was an underrated grunge/shoegaze (I have no idea) three-piece band from Ohio formed in the late 80s by Marcy Mays (guitar, vocals), Sue Harshe (bass, vocals), and Dana Marshall (drums). I'm pretty sure they were discovered by Steve Albini, and their first show was a 20-minute opening for the Meat Puppets. Scrawl were active throughout the 90s, and Velvet Hammer was the band's fourth full-length. It is a simple, emotional record, containing an atmosphere potentially that of a "coming-of-age" story. I don't know. It's a river full of stories that I could relate to.


do you wanna scream?
do you wanna take a swing?

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Pigment EP

1991; 4 tracks

This is too goddamn good for me not to post.

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was a Czech shoegaze band formed in 1990 who released a number of albums until a few years ago, but I've heard that their latest stuff is pretty horrible. Disregarding that, this is one of the most perfect EPs in existence.

"Honeyrain" is heaven.

Download.

Naked on the Vague - Sad Sun

2007; 5 tracks

This cover you see here is what happens when you try to extract more information from less information, for better or for worse.

Naked on the Vague is a mysterious Australian two-piece band who make mostly minimalist noisy new wave music with the occasional art rock elements. The singer is also a girl with a really low voice, so I'd say this is very similar to HTRK.

Sad Sun was one of Naked on the Vague's first releases, and in the past 4 years they have released a number of other EPs and full-lengths (two EPs came out last year). Theirs is a ritualistic and depressive yet sexy and rhythmic noise, and for those reasons I was hooked.


Download.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Pink

1979; 7 tracks

I'm having a lot of trouble believing this came out in 1979. Nothing comes even close to the sheer corrosiveness of their sound. I am really in love, and I don't care how many times I say that.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks was a post-punk/new wave/experimental noise band from New York active during the last few years of the 70s, founded by James Chance and Lydia Lunch.

Pink, or the band's self-titled EP, combines material from two of their preceding EPs: Orphans (1978), and Baby Doll (1979) with two tracks from a live recording of the band in the fall of 1977 (now to be found on the release Live At Max's Kansas City 1977).

It's all very, very short. Their entire discography is a little over 18 minutes. I like it that way, however. Succinct brutality is the sweetest.

gnaw my ankles and gnaw my bones

Pain Teens - Destroy Me, Lover

1993; 10 tracks

For the first post of February, here is Destroy Me, Lover, one of the final full-lengths recorded by the Houston, Texas experimental noise rock band Pain Teens. Pain Teens formed in 1985 by Bliss Blood and Scott Ayers, and Bliss sings on nearly every track. She reminds me of Jarboe (Swans), but for some reason I feel like she would do well singing for Electric Wizard or something. She also has some Lady Gaga moments (that's not a bad thing!) Her menacing low female voice that I love so much - that's what makes this album, for me. Not to mention the incredibly heavy and distorted guitars, and just everything. Um.

I really, really feel like Destroy Me, Lover is what I've been searching for for a long time. I love this album on such a level that I didn't even know I could even feel something this strong. Well, yes I am being quite serious.

Download.

L7 - Smell the Magic

 1990 (Re-issue, 1991); 9 tracks  Smell the Magic is a really awesome piece of grunge/punk/angry girl rock. It is the second release by the LA-based grunge band L7, who also founded Rock for Choice, a pro-choice women's rights group supported by another favorite band of mine, 7 Year Bitch. Anyway, this is an incredibly heavy and abrasive album full of fast and furious angry girl music.

Download.

Electrelane - Rock it to the Moon

2001; 11 tracks

Here is the debut album by all-female British band Electrelane.


Download.

Quasi - The Sword of God

2001; 14 tracks

Interesting and sometimes positively yummy indie/math rock from the Portland-based ex-husband and wife duo, Quasi.

Download.

Madredeus - Um Amor Infinito

2004; 13 tracks

Madredeus is a Portugese band who combines traditional Portugese music with modern folk and neo-classical. They have been making music since the late 80s, but this is one of their newer albums. Un Amor Infinito actually reminds me a lot of neo-folk music I used to be really into, like Empyrium, Vàli, Forseti, etc. The primary instruments used are the classical guitar, cello, and keyboard synthesizer. I've had this album for a while, but I thought I'd share it because I love it.

suave tristeza

Blue Daisy & Anneka - Raindrops EP

2010; 4 tracks

This is really nice. Blue Daisy is Kwesi Darko, an electronic musician based in the UK, and Anneka is a vocalist/instrumentalist who's worked with bass/electronica producers such as Falty DL, Starkey, Ital Tek, Vex'd and Blue Daisy. Raindrops is their first collaboration.

Download.

f(x) - Pinocchio

 2011; 10 tracks  Fun and cute and really awesome all-girl pop from one of South Korea's biggest girl-pop groups, f(x). I love this album. So. Much.

"빙그르 (Sweet Witches)" is my favorite track!

Download.

Cortex - Tropeau Bleu

1972; 11 tracks

Smooth and jazzy music from 70's France, gilded with glittering female vocals that are shockingly high-pitched. I am personally obsessed with the song "Chanson d'un jour d'hiver," it is sooo pretty! Tropeau Bleu is a very nice and wintry album, so I'll just leave it at that.

Download.

Azalia Snail - Burnt Sienna

1992; 13 tracks

Azalia Snail is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Or at least, that's what Wikipedia says. She has quite an assortment of albums and other releases, but Burnt Sienna is her second full-length. It's really folky and dreamy and nostalgic, like stepping through time into your childhood bedroom to watch yourself sleep. Dream-catchers hanging from the ceiling, a jar full of bugs on the dresser, drawings on the wall, your favorite blanket and stuffed animals cluttered around your bed. This is, for lack of better words, a very pleasant album.

Download.

Anika - Anika

2010; 9 tracks

You might like this, but you also might not. This is Anika's first album.

Download.

Excuse 17 - Such Friends Are Dangerous

 1995; 13 tracks  Angry girls. Angry girls everywhere. Excuse 17 was a Washington-based trio including Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, Becca Albee, and drummer CJ Phillips. Such Friends Are Dangerous was their first album.

"It's a disservice to remember this band solely as the practice run at Sleater-Kinney, but then again, S-K were so monumental, so earth-shaking that it can hardly end up any other way. Listening to this again for the first time in ten or so years, I'm amazed at how well-formed, confident, and bone-cuttingly visceral they were. Of the two pre-Sleater-Kinney bands, (we'll get to Corin's Heavens to Betsy tomorrow), Excuse 17 sound the most like what's to come, with their dual, tangled, razor-wire guitar attack, back and forth vocals, gut-wrenching screams, and sense of moral urgency. Like much of the work Carrie's associated with, it's an album of catharsis. Whether on the bouncy standout track "Watchmaker" (a dig at music journalists and scenesters), the painful "This is Not Your Wedding Song," or the biting "The Drop Dead Look," their combination of pure punk fury and tight musicianship is some pretty righteous shit, no matter what came next."
 he'll say anything to get inside of you

Jale - Dreamcake

1994; 12 tracks

Jale was, at first, an all-female indie rock group from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their name was derived from the first letters of the four initial members of the band - Jennifer Pierce, Alyson MacLeod, Laura Stein, Eve Hartling. This was the band's first album, and they went on to release another full-length and an EP. Although it sometimes gets a little slow, Dreamcake is an innocuous indie/pop rock record, very catchy and pretty. :3


Download.

Here's the opener to the album, "Not Happy," which happens to be one of the really awesome tracks (I also like "Emma" and "3 Days").

Dot Allison - Afterglow

1999; 10 tracks

Dot Allison, or Dorothy Elliot Allison, is a Scottish singer/songwriter, and former lead singer of the trip-hop/electronic group One Dove. Afterglow is her first album as a solo artist.

"This album finds her breaking free of One Dove's sound, beginning her free-form expression within her chosen musical genres. But she does bold new things with the techno/choir/pop hybrid on this album. The lonely piano that begins 'Alpha Female,' for example; the sensual Eurodance grind of 'Mo' Pop;' the absolutely lovely 'Did I Imagine You?;' the Eastern-flavoured keyboard riff that permeates 'Close Your Eyes' -- every song is a gem, infused with Allison's trademark multitracked vocal magic and her daring arrangements. Allison's on-record charisma is phenomenal but despite her ice-goddess looks, her voice can convey a real warmth that makes these songs not just a collection of machinery and mechanized beats, but organic lifeforms with a beating heart."

This may take some getting used to among some, but through the haze Afterglow shows itself to be a charmingly oneiric album. (Yes, I did just come across that word only yesterday, but it is exactly the word I was looking for.)

Download.