El Perro Del Mar

El Perro del Mar is the musical work of Swedish songstress Sarah Assbring. Drawing influence from ’60s girl-group music, church hymns, buddhist mantras, and twee pop, Assbring makes slow, sad, achingly beautiful pop-songs that favor simple repetition over overblown ostentation.

Assbring (born in 1977) was raised in Gothenburg, and was exposed to music at an early age via the record collection of her jazz-loving father. From her childhood, Assbring wanted to “first and foremost” be a singer. “I remember being amazed by Annie Lennox and Kate Bush as a kid,” Assbring has recalled, to Identity Theory. “I was totally into their way of going in and out of different personalities, almost as a form of acting when singing.”

Assbring abandoned early piano lessons because of their “restrictive” nature, and took to singing in a church choir throughout her adolescence and into early adulthood.

In 2003, mired in depression and feeling like a victim of her own “destructive and negative” attitude, Assbring escaped on a holiday to Spain. On an isolated beach, she came across a dog, and via a strange process of self-identification —”I had had this feeling of feeling like a dog, all hopeless and tired,” she told Pitchfork— she came to two conclusions: she had to start making music, and her name had to be El Perro del Mar (Spanish for “the Dog from the Sea”).

via Altmusic.about.com

Change of Heart

From The Valley To The Stars

El Perro del Mar on iTunes:

April Smith

“I was the surprise,” says April Smith, the bonus baby her parents won late and whose moxie and dash astounded everyone she met. Today, she remains a welcome bolt: a loose-lipped, cocked-hip gal whose music and mien could buoy the Titanic.

As she took her place in the family, April developed a muscular, mellifluous voice and high-flying showmanship. Her mom adored Queen (”If you didn’t know a Brian May solo in the first few notes, you weren’t her child”) and her dad gave her his old 8-track tape player, letting her buy Elvis and Led Zeppelin tapes at yard sales. During summer vacations with Aunt Cricket and Uncle Fred, April discovered songwriters like Tom Waits and Kinky Friedman, stealing Fred’s cassettes and absorbing observational story-songs in a backyard tent. Waits so impressed April that she felt compelled to dress up – using Fred’s hat, pipe and Junior Mints (she placed them on her teeth) each time she played his music.

When she began to write songs, she incorporated elements musical and otherwise, some contradictory in theme or vibe – to anyone but April. Because she’d been so diversely inspired, it was a cinch to stitch together Queen’s majesty, big band’s sunny optimism, the terror and despair of horror flicks and Edgar Allan Poe writings, and the cottonmouthed wit and poignancy of Wes Anderson films. From this influential primordial stew came April’s new album Songs for a Sinking Ship.

The album’s sound was informed by the ’30s and ’40s, juke joints and cabaret, the Andrews Sisters and, of course, Waits. Smith covers a wide range as a singer and songwriter, from the heartbroken ballad “Beloved” to the cheeky tell-off “Stop Wondering” and the sexy swagger of “Wow and Flutter.” Her voice swoons and seduces, and then escalates to breathtaking peaks, backed by piano, upright bass, drums, guitar, horns, ukulele, accordion and even, when the occasion warrants, a suitcase used as a bass drum.

Her songs and her playful, confident performances – in which she’ll wear a tutu and impishly tease her band, The Great Picture Show – now win her fans everywhere. 

via April Smith Music

Colors

Movie Loves A Screen

April Smith and the Great Picture Show on iTunes

Polly Scattergood

Polly Scattergood (born 1987, Colchester, Essex, England), is a British singer-songwriter. She has been described as ethereal, dark, intense and quirky, while her musical style has been described as “early 21st century electro-dance-pop of London proper”. Scattergood’s debut album, self-titled, was released in spring 2009 in the United Kingdom and United States. Scattergood attended the Brit School where she wrote 800 songs. After graduation she caught the attention of music industry executive Neil Ferris who took on her management. Ferris then introduced Scattergood to Daniel Miller head of Mute Records. He led her to her current producer Simon Fisher Turner. Scattergood describes herself as a storyteller. “I write about emotions and moments, not all are biographical.”

via Wikipedia

Please Don’t Touch

I Hate The Way

Polly Scattergood on iTunes:

Nina Storey

Nina Storey uses the phrase “21st-century soul” to describe her music, “because it’s rooted in a soul sound with bluesy overtones,” she explained to AfterEllen.com. “The music that I write is a mix of singer-songwriter acoustic stuff, and then there’s rock, and then there’s quirky stuff that’s totally out of the box.”

A Boulder, Colo., native now living in Los Angeles, Storey has been singing pretty much her whole life — professionally since the age of 12. She is self-taught, but grew up in a very musical family: Her mother is a songwriter and producer (and also acts as her manager and publicist), and her dad is a sound engineer. Her parents always encouraged her to pursue her craft.

Storey said she hasn’t talked about her sexual orientation in interviews before this one. “I’ve always kept a very private personal life my entire musical career,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of protective of that. Mostly it’s just because I’m a pretty shy person, and it feels kind of vulnerable to me. But I think it’s really important to be a whole person. In my daily life, I’ve always been out and that’s never been an issue.”

The subject matter of Storey’s songs runs the gamut from relationships to politics and social commentary. “I definitely have some music that’s more pointed and more out, and then some stuff that’s more general,” she said. “Personally I’ve lived a life where I’ve had relationships with men and women and celebrated both of those things equally, and my music has always reflected that.”

But Storey and the persona of a particular song aren’t necessarily one and the same. “That’s the beautiful safety that you have writing,” she said. “It may or may not be about me. It may be thinly veiled or completely fictitious. I would like the listener to have the opportunity to interpret it however they want.”

Storey described some of her songs as gender-bending, such as “Better Man,” where she sings in the first person of the people who have inspired her to be a better man. She also has a song about someone transitioning. “I toy with the concept of identity,” Storey said.

“If you’re writing music from a passionate place, the listener is hopefully going to identify with that,” she said, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

Bio via After Ellen

This Naked Woman

When I’m Gone

Nina Storey on iTunes:

Nite Jewel

Nite Jewel is the performing moniker of Ramona Gonzalez. She is a composer, songwriter, and multimedia artist from Los Angeles, California, where she has exhibited a number of video and sound installation pieces. A recent sound installation entitled “The Question Concerning Technology” has been transcribed to traditional notation by Human Ear Music founder, Jason Grier. She has collaborated with Julia Holter and Cole M.G.N. of Haunted Graffiti, curated two exhibitions at the Tiny Creatures gallery, and performed the work of Michael Pisaro. She was a philosophy student at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles.

The Nite Jewel project is a remarkable combination of revisionist Bronx pop and hazy musical impressionism. Like her ex-pop peers, Ariel Rosenberg and Geneva Jacuzzi, she records solely on portable 8-track cassette deck, often composing her songs by layered tape edits. In Nite Jewel’s case, however, the quality of her chosen medium seems to be neither a means nor an end, but rather a device to lend an ethereal kind of efficacy to the golden age of alternative disco. As influences, she has cited dance floor greats Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam and Debbie Deb, 90’s R&B, as well as Experimental, New Age, and shoegaze.

via Last.fm

One Second of Love

What Did He Say

Nite Jewel on iTunes:

Girl In A Coma

Girl in a Coma formed when best friends Jenn Alva and Phanie Diaz met in Jr-high school art class over a mutual love of the Smiths, Nirvana, and skipping school. All they needed was a singer. Enter Nina Diaz, Phanie’s little sister. Nina blew them away with her mesmerizing vocals, a powerful voice some critics have compared to Bjork, Patsy Cline, and the band’s hero, Morrissey himself. The trio practiced for three years, gigged at local punk rock clubs, played a High School talent show, one kid’s birthday party, and then hit the road, building up a solid and loyal fan base across the country.

In 2006, the Girls played for Joan Jett and long-time songwriting partner and producer, Kenny Laguna, at New York’s Knitting Factory as part of a cable TV show featuring unknown bands. Jett and Laguna were so impressed with the band that they signed GIAC to their label, Blackheart Records, on the spot.

The band’s 2007 debut album, Both Before I’m Gone, was a critical hit with raves from Alternative Press Magazine, the LA Weekly, Bust magazine, among many others, with the album reaching No. 23 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and No. 21 on iTunes. “Clumsy Sky,” the band’s first single, won a 2007 Independent Music Award.

In 2009, the band released their follow up album, Trio B.C. The album is a unique amalgamation of eclectic influences: oldies, rockabilly, 90s alternative, and contemporary bands both indie and mainstream.

Just a year later, the band recorded a companion piece to Trio B.C. Produced by Grammy-award winning producer Greg Collins (U2 and Gwen Stefani), Adventures in Coverland. features reinterpretations of songs and artists who have impacted the band. The songs range from a punked out version of Selena’s “Si Una Vez” to a stripped down version of Joy Division’s “Transmission.”

In early 2011, new material was piling up and the band was ready to head back into the studio to work on their upcoming album, Exits & All the Rest.

-via last.fm

Smart

Their Cell

Girl in a Coma on iTunes:

Rebekah Delgado

Rebekah Delgado is a solo musician from London, United Kingdom. After previously fronting two successful bands, Rebekah embarked on a solo career in 2010 when her previous band, The Last Army broke up. When playing live Rebekah is accompanied by a variety of other musicians, currently including Tom on violin and harmonium, Daniel on cello, Saulo on percussion, and Sara on musical saw.

Rebekah’s solo material is a departure from her previous bands’ foundations, being influenced by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Carla Bruni, Pulp, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel, Kris Kristofferson, Patti Smith, Johnny Cash, Sonic Youth and Paco Ibañez among others. As a result, Rebekah’s solo music ranges from the melancholic to intelligent pop.

Rebekah is continuing to work on her first solo album, Don’t Sleep which is due for release in 2012.

via last.fm

Sing You Through The Storm

Sunrise

Rebekah Delgado on iTunes: 

Laura Gibson

Laura Gibson grew up in a small town in southern Oregon called Coquille. Her family lived in the middle of the woods, as her father was a forest ranger and her mother a teacher.

Her introduction to music began early, listening to the folk albums her parents kept around the house and learning to love the intense imagery and narrative storytelling of folks like Bob Dylan. Gibson was inclined toward music while growing up, but too shy to perform live for people.

She moved to Portland to go to school (on a math scholarship) and continued to grad school, where she studied counseling. After college, she took to playing music at nursing homes and for hospice patients. Seeing the joy it brought to her audiences, Gibson developed the confidence to take her act to the clubs. She began performing around Portland’s burgeoning indie folk music scene in 2004, releasing a self-made album (produced by fellow Portlander Drew Grow, of the Pastor’s Wives) and eventually garnered the attention of local indie label Hush Records.

She recorded her debut full-length album, If You Come to Greet Me, for that label partly in Portland and partly in San Francisco. On it, she was backed by imaginative fellow Portlanders Norfolk & Western. The disc earned considerable local praise and Gibson went on tour – mostly on the West Coast – through Oregon, Washington, and California – in support of it. Since then, she’s toured Europe quite a bit and has released two more full-length albums (including 2012′s La Grande, on Barsuk Records). She also released two EPs – Amends (self, 2004) and Six White Horses: Blues and Traditionals Vol. 1 (Hush, 2006). The latter sees her covering traditional folk songs by artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten and others.

Indeed, its these traditional artists of blues and folk music to which Gibson’s music is most frequently compared. Her voice can sound a bit like Billie Holiday, filtered through the lens of the mid-20th Century folk revival. With all the nuance and artistic grace of both.

Since releasing her debut EP in 2004, Gibson has collaborated again with Norfolk & Western as well as other Portland-based artists like Laura Veirs, the Portland Cello Project (with whom she has recorded and performed quite a bit), M. Ward, Horse Feathers, and more. She’s become a fixture at NW clubs and festivals like the Doug Fir Lounge, Tractor Tavern, Green Frog, and Pickathon Indie Roots Music Festival (held just outside of Portland at Pendarvis Farm).

In 2012, she released her latest album La Grande, followed by a tour through Europe, the United States East Coast, and then likely a summer of more festivals and club dates. For more information or a list of her tour stops, keep an eye on Laura Gibson’s website.

via folkmusic.about.com

La Grande

Hands in Pockets

Laura Gibson on iTunes:

MNDR

I’m giving you a rare opportunity. This is the chance to gain some mad hipster points without having to wear plaid OR name drop some crappy, pretentious band name like Yuck. I present to you MNDR. MNDR is a one person band who is based in New York and is just now going on tour with The Ting Tings.

MNDR has a wonderful sound. It’s very dance-y and has an extremely traceable hint of Robyn in it. I recently caught Robyn live at The Studio at Webster Hall, she put on one hell of a show. The bass was turned all the way up and we were dancing our hearts out. She is alone on stage and gets super into her music. She is on the cusp of the new live concert concept of having a adding a visual element to her performance. She has a light projection on the stage that not only looks badass, but creates some really cool shadow effects. It’s very loop based music, but she’s a fun enough lead singer that it remains interesting. She’s about to break big time, so hop on the hipster train before it leaves the station. Let’s just say Amanda Warner is the bomb (lead singer). She often collaborates with Peter Wade.

Warner moved from Oakland, California to New York City in 2008 to work as a songwriter for hire. It was only after meeting Wade that she began to consider fronting a musical act herself. MNDR has opened for bands like YACHT, Massive Attack, and Deerhoof and frequently collaborates with visual artist Jamie Carreiro, who provides visual effects for MNDR’s live shows. Warner and Wade uploaded four tracks to Myspace in 2009, and those tracks eventually became MNDR’s debut EP, E.P.E.. The band is currently working on their first full-length album. The song “Fade to Black” from E.P.E was re-recorded in the Simlish language of The Sims and is featured in The Sims 3: High-End Loft Stuff.

Warner is featured on the song “Bang Bang Bang”, the first single taken from Mark Ronson & The Business Intl.’s third studio album, Record Collection. The song was co-written by Warner, Wade, Ronson, and Q-Tip. Daniel Kreps from Rolling Stone describes MNDR as providing “the song’s indelible French-laden hook” while “a debonair Q-Tip absolutely slays on his verses.”

Warner subsequently provided vocals for a parody version of the song, called “Dom Dom Dom”, written by Chris Moyles and Dave Vitty. She is also featured on Ronson’s 2010 tour in support of his album.

On January 17, 2012, MNDR released a single titled “#1 in Heaven” on Ultra Records. Warner told Spin magazine that the lyrics are inspired by kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, commenting, “The lyrics to the chorus are her words [...] After she was arrested for robbing a bank where someone was murdered, her only press statement was, ‘Tell them [my brothers and sisters] I am smiling and send my greetings.’” The accompanying music video was directed by SSION lead singer Cody Critcheloe and takes inspiration from “strong iconic” women such as Jane Fonda, Wendy O. Williams, and Valerie Solanas. The duo’s full-length debut album is scheduled for release in summer 2012, also on Ultra.

via Wikipedia

#1 In Heaven

Cut Me Out

MNDR on iTunes:

Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American recording artist, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most-awarded female act of all-time. Houston was also one of the world’s best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. She released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston’s crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for “How Will I Know”,influenced several African-American female artists to follow in her footsteps.

Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only female artist to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly “Top Pop Album”) on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston’s 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release. The album was named Rolling Stone’s best album of 1986, and was ranked at number 254 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Houston’s first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992). The film’s original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Its lead single “I Will Always Love You”, became the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. With the album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period. The album makes her the top female act in the top 10 list of the best-selling albums of all time, at number four. Houston continued to star in movies and contribute to their soundtracks, including the films Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher’s Wife (1996). The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack became the best-selling gospel album in history. Three years after the release of her fourth studio album My Love Is Your Love (1998), she renewed her recording contract with Arista Records. She released her fifth studio album Just Whitney in 2002, and the Christmas-themed One Wish: The Holiday Album in 2003. In 2009, Houston released her seventh studio album I Look to You.

On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, California, of causes not immediately known. News of her death, the day before the 2012 Grammy Awards, dominated American and international media.

via Wikipedia

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

I Will Always Love You