Category Archives: Indie

Indie, pop, Video

Video premiere: Mr FROSTY MAN by Sufjan Stevens

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“Mr. Frosty Man” by Sufjan Stevens from the upcoming “Silver & Gold” box set
Animation by Lee Hardcastle.

Those of us that preordered Sufjan Stevens’ new christmas box set got the following mail today:

“Halloween is just around the corner. How better to celebrate the ghoulish occasion than with a new Sufjan Stevens Christmas clay-mation video for “Mr. Frosty Man,” a fast and furious tableau featuring a renegade snowman’s battle against flesh eating zombies.

It’s a veritable Christmas bloodbath (made especially not for children) by the infamous clay-mation master Lee Hardcastle, displaying all the gore of a classic horror flick: zombies interrupt an otherwise normal family Christmas dinner but are thwarted by a rebel snowman wielding a chainsaw, a shotgun, and chip off his shoulder. Children (and spoilers) beware: Mommy gets mauled under the mistletoe and Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick gets a hard-knock lesson in weight loss, but, rest assured, Mr. Frosty Man doesn’t go down without a fight. He’s a real American Christmas hero!”

Fantastic!!

– Hallgeir

Indie, pop, Singer Songwriter

Sufjan Stevens new Christmas music and tour

I am a big fan of Sufjan’s Christmas songs and the proud owner of the first five EP’s collecting his festive output.

Songs For Christmas is a box set of five EPs released over six years between 2001-2006 (the missing year is 2004 when Stevens was  busy making Illinois). These collections of stripped-down carols, covers and originals where originally recorded as gifts for family and friends.

Now he is releasing the follow up(s)!

Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6-10 compiles five EPs recorded between 2006 and 2010.

Christmas Unicorn from the new collection, a 12-minute song that includes snippets from the classic “Love will tear us appart”, really great stuff!:

Press release:

“Silver & Gold is more than just another Christmas album, but an ongoing exercise in theme and variation, an annual tradition that offers this songwriter a chance to experiment with fashion and technique without taking himself too seriously. Sufjan’s playful (yet purposeful) expedition through the superficial landscape of sugar plum fairies and marshmallow fluff has produced an exuberant musical account of “all things Christmas” in the pursuit of the sublime. What distinguishes this project from the glut of Christmas albums saturating the market today are Sufjan’s unguarded enthusiasm for the genre itself (the sense of freedom he shows in celebrating with reverence and rebellion) and the belief that Christmas music contains a multiplicity of sacred and secular significance (from Baby Jesus to Babes in Toyland) that is ultimately ours for the taking. It’s safe to say that no one has taken it further than Sufjan, for better and for worse.”

Silver & Gold will be available in CD and vinyl formats, as well as as a digital download.

Continue reading Sufjan Stevens new Christmas music and tour →

Indie, Rock, Sound, Video

Arcade Fire performed new song, Crucified Again


A couple of days ago, Arcade Fire Tube released a video of Arcade Fire performing “Crucified Again”, a new song (from New York last Thursday, 4 oct). The band has played the the track before (Hotel Oloffson, Port-au-Prince, Haiti) but this is the first time the song was captured on video.

The official release date or title for their new album, however, has yet to be confirmed.

Check it out!

Crucified again:

– Hallgeir

folk, Indie, Singer Songwriter

Look out for: The River Has Many Voices

This is The River Has Many Voices according to his bio:

The River Has Many Voices(TRHMV) is  Matthew Payne, a singer/songwriter who lives and writes in Dripping Springs just outside of Austin, TX at his ranch house of 126 acres set in the Texas hill country. It is the land where he grew up and it is where he calls home.

Matthew Payne worked as a high school English and Creative Writing teacher for five years. Though incredibly proud of his time there, he decided to leave this work and pursue a life of writing and singing.

There’s a thousand on fire (not released):

It was then, living in a small ranch house, in a span of a month, that he wrote and recorded the tracks that appear on this debut album. Having written for years,
he has developed a musical catalogue much larger than any one album and this comes through with his live shows. He plays many clubs and coffeehouses around
Austin, and some festivals, including Old Pecan Street Festival this fall.

 

Barton Creek [EP]

Barton Creek is a collection of songs integrating harmony and acoustic melody from genres of Folk, Country, Pop, and Americana. The lyrics take the most
importance and involve various topics, including death, love, and living with both of those powerful forces.

As EPs go it’s a long one, it clocks in at 41 minutes. And it is 41 minutes well spent. The six songs are full of optimism, longing and loss.

It starts off with For Emily, a sweet love song with a hypnotic accoustic guitar riff over Matthew Payne’s husky voice. The Harmonies on the choruses are just beautiful. The Lyrics are bittersweet, as the love affair now seems over, but it’s still a  song that praises Emily in a very profound way. I love it.

Continue reading Look out for: The River Has Many Voices →