New Jess Klein single

Jess Klein has a new single on emusic.  If you don’t know Jess’s music she’s an extraordinary talented singer-songwriter whose music moves from folk to almost-country to acoustic rock to a kind of post-punk pop.  Some of her work is sweet and melodic (try Blood, Sweat, Tears, or City Garden, or Real Live Love, all from the City Garden album, either from emusic or Amie) and some is sharp and funny (Flirting, here on youtube).  These tracks are a good starting point, based on what’s available on the sites I lurk, but all of Jess’s work is interesting, challenging, and definitely worth hearing. Her label’s website has samples here.  There’ a lot of acoustic folk, but if that’s not your thing the single Psalm 29 is stately and moving and beautiful, and her souly-bluesy collaboration with Peter Malik is just gorgeous (the tracks Immigrant and Midsize City Girls here; and as aside Norah Jones is on the same album).  Jess is also a fantastic live singer, one of those who is as good or better in a live recording than a studio.  There’s a live album on both Amie and emusic, should that catch your interest.  Jess also has a blog around these parts (and is indirectly the reason I started this here, rather than another site).  And now I think that’s about a long enough drooly fan-plug.

Amie street has been quiet lately.  There was a spate of Euro dance and metal, then almost nothing at all for the past few days.  However (and possibly related) the great sale price top-up is back: they’re doing 30% off the cost of credits right now, should you need some, but according to their emails, only for today.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: old Kings of Leon (for no particular reason) and the new Cold War Kids (here on emusic, if you’re an American). A very different album, strange and lyrical and melodic. Several outstanding tracks (try 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, and 9).  Cryptomnesia, the final track, is staggeringly good.  This is something to listen to straight though, proper album-style, not to chop and change.

And as an aside, the new Mogwai is also on Amie St, again, if you happen to be an American.

Punk goes…

An interesting series of albums on Emusic are the Punk goes… albums, here.  The general idea is that a punk label has got their bands to cover a thematically grouped set of songs and put these out as compilation albums, so Punk goes 80s, Punk goes Pop, Punk goes 90s, and so on.

First thing is these covers aren’t all – or even necessarily – punk sounding covers, more a general mix of 90s alternative, post-punk, hard rock, and some just in-betweens. Some of the covers are faithful to the original, some are way off. Second thing is, it might just be me that finds this idea interesting.  I remember a lot of these fondly from back in the day, so more grown-up covers are more than welcome. Last thing, ignore the off-topic negative reviewers.  There’s a few there who seem not to have realised these aren’t karaoke-type numbers. Approach these tracks for themselves, and maybe for a bit of past-good-times reminiscence, nothing more, and you might find something you like.

Punk goes 80s is probably the best album: Manic Monday, Straight Up, Everybody wants to Rule the World, and Video Killed the Radio Star are all worth a try.  Punk goes Metal is also intriguing should you remember the originals – and the original bands’ hair.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: Jeremy Jay, electronica, Kirsten Price, extraordinarily good contemporary pop-indie-soul from a woman with an extraordinary voice, and a new Robert Waddington electronic jazz track too (the last one on Zero Gain), all of these still currently free on Amie Street.

A few free classical on Amie

Amie street has a couple of dozen free classical albums right now, check the new classical album upload page.   As an aside, the link can be saved as a bookmark – as can all the browsing views – should you wish to.  I’m not sure where these albums have arrived from.  There seems to have been another flood of new European house and indie, so it might be the same label doing the whole lot.  There are a few identifable named pieces (Mozart Quintets and Quartet for Oboe, a Strauss sonata, and a Tchaikovsky trio), and also a few ‘various artist’ type compilations (here and here).  Get in quick to collect up some civilised dinner party music.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: I just came across the Gaslight Anthem in my wanderings.  Think Springsteen doing modern indie rock.  Think a touch of Dylan’s voice and – to a degree – his esoteric poetry.  Officially punk, but its not really.  Absolutely stunning rough-edged rock.  There’s an EP on Amie Street or emusic, as you prefer, and two full-length albums on emusic (here and here).  These are the kind of albums you can listen to straight through, rather than picking and choosing good tracks, but if you must, try ‘Say I Won’t (Recognize)’ from the EP, or ‘The ‘59 Sound’ from the album of the same name.

Random Free Stuff

Some more random freebies and samples available out there on the web:

Amie Street has a free sampler album from Hush Records here.  The tracks by Novi Split, Norfolk & Western, Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, and Reclinerland are especially worth a listen.  All except Kaitlyn Ni Donovan have more material on Amie Street (here, here, and here, respectively) and Kaitlyn’s work is available here, on the Hush Website (click the very small play icon directly under the price to listen).  There’s also a pdf CD booklet here, on the Hush website, if anyone’s interested, and if you like the album you can also donate something at the same time. Okay, so I cheated. If you see it only on Amie Street it’s free, but from Hush its not entirely free, more free-with-guilt, and you didn’t know that until I told you just now, so sorry.  It is a good album.

Emusic also has several sampler albums if you hunt around (a good starting place is searching for ‘various artists’ and then narrowing it to ‘free’). The 2008 Digital Rainbow Quartz Sampler is good, and as far as I know is free-free, not make-you-guilty-but-free.

There’s also a sample track on David Bryne and Brian Eno’s website (remember them?) from a forthcoming album, but you need to register and give a real email address to get it (they email a link to the download).

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: The Walkmen’s pre-release on Amie Street – grabbed it the other day.  Five dollars, and of it goes to charity.  The album’s out elsewhere in a day or two, Amie Street got it first.

A flood of new releases

There’s been a lot of new releases on Amie Street over the last couple of days.  There seems to have been a bit of a flood of European techno and house (guessing from the titles) and a lot of them seem to be quite good – at least they’re getting downloaded.  There’s far to many there to listen to them all.  There’s also been several good new releases by the Boy Bathing (duety folk), Cam Hodges (acoustic folk) and Piebald (mournful indie rock) – all still free at the moment – as well as new singles from Barnicle (not free but still worth it) and Suzy Callahan (also not free but still equally worth it, formerly of Devils Wielding Scimitars).

Amie Street’s 25% off sale seems to have morphed into a permanent 10-20% off.  Ten dollars gets you a dollar free, and fifty gets you ten free.  I’m not sure if this is good (permanent discounts) or bad (no more half price sales).

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: Those above (obviously) and also this sampler compilation from Arena Rock records.  Some good stuff from people who are now well known from back before they were.

Emusic Free Track of the Day

A real quick one.  Emusic has a daily free track of the day here.  You don’t need to sign up, you don’t need to do anything, just go and grab it.  If you’re an emusic member you’ll be nagged to log in.  Using a different browser – one that doesn’t have the emusic cookie – will prevent this.  Remember Safari is an alternative to IE.   If you see errors of the “not available right now” persuasion its probably because you’re not in the US and the free track is a US-only one, or its European and your not, and so on.  You ain’t getting today’s, try again tomorrow.  You’d think emusic would give away a sample everyone could hear, but they often don’t.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: Ike Reilly, with and without the Assassination.  Emusic with and without, Amie Street with and without. Junkie Faithful (with) and Poison the Hit Parade (without) are the two big ones. Angry, cynical, intelligent rock sung by a man who could have stolen Dylan’s voice and borrowed his pen.  Cheaper right now on Amie Street than the cost-per-track on the emusic plans.

And speaking of Dylan, there’s a free sample track from his new album on his website.