Great new music from independent labels and artists all around the world

It’s time to celebrate five years of the finest independent music from all around the world delivered direct to your ears every week, via a barn in eastern England.
This week the music comes from California, British Columbia, Montreal, New York, Paris, Ottawa, London and Copenhagen. Phew!
I think a bottle of Adnams Solebay celebratory beer is called for. It would be great to share it with you 😉
 
Sound Scientist – bill (San Diego, CA, USA)
bill* was formed in the fall of 2003 when band members and long time friends Curtis Hartling (guitar,vocals, drums), Jonathan Coyle (drums, vocals, keys, guitars) and Dave Marciano (bass, sax, vocals) wanted to do something new in San Diego. 
Sound Scientist was the first track ever played on Suffolk’n’Cool on 1 Feb 2006 and they certainly provided an appropriate start. This was the album version, I didn’t want you to get bored listening to the same version twice. Even if we were all five years younger then.
I’m not sure how active they’ve been in the past couple of years but the music certainly stands up well.
www.myspace.com/bill
 
Better Than It Was Before – Patrick Joseph (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Patrick Joseph had moved from his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA in late 2008 with nothing more than the hope of turning a box full of demos and the meagre contents of a savings account into a new life that better suited him than the low-ceiling town in which he was raised.
But that’s just what he set out to do. In September 2008, Patrick Joseph relocated himself clear across the country to a town where he knew no one, had no connections, to a neighborhood he had never visited. After nearly a year and a half of making ends-meet recording other artists and playing as a hired gun on other people’s projects, Joseph decided it was time to set his own music in motion.
Armed with a travel rig of recording equipment he brought over from Pittsburgh and a strong knowledge of gear and record production, Joseph rented a piano, leased a rehearsal space and began work on “Antiques,” his debut, full-length album. Never quite accustomed to affording the luxury of collaborators, Joseph took it upon himself to record the entire album himself, even performing every instrument on the ten tracks that compose the record.  Joseph does his own artwork, photography and video as well.
“Antiques” was mastered by Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer Adam Ayan (Foo Fighters, Incubus, Rolling Stones) at Gateway Mastering in Portland, Maine. The title refers to the length of time the songs had sat on a shelf in his own head before they actually saw the light of day, so long that to him they themselves became ‘antiques.’ 
www.patrickjoseph.com
 
Titan – Five Alarm Funk (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
Five Alarm Funk are a new breed of musicians. Through their chemistry, intensity and instrumental prowess, Five Alarm Funk have made a name of themselves as one of the best live bands in Canada.
 This February Five Alarm Funk will load their rowdy 10 member selves in to a van to pound the Canadian pavement. Heading from the west coast all the way to the east, while making a stop in Toronto to play Canadian Music Week. They will be showcasing songs from their new full length album Anything Is Possible.
 Highlight’s in Five Alarm Funk’s 8 year career include being handpicked to play the Vancouver Jazz Festival, Toronto Jazz Festival, Ottawa Blues Fest, Shambhala, Summer Meltdown Festival in Washington, and the Keelung Mid-Summer Festival in Taiwan. The band was extremely honoured to play at the Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Olympic Games. Minutes after Canada was awarded the gold medal in hockey Five Alarm Funk took the stage at the Hockey House and performed to a delirious crowd.
A punishing schedule of dates across Canada starting later this month and continuing during March and April.
myspace.com/fivealarmfunkmusic
twitter.com/fivealarmfunk
 
Liquor Store – The Easton Ellises (Montreal, Canada)
I played Stereomovers on Suffolk and Cool a while ago (actually somewhere back in 2007). Udo Blenkhorn has been in touch with an update:
After years of trying to break traditional music business, in un-traditional ways we have come to the conclusion that the 1886 Bern Copyright Convention is out of touch with the reality of the internet, and an incompatible way to govern music on the web.  We have therefore decided to put an end to the Stereomovers project, and re-start with a new adventure, with a new intellectual property organization.   Not copyright, copy-left!  The Stereomovers are now The Easton Ellises and we believe that creative commons as a better way of managing our music on the web.  
Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org
This is the first cut of “The Easton Ellises” called LIQUORSTORE.  You can preview the new track and download from their site.
To put the song in context, here is what the songwriter and singer, Alex D. had to say about this song.
When you feel bruised down to the core,
and tired of hitting the floor,
When nothing goes right anymore,
There’s no place like the liquorstore !
www.theeastonellises.com
 
Twin Pete’s
Thanks Pete. Just in case you’ve not noticed, PC Podcast is relaunching this weekend.
petecogle.com will reveal all.
 
I Am Not From Here – Chris Riffle (New York, NY, USA)
Born in a one-room cabin in the woods of Bothell, Washington, Chris Riffle has lived in and around the Northwest most of his life. Chris spent a good portion of his childhood learning to live simply, with no electricity or running water, in the mountains of Washington State. He even spent time in a teepee. With no television or other modern distractions, Chris’s dad had ample time to write and sing his own folk songs around the fire at night, which planted the seed of music in Chris from an early age.
In college, in Bellingham (“The city of subdued excitement”), Washington, he started branching out on his own, singing and recording his own songs.
Riffle soon began opening for acts like Death Cab for Cutie, Mary Lou Lord and Dub Narcotic Sound System and made a substantial splash on the Bellingham music scene. Since a transcontinental relocation to New York City several years ago, Chris has been performing with renowned musicians such as drummer Blake Fleming (Mars Volta), guitarist, bassist and keyboardist Jimi Zhivago (Olabelle/Klaus Nomi), and Julia Kent (Antony and the Johnsons) on cello.
Chris now lives in the New York’s East Village, and recently released an album titled “Introducing…”, produced by Zhivago. 
www.chrisriffle.com/
www.myspace.com/chrisriffle
 
MySpace – dead or just restin”
http://brianfranke.com/thinkingaloud/2011/01/04/here-lies-myspace-2003-2011/
 
Galatasaray – Maido Project (Paris, France)
First played on SnC 018
A mix of electronic music (electronic sounds, loops, samples), vocal and acoustic instruments such as Rhodes, saxophone, lute, flutes, percussions,… Music is lively, positive and colourful.
http://maidoproject.free.fr/
 
Burntroot – Gerry Wall (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
Gerry writes with Graham Knight, a long-time friend who is also a brother-in-law, a canoeing and camping partner and sometimes legal advisor. He’s recorded three albums and has plans for at least a few more. The music might be best described as Canadiana. It has elements of Americana, folk, roots, jazz, country and emphasizes the lyrical side.
Gerry has been in touch to let me have a copy of his new album “World”, from which Burntroot is taken.
www.gerrywall.com
 
If I Was A Girl – Cellophane Flowers (London, UK)
The Cellophane Flowers are the masters of driving, accessible, quirky pop. Their songs reflect an eclectic array of influences from tribal drumming to West Coast alt-rock to the dark tinge of 80’s pop. Though bustling with ideas, the band leaves the sublime vocals of singer Francesca Corradini with the room to bring their songs to life – there are no superfluous special effects, the organic feel of the music would be perfectly suited to vinyl, a fact that hasn’t escaped the band who always give their CD artwork an LP look and feel. 
2011 sees the band building on the critical success of last year’s ‘If I Was A Girl’ EP, with pre-production already started on an album for release later in the year. “We can’t wait to announce the details of the collaboration we’re working on at the moment”, says guitarist Ian Sumner, “we just need to tie down a few details and hold a gun to his head to make sure he doesn’t change his mind”.
Hailing from four different corners of the world, The Cellophane Flowers pull together a diverse range of backgrounds and influences to create their unique sound. Italian leading lady Francesca Corradini joined the band in the time-honoured fashion – NME ad followed by pub. Drummer Nick Guy has one foot planted in Egypt and the other in Suffolk, growing up on The Cure and cutting his musical teeth in bands in Leeds and London. Then there is guitarist Ian Sumner who grew up in Brazil, before graduating from samba to Kraftwerk and The Stone Roses. Australian-Italian-Maltese bassist Luca Napolitano can lend his hand to almost any instrument, to the extent that he actually bought a bass and played it for the first time on the day of his audition for the ‘Flowers.
FEB 22 Bloody Awful Poetry @ Proud Galleries FREE ENTRY Camden Town, London
MAR 26 Nambucca, Holloway Road, Holloway, London
APR 9 Seesound Live @ Alleycat, London, 
www.myspace.com/thecellophaneflowers
 
Running With Insanity – Alcoholic Faith Mission (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Let This Be The Last Night We Care, the band’s third album, seems destined to become one of the summer’s ubiquitous favorites. It is equal parts melancholy and celebratory, electronic and organic – propelled along by shout-sung choruses, stacked harmonies, walls of electric guitar, analog clicks and crashes. The album’s hallmarks are its seemingly infinite textures, and beautiful melodies sung with a sense of urgency to often despondent lyrics.
To coincide with the album’s U.S. release on Paper Garden Records on April 27, Alcoholic Faith Mission will be heading out on a tour of the northeastern U.S in April and May.
Tour dates:
2/25 – Roskilde, DK @ Gimie
2/26 -Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
3/9 – Toronto, ON @ CMW
3/10 – Montreal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo (Under The Snow Festival)
3/11 – Toronto, ON @ CMW
3/12 – Toronto, ON @ CMW
3/15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory
3/16 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/17 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW (Paper Garden / YYZ Showcase)
4/28 – Baltimore, MD @ Windup Space
4/29 – Brooklyn, NY @ Southpaw
4/30 – Brooklyn, NY @ tbd, Showpaper Benefit
5/2 – Boston, MA @ TT The Bear’s
alcoholicfaithmission.com
 
“If you’ve been knocking around with me for any of the past five years. Thank you; it makes all the difference.”