Electro-opera based on The Origin of Species

MPR's Lars Gotrich has the backstory. Go to the band's (The Knife) website to stream the album. I've heard most of the album now. It's all great, and certainly challenging, listening. And there are a few songs (like "Annie's Box", "Variation of Birds", and "Colouring of Pigeons") I just can't stop listening to! You'll have to see what you think....

Three songs

Phantogram - "When I'm Small"
Mumford and Sons - "Little Lion Man"
Midlake - "Rulers, Ruling all Things"

Gnarcore!

Better than a lobotomy - if you're in to that sort of thing.... Here are a few of the bands I've been listening to a lot lately:

Genghis Tron: Board up the house (listen through the crescendo starting 2:43, love the party beat starting at 5), and Thing's don't look good
Krallice: I love every song on their myspace page
The Chariot: Forgive me Nashville, And shot each other (epic scream at 0:42)
The Black Dahlia Murder: see their myspace page

Here are a few bands I listened to most when I got into metal: Botch, Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Salt Lake City's Gaza, and Ed Gein.

This stuff will change your brain. Be ready.

The softer side of the Wu-tang Clan

Jah World - featuring Junior Reid

Lali Puna - new album in 2010

This is pretty exciting news... Lali Puna, an Inditronic band from Germany, is recording a new album called "Our Inventions" (first album since 2004). It's scheduled to release on April 2nd. They released a track called "Remember" - check it out!

BluMarTen

I've been listening to BluMarTen's drum and bass mix from Sep.2009 all morning...and it's awesome. Get it here.
There's also a pretty sweet mix of Eryka Badu's "on & On" on youtube (here):
Enjoy

Death metal rooster

To counterbalance that serious sampling/copyright infringement stuff, here's something that made my day a while back. Enjoy!

Beat miners

This broadcast by PBS's Independent Lens does a nice job of describing the conflict between sampling and copyright law. Unfortunately, perhaps because it is so contentious, the show does not point in any way toward a resolution of the conflict. Still, some pretty interesting case studies and interviews with big-name artists.