The Aimless – “Heart Surgery”
A band name like that can be the headline of my post, sure, why not? Here is some alterna-pop that is a cut above the noise. Edgy and minutely arranged, “Heart Surgery” by The Aimless Never Miss weds prog rock sensibilities like odd time signatures and angular, syncopated riffs, with a more contemporary emo-ternative lyrical approach. Emoternative? But yes! The guitars and vocals on this track are quite beautiful. The pieces all come together to evoke a unique feeling that is delicious yet hard to describe. Ultimately, that is what original art accomplishes, isn’t it? Lovely work from this Cotati spawned, San Francisco / Oakland based California band.
The Aimless Never Miss
“Heart Surgery” (mp3)
from “Tran EP”
(500 Records)
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Curtis Harvey – “Oldertoo”
I swear if Paul Westerberg were born in the Appalachians instead of Minneapolis, he would have started a hillbilly band and recorded this song. Or I could say, if Bill Monroe were a young New Yorker, he might have done. These are compliments to all parties, if there’s any wondering. Curtis Harvey, at the time of this writing, has a whopping 47 myspace friends for his brand new solo outing, in which he emerges from a respectable run as a multi-instrumentalist with Rex, Pullman and others, to take the leading role. Listen to the beautiful guitar and banjo arrangement, and picture perfect lyrics of the single “Oldertoo,” and I’m sure you’ll agree this was an idea whose time had come. A gr8 new music find, folks, from a brilliant under-discovered artist, on the visionary Fat Cat Records label. Enjoy.
Curtis Harvey
“Oldertoo” (mp3)
from “Box Of Stones”
(Fat Cat Records)
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Eddie Floyd – “Ninety Nine and a Half”
Soul music legend Eddie Floyd has been singing, recording and touring for something like five decades, and the man shows no sign of letting up today. This classic recording of “Ninety-Nine and a Half” is pure molten gold – just puts a lot of more contemporary records flat to shame, I’m afraid. Probably best known for “Knock On Wood” – a song he co-wrote with Steve Cropper which was a hit in 1966 and subsequently covered by like a hundred major artists, some of whom also charted with it – Eddie Floyd is a real as real gets. Listen to his voice on this, and then tell me how you feel about the auto-tuned piffle that’s so prevalent these days. This is a gr8 record you should have at the ready, to heat up those cold winter nights.
Eddie Floyd
“Ninety-Nine and a Half” (mp3)
from “Sweet Soul”
(LocoBop)
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Bear In Heaven – “Wholehearted Mess”
In the lush, synthetic universe, inhabited by Bear In Heaven, anything can happen. The arrangement of “Wholehearted Mess” is surprising at every turn, with each bridge, verse and chorus opening a new door. An unusual and inspired chord progression, expressed in bold strokes on saturated, pitch-melting keyboard patches, frames a sweetly understated vocal magnificently, and it all adds up to, well, a wholehearted mess. Lovely, original work.
Bear In Heaven
“Wholehearted Mess” (mp3)
from “Beast Rest Forth Mouth”
(Hometapes)
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