Odds and Ends

I was turned on to Japanese singer/songwriter Gutevolk (aka Hirono Nishiyama) by those venerable champions of all things cool over at Dirty Blue Jeans. Her style is hard to pin down but whatever gumbo she's got cooking is delicious. I'd say it's a mix between electronica and folk - but it's not nearly as bad as that might sound. Her album, Tiny People Singing over the Rainbow, is out right now but I've posted two choice tracks:

Gutevolk-SeedOfSky.mp3
PortableRain-gutevolk.mp3

One band that I seem to have missed in the "best of 2006" blitz of last year may have been the Texas outfit, Midlake. They're endorsed by the Onion, MOJO, and Uncut. I think they're pretty rad but you can decide for yourself, the video for the album opener, "Roscoe," is posted below:

In surprising news, former Phantom Power drummer and movie star Jason Schwartzman is releasing his debut solo album, Nighttimin', very soon on Coconut Records and all indications are that it's not that bad. The first single, "West Coast," written with Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger is actually pretty catchy - you can listen to it at his Myspace page.

Sunday cleaning.