Now, we’ve always wanted to explore domestic music more and so why not bring the laser focus of the Slow Radio Shower to the States. Once again, we made a master list of US states (and Canadian Provinces because why not?), and then rolled the dice. The result: Kentucky!
We enjoy exploring music from different countries. This June, we are listening to music from Finland, Europe. Join in by posting songs and thoughts about the music on this post…
So why Finland? There are nearly 290 territories and countries in the world. We created a master list of countries and territories and then rolled dice and that’s how we ended up with Finland.
So, how do you find music from Finland. One option is Bandcamp. You can use this link which will show all music tagged as coming from the country of Finland. In theory. However, take note, that people will tag their music based on a variety of factors so it’s good to verify it’s actually from Finland or if it is influenced by Finnish music or from a Finnish label. Anything is an acceptable contribution to this effort though. So if it’s from a Finnish label but it’s Lithuanian music – why not? Also I noticed that Finland has multiple tags so that’s just one of them. And you may want to search by certain cities as well, such as Helsinki.
You can use other sites too such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Last.FM or YouTube. However, most of those sites don’t have a geo-tag to search by. So it can be harder to find stuff. At the same time, most artists are on Spotify, but not everyone is on Bandcamp. And there is always Google searches. Since not everyone is on Bandcamp, it’s good to diversify how we find music.
Between now and the end of June, we’ll post music that we or others find and include appropriate commentary. Feel free to comment, suggest music to include, etc… This is most effective as a group effort.
Saturday, June 1 @ 1:30am
The first find in listening to Finnish music is the lovely Jazz from Linda Fredriksson.
Sunday, June 2 @ 12pm
Some Finnish post-rock from Tampere, Finland. This has an ambient touch to it. It’s very solid.
Monday, June 3 @ 1:30am
This is my favorite find so far. Some dreamy electronic indie pop.
Monday, June 3 @ 12:30pm
This is so interesting. Elokuu is inspired by Humppa – “Humppa is a type of music from Finland. It is related to jazz and very fast foxtrot, played two beats to a bar“. Enjoy! And thanks to Lorelai for this contribution!
Tuesday, June 4 @ 2pm
The music from Kauan is labeled as doom, folk, progressive rock, and ambient. And to be honest, it all fits. Plus this album has an associated RPG that you can get! Well worth the listen.
Wednesday, June 5 @ 11am
Teini-Pää is great. This music makes me so happy. Indie Pop that sometimes sounds like surf rock, sometimes like pop punk, and sometimes like Best Coast. Well worth the listen. All lyrics in Finnish.
Thursday, June 6
Today’s contribution comes from Eleanoora Rosenholm – a band from Pori that is probably best described as a weird bit of indie pop. This recent album is focused on a Soviet Union based storyline.
Thursday, June 6 @ 12pm
Today we get two posts. From the same Finnish label as Eleanoora Rosenholm we have Olimpia Splendid. Now I should have remembered how much I like them as I actually have a 7″ from them. But wow are they good! I guess this is Indie Noise? Who cares, I love it!
Friday, June 7 @ 11:30am
Today’s pick was described by Kim Gordon, “Islaja’s music is a dream, abstract and enchanted but grounded in the earthiness of a Finnish forest floor.” I mean, who am I to argue with Kim Gordon? Besides, she is not wrong.
Tuesday, June 11 @ 1:30pm
Jarse is interesting music. Sometimes melodic, other times experimental.
Wednesday, June 12 @ 12pm
Of course, Finland may be best known for its Metal. I am not an aficionado of metal. But I thought this was decent. I’ve barely delved into the metal yet though so don’t be surprised if I find much better.
@1:30pm
This post-rock is really good. Occasionally heavy, occasionally dreamy, always instrumental.
Thursday, June 13 @ 11:30am
Got some real good suggestions from my friend Julian yesterday for Finnish metal. Here are two of my favorites.
Friday, June 14 @ 12:30am
This is so good. Especially the first track. Maybe Tar meets Pissed Jeans? Whatever. It works.
Saturday, June 14 @ 12pm
This is interesting. I really like it. Definitely an indie sound, a bit electronic at times, experimental for sure. In the end it’s just interesting…
Whereas this one is straight up indie rock.
And this may be best classified as indie pop rock?
We enjoy exploring music from different countries. This May, we are listening to music from Guyana, South America. Join in by posting songs and thoughts about the music on this post…
So, how do you find music from Guyana. One option is Bandcamp. You can use this link which will show all music tagged as coming from the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. But you can use other sites too such as Spotify or Soundcloud though there isn’t a tag to search by. And there is always Google.
Between now and the end of May, we’ll post music that we or others find and include appropriate commentary.
The first music of note so far is Research Kitchen.
Sunday, May 19 @ 12pm
This calypso with the drums and jazzy sound is quite delightful!
Sunday, May 19 @ 1pm
If you like industrial I am actually quite enjoying The Vulture Drones…
Monday, May 20 @ 1pm
I wouldn’t say this is great punk, but I like that it exists. A split 7″ with bands from Guyana and neighboring Suriname.
Monday, May 20 @ 6:30pm
This I thought was going to be ambient but it’s something else. It’s a pleasant listen.
Tuesday, May 21 @ 10:30am
I’m trying Youtube music playlists to find music from Guyana. This playlist is of Guyana folk music.
Tuesday, May 21 @ 2:30pm
Creole Rock is an interesting project. Gavin Mendonca is the artist behind this pop punk infused Guyanan music. He also features in a heavy metal band I’m going to give a listen to. And he has a folk project as well.
Wednesday, May 22 @ 12:30pm
Death Metal from Guyana. I know I tend to like everything sometimes but I do actually like this and I’m not usually a big death metal person.
Wednesday, May 22 @ 1:00pm
Just some simple acoustic offerings from a guitarist in Guyana…
And here is some more traditional Guyana music…
Saturday, May 25 @ 10:30PM
This isn’t exactly my thing but it’s lovely in its way. Singer-songwriter Juke Ross from Guyana.
Sunday, May 26 @ 12:30am
I haven’t listened to Iron Maiden in ages so I was surprised how quickly I recognized this cover. Anyhow, some metal from Guyana from Ettu Brutus.
Here in is just some music I found that I liked or was interesting while I have been sitting out my quarantine. This will meander a bit. I have a lot of listening to catch up on but these are items of interest to me – and maybe to you.
LeftyFish
I’m pleased to report that LeftyFish has had a couple of releases since I last wrote about them. Soooooo goooood. Gotta like noise though.
The Ice Age
Let’s start with the interesting. This is a long lost record from Indianapolis’ psych/hard rock band Ice (aka Zukus). Not bad. More interesting than good perhaps. Certainly good enough to have released i’d think
Beybonlar
This is interesting. This is some Turkish Psych from 1969. Pretty nice.
Traveling via bandcamp that is. I’ve always appreciated the location tags on bandcamp. It gives an opportunity to explore a city, a country, a region for it’s music. It’s a central tool that we have used during our drunk radio showers. And so I find it useful.
On this stop, Dublin, Ireland. Or at least I assume Ireland. Maybe all of this music originates in Dublin, Ohio. Hard to tell. Also while I don’t prefer to stick to a city per se, as the rural remote artists have enough to angst about as well, this seemed an appropriate enough journey to start. Feel free to follow along…
First stop: Princess.
The newest tracks from Princess date to 2015. Did they break up? At first, my original reaction wasn’t positive as it was a bit too indie pop for me. But it did occasionally divert into noise. And listening to more they had a tendency towards occasional space rock – or even an 1980s influenced pop sound. Which I can deal with. And maybe that’s just nostalgia, but I did like this track:
Next Stop Barry McCormack
Maybe it was my mood, but that didn’t work for me.
How about Spongebob eyelashes?
Nice name. Would spongebob sue them? They could be spongebob jr eyelashes. They were ok but this made me go back and lose that “indie rock” tag. I’m not just looking for ok and I realized I didn’t want to hear self-proclaimed indie rock since it often didn’t fit the tag.
Jayne Pomplas
I have a soft spot for irish folk, so this settled in nicely from the get go. It really fit my mood and is some solid. On man, this really hit the spot.
That was a pure delight. Now let’s try some other folks…
Cold Old Fire
This group interested me with their band name which I really appreciated. They are a solid folk band, though in the end I maybe wasn’t in the mood. I think I just needed to switch to something more rockin’…
Fontaines DC
The start of the Chequeless Reckless album didn’t grab me, but it grew on me some by the end. The Fontaines are definitely more pop punk than my ideal, but they are solid enough for a mid-day listen. It’s probably the elevated mixing of the vocals. I really liked these tracks though:
I felt a need to dig deeper…
The Disco Participation Matrix
Is there a disco theme in Dublin? Initially the electronic sounding instrumentation turned me off. But it’s pretty good. The music was more instrument driven (sortof) and interesting. I highly recommend it!
Lina Andonovska
I can’t resist the experimental tag which is how I ended up on Lina. I might have an affection for any Lina based on our obsession with Norwegian crime drama – where Lina is apparently a common name.
Anyhow, there are a number of schools where experimental music falls. This is more the quiet, weird instrumentation. Which is solid, but not as good as the weird, noisy instrumentation. Still, I enjoyed this. It is no Lefty Fish though.
Electricals
And then I found what I was looking for. Something closer to the core of what I like. The Electricals. The intro to “I’m Going to the Fucking Moon” immediately grasped me and pulled me in. Consistent use of discordance. The death vocals on track 1 are only part of what these folks have to offer. Some really excellent sounds. I can definitely recommend. This made me very happy.
I decided on one more stop. I tried a stop at Funeral Suits but was immediately scared away. The Department of Forever caught my eye. Interesting cover art and intriguing song titles. An ambient false positive (more on that another day). On to Thee U.F.O….
THEE UFO
The poor sound quality caught my attention. I’m used to bands I love being more of the low budget variety. This had an initial acid rock feel. Thee U.F.O. were a nice ending point. It was indeed psych rock. More on the delightfully mellow end. Give it a listen and happy day!
This wasn’t a deep dive. It is just fun to dive into a region or place or collection of sounds and see what it has to offer. And this is what I found on a small little venture. Maybe something of interest to yinz as well…
Sorry for the silence. Evolving through my emo mess. There is a new Lou Barlow EP out though, and that is a good way to break the silence. With some understated over emotional music. Obviously.
So, as readers may not know, we do this thing called Drunk Radio Shower where we pick a country and listen to music from that country and drunkenly comment on the music (for better or worse). But we’re only able to do that every couple of months and we enjoy the excuse to discover new music (to us) from varied places around the globe. So here is a new thing where we do a post, maybe once or twice a month, where we pick randomly pick a country, and our contributors go out and research and pick a favorite track/band to share. The dice have been rolled, and for issue #1 it’s Uruguay.
July 26, 2016 @ 01:16 PM
Jim here with my pick for Uruguay. After much deliberation and listening I settled on the eclectic mix that is Power Chocolatin Experimento. First of all, solid name. And interesting mix of sounds. Some metal-esque guitars. Sometimes punk and sometimes indie pop. Some Pink Floyd-esque stuff. Some jazz fusion. And all well done. A really great mix of sounds.
And I had a couple of other close choices. I really liked the indie minimalism of hombre común.
And I liked this from Oneill too. Though technically tagged as pop punk I really liked it. I don’t think it’s really pop punk at all. More indie.
August 14, 2016 @ 05:24 PM
Matt here checking in with my pick, as Delouners rides two chords and some Black Lips attitude in “Family”, the title track to an album they put out just about this time last year.
And since that only took up two minutes of your time, here’s some bonus tunes: Los Shakers and Los Mockers seem to have formed some type of Uruguayan Beatles vs. Stones rivalry soon after the British Invasion swept across the pond, though I’d argue that the latter band had more of an Animals vibe about them. Judge for yourself below.
August 14, 2016 @ 07:13 PM
and now, it’s time for david to make his Uruguay choice! my listening, during an unusually busy august, has been more spread out in multiple casual backgroundish hearings, rather than any concerted effort to find *the* one band or song. it turned out, though, that i kept coming back to one of the first bands i’d found: Laura y los Branigan.
the minor key melodies, soft but driving female vocals, and ever-building rhythmic intensity (and, really, probably the reverb and echo-y delay) bring me back to my college days, listening to 1999-ish radiohead or portishead, or any other -head, really. it’s the music that got me to branch out into other styles, to look for something new that i might like but not yet know; and what better kickoff of a series meant to force us to do just that?
August 14, 2016 @ 09:30 PM
My pick is Carmen Sandiego. They are essentially español Belle and Sebastian. Good for a pensive hungover radio shower (i.e. late summer). Here is their video for Agustín from 2010’s Joven Edad :
The album’s lyrics are pretty solid, with themes including promiscuous Christians, Tamagotchi, and that garden variety subsect of gremlin boyfriends with a penchant for belching the alphabet. Worth translating.
While their latest Ciudad Dormitorio came out in 2013, they still seem pretty active, so if you’re around Montevideo on September 3 go check them out !
August 14, 2016 @ 09:45 PM
OK Sam again with a song for when you and your dildo are just tryna go to the discotheque…
Herein we listen to music from Indonesia. And Drink. And live blog and tweet about it. Join along from home. Share what you think or what you like. Apologies to the good people in Indonesia who don’t drink.
8:00pm Let’s do this. Indonesia has tons of good music. This is a fun love ditty.
8:10pm That was pretty damned great! How about a Swervedriver cover?
Now this is catchy. Boyfriend Material has a new EP out on Community Records.
This first song “Small Talk” is absolutely promising. It’s a sort of indie pop/singer songwriter without being too poppy. “Two Steps Back” starts out like a Rainer Maria tune. In fact, this song could be a Rainer Maria song both lyrically and instrumentally. It’s really quite enjoyable.
“Good Graces” tones things down a bit. It’s pretty in a navel-gazing kind of way. Navelgaze should be a recognized genre. Whereas emo has become a certain brand of pop punk which sometimes is great, sometimes really sucks, navelgaze would focus on a certain brand of songwriters like Shauna Healey and Lou Barlow.
Anyhow, the last track is “Absentminded” which features the ukUlele. This calls back more to her earlier stuff (see below). This EP is a very worthwhile listen. The EP in it’s entirety was released on Friday.
This is more of a full band sound. The core of Boyfriend Material is singer-songwriter Shauna Healey. On her first LP “Far From Home”, also on Community Records, her music is very stripped down. It’s that bare acoustic ukulele combined with raw honest vocals that is popular in certain circles these days. I just love this stripped down sound. In any case, there is much to love here.
