This episode features:

Mescalin, Baby

There’s a Home for You Somewhere (Else)

Planes Yes, Trains No

The Vegetarians

It’s All in Your Head

Be My Little Baby

Glass Candy

Last Time

The Hush Now

Bedtime Stories

Traditions

Isolated Atoms

Tell Me What I Want

Lornezo’s Music

San Francisco

Monogold

A Certain Kind of Sleep

Snowing on the Moon

Papa Dada

Art Gallery

Ponderstone

We’re All Water (Cover)

Silence is Sexy

Billy Jean (Cover)

Sorry about the long wait, guys, I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately. I also apologise for any oddities you may notice in the show as it was recorded live and if I remember properly I had a couple of issues with the microphone during the show. All that aside I would like to introduce My Light Sweet Fire, a very interesting band from New York. They play a very pleasant mix of soft acoustic and what I would call Victorian-era music (although the Victorian influence is only noticeable in one song) and it sounds great.

This is probably one of the more exciting reviews I’ve done because I was given a hard copy of their latest album “An Invitation To” to use in the review process. And let me tell you; the album cover is beautiful! And one of the most creative I’ve seen in a long time. (Make sure to head on over to CDBaby and buy they’re album, it’s really worth it!) It sports a wax seal and a card inside inviting you to enjoy the music, and such. It is simply awesome!

You can find the band at RevebNation, which is linked to above, or at MySpace Music.

My Light Sweet Fire is “My Light Sweet Fire is the brainchild of Brian Murphey and Garth MacAleavey. After meeting in Santa Cruz, CA and playing in numerous funk, rock and avant-garde ensembles, they parted ways for several years until meeting up again in New York City. While pursuing other projects, they decided to begin arranging some of their otherwise unused singer-songwriter music. Soon, the music began to transform into something larger, incorporating their various influences and crossing genres and stylistic boundaries they had never even planned. This resulted in a series of songs centered around themes of love gained and lost, and accented by the banjo, strings and group vocal harmony.” #

This album presents four beautiful down tempo love songs that I simply fell in love with. I particularly enjoyed their use of harmony and the banjo (an instruments whose sound I really enjoy) mostly because harmony, particularly good harmony,  is difficult but is well worth the effort. The best part of it all is that the music isn’t just complex and beautiful, it’s catchy as well. Great work guys!

The track listings are as follows: (I’m sure I played them out of order, though)

1. Just Been Born
2. World on it’s Own
3. Saturday Winter
4. Top of the World

I also included some sound-similar tracks by Pourquoi me Reveiller and featured a two-second guest appearance by Rick James!

Please enjoy!

Download mp3/ogg

Tracks featured on the show:

From Devil Ain’t Got a Chance
Devil Ain’t Got a Chance

So Wrong

Bad Luck

From Only One

Head in the Clouds

Only One

Also featuring Josh Woodward playing Nothing in the Dark from Here Today, Black Morning playing Post War Years from the SXSW 2009 Showcasing Artist Compliation CD, and It’s Electric by Yours Truly (Carlos Killpack) from Dj Killpack (recently released on Jamendo)

Download: mp3/ogg

The album we will be listening to is called Hydrophobia. According to the details page of this album on Archive.org:
“Entertainment for the Braindead’s music can be considered as acoustic, private, fragile and touching. Therefore Julia coined the term “acoustic dilettante post-something”, which refers to her unique D.I.Y. attitude that goes all along in the process of creating her music.
Just like her debut “Hypersomnia”, her new EP “Hydrophobia” is full of heart and soul and was created in her parents’ living room. There she spent hours in front of her laptop, recording track by track with a simple USB-microphone. Behind closed doors – with an open heart and mind – these colourful sounds and melodies of “Hydrophobia” emerged. Ukulele, guitar and flute are ever-present instruments, just like her unconventional percussion that consists of jars, cans, boxes, drawers and peppermills. Her intimate songs are detailed snapshots of thoughts and feelings that are part of Julia and her surroundings – sometimes filtered and reflected, sometimes pure and transparent.”
The track listing is as follows:

1. Prologue
2. Colours
3. Resolutions
4. Run!
5. Mi Corazon
6. Fences
7. Hydrophobia
8. What You Get
9. A Trace
10. Maybe

Visit Julia at her website, at the Hyrdophobia details page at Archive.org, or on Last.fm

On another, non-music related, note: the Indie Invasion Merch Table is up and running! And, if you are feeling generous, buy some stuff if for no other reason than helping Indie Invasion get a hold of it’s own domain name and some web hosting!

Download ogg/mp3

They include:

Nate Maingard, an Acoustic/Folk artist from I don’t know where. His music is rough and full of passion. You can feel the emotions he is trying to convey with his music, the only problem is the playing isn’t always of the highest quality, I can tell that he’s a pretty good guitarist, but only after listening to most of his songs. He is good, he just needs a little polish.

Josh Woodward, a livewire acoustic rock musician from Ohio. Taking the musical road less traveled, he’s chosen to freely offer his entire collection of over 100 songs on his website. Without pressure to write music that sells, he writes energetic and passionate songs featuring vivid stories and dark humor.

Josh is awesome, he is definitely one of my favorite acoustic/folk artists. He is probably one of most polished and professional of this sort of indie artist that I’ve ever come across, his music sounds awesome, it really does.

Dan Masquelier is the more polished version of Nate Maingard. His passion is evident, his songs beautiful, and his musical skill evident. I really like his music, it’s all quite soft but very well preformed. His bio says that he is a a/v geek, a musician, and a zen inspired nice guy who you should probably be friends with. He certainly looks the part and his music definately sould like a zen-inspired nice guy made it, doesn’t it?

Brooke Miller is a young artist in her twenties (with a lot of skills). For her full bio (which is rather long), can be read at her website and on myspace. She’s from Canada, Prince Edwards Island, where she was raised by musician parents, grew up with music all around her and went on at the age of ten to form a a band to play gigs in the surrounding area.

Scott Andrew is a performing songwriter and guitarist from Seattle WA. He began his music career playing in rock bands in Cleveland OH before moving to the Bay Area and finally to Seattle where he began a solo career. He was also an early participant in the Creative Commons “free culture” movement and continues to release music for free on his website.

Zack David sounds quite a bit like Brad Sucks, if Brad Sucks was an acoustic artist, that is. His music is rather simple but it’s still really good. He appears to be combining electronic musical styles into his acoustic music much like the way Brad Sucks combines some components of electronic music into his rock style music.

Don Ross is a Canadian fingerstyle guitarist noted for the emotion and intensity of his playing as well as his use of extended technique.

Download ogg / mp3

Stellar Vector is an Electro-Punk band out of St. Paul, Minnesota. Their influences include neo-progressive and post-punk artists like Marillion, IQ, Pallas, and The Psychedelic Furs, The Fall, Soft Cell, New Order, and The Cure.

What became Stellar Vector began as a solo synth-pop project called [space bar], designed by Charles Sadler of Little Tin Box. Charles Sadler met Jonathan Ford of Dissociate in 2002 while gigging together at the Fireball in St. Paul. The two began collaborating on various remix projects and dj gigs. Charles recruited Jonathan to play live keyboards for [space bar], however Jonathan quickly switched to playing guitar after the band also added guitarist Jamie Smith and drummer Don Carlson. David Miller of Fadladder/Avenpitch was originally slated to play bass keys, but circumstances made him bow early from the project.

Stellar Vector released its first EP entitled “You’re Not Included.” on October 16th, 2007. It is available for download at www.stellarvector.com.

In 2008, Charles and Jonathan reformed the live band to include the members of Tasha’s Laughter (KP on guitar, Dead on bass, Spazz on drums). The current lineup is currently gigging and developing material for the first full-length release titled “Flock of Cowards.”

This bio includes text taken from Stellar Vector’s Biography on Last.FM

Episode 1 – Stellar Vector