I’m not even going to try to explain how amazing this band is. Just listen to “Boundaries” and “Sunlight” (here) and you’ll understand why I felt it necessary to post about them. If listening to those songs don’t do anything for you…then you probably have horrible taste in music, or you don’t have a soul, either way you lose.
Archive for the 'ILab' Category
16
Apr
ILab #5 - Kyte
France used to be a country that didn’t offer too much in terms of music that I actually enjoyed. They had a sudden influx of screamo bands that owned, like Amanda Woodward, Daitro, and Gantz. Then bands like Kwoon and All Angels Gone started popping up and I began to really take notice. The one band that really caught my attention, and solidified my new found love for the French Republic, was Don’t Look Back. In 2005 they put out an album called Brighter that was a beautiful achievement in music. The song “Farewell To The Bright Side” is just flat out awesome. It’s mixture of simplistic beauty and sheer brutality is eerie. There have been plenty of bands over the years that have achieved a similar sound, but how many of them had cool sounding French vocals? I eagerly await this bands next release. It’s guaranteed to be epic.
29
Dec
ILab #3 - Sennen
I’ve had my eye on Sennen for a few years, but they’ve been pretty sporadic with their releases since their inception in 2000. Hailing from the Netherlands, this band plays an awesome blend of post-rock music. There sound isn’t quite as strong as other bands in their genre, but when they are in their zone, they produce some amazing stuff. Their latest album, Automatic Writing, is available for free download. Track 2, “Arcus Glider” is one of my favorite songs of 2007. It seriously owns. If you want to preview the tracks, before downloading, check out their MySpace.
I know I just started this series yesterday, but like I promised, I’m going to post a new band every Friday, and today is Friday, so…
The Windy City has always been a hotbed for amazing music, and it has proved true once again with Arms and Sleepers. These guys mix a perfect blend of electronic and ambient sounds with just the right amount of vocal hints. “Butterflycatcher” literally threw me into a state of utter peace. That track is so awesome, yet so simplistic in its execution. Listen to that bad boy in the dark, with a nice pair of headphones, and tell me it doesn’t just mesmerize you.
20
Dec
ILab #1
As much as I love talking about .NET and general purpose programming, that can only score you so many cool points. So besides geek-talk, what other topic could I go on about all day long? Music! So, I’ve decided to start a new feature called the International List of Awesome Bands (or ILab for short. Note the geek reference). Every Friday I will post a new band to the list and have a brief discussion about them. For the inaugural post, I put together a list of 50 bands from around the world that I love, making sure to cover the countries I get visitors from the most (everyone gets represented!) This isn’t meant to list the top bands of the year, or top bands ever, it’s just random bands that I appreciate. There are a lot of great bands missing from the list. Chances are if you can recognize a band missing from the list, I won’t be adding it. ILab’s primary purpose is to enumerate little-known bands that I’ve known over the years or worked with in one fashion or another, or just discovered out of the blue.
The ILab directory can always be found on the right navigation list for reference purposes. All new bands will be posted to that page.
If you have some cool international bands you think are great, let me know, and I’ll feature them in my weekly post. The only rules are they have to be good (obviously) and they have to be either unsigned or on an independent record label. If they’re really awesome I’ll even add them to ILab 
joncart at microsoft dot com
