what the what?
So I’m interested in how people find out about, well I was going to say ‘new’ but I really mean ‘new to them’ rather than ‘cutting edge crucial wicked nosebleed avant sound of the future’ music. Easiest thing to do is ask: how do I?
Now I’m a subscriber to emusic, erm, of quite longstanding… Feb 2006. They send me emails which I delete straightaway. Oh well. Here’s one: ‘This month’s best new music’. Should be hot stuff, eh readers?
Well, sort of. But the curious thing is, I’ve already heard of most of this - at a first take on it, most likely because I follow the same trends their tastemaker/gatekeeper crew does.
So what do they hype:
St Vincent - Actor. Nope, no idea, but I’ve seen this album artwork places (at a guess pitchfork, emusic itself) and it looks awful so I’ve deliberately ignored it.
Isis - Wavering Radiant. Yup, this is a band I got into in true old school fashion - a pal recommended them, I listened and bought (horror!) actual CDs by them. Well, one. And downloaded some. So, downloaded this a few weeks ago.
Nomo - Invisible Cities. Now I recognise this but largely because this emusic thing is a round-up and I saw it plugged on their blog 17 dots a couple of weeks ago. Listened to the samples on emusic and thought it didn’t sound my thing.
Akron/Family - whatever the title is. Seen this written up in a few places, and actually it sounds quite interesting so I probably will download it from emusic later in the month.
And of their quickies: New Ruins - no idea; Andrew Russo - ditto; Company Flow - a reissue by a band I was actually looking for in one of the few remaining record stores in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, downloaded from emusic when I ran a search there, and is now being reviewed as a reissue all over; Nigeria Rock Special blah blah I actually bought one of the CDs in this set last year because it was reviewed in the dead tree media.
So scores on the boards: emusic solidly hitting with the blog rock style, but then I suppose I think its blog rock because I read about it on emusic. Still seems pretty narrow, and nothing that wouldn’t have got props on ilx in ‘02. In which case, at least I’m not the only one stuck in a rut…
