Hair Band

Braids is another band that I find pretty hard to describe. Their music has been categorized as experimental shoe-gazer. Okay, that’s a pretty fair assessment of their sound. It’s dreamy and has a nice rhythm to it. It also has incredible production values to it. Great layers of sounds and very complex, smart, intelligent music. And the vocalist has a distinctive, crisp, voice. Nice and emotive. And I liked them so much, I actually bought their cd!

New Ages

The band Agesandages is made up of a collective of multi-instrumentalists and is lead by Tim Perry. The band hails from Portland, Oregon and features excellent, cheery vocals and a psychedelic, folky sound. Their first release, Alright You Restless, came out in early 2011 and I highly recommend it. Every tune on it is a gem.

The Wise Old Sage

Okay, this is a radical departure for me. Sage Francis is a hip-hop artist who I first heard on “The Signal”, the best radio show ever. It’s on CBC and is streamed, for anyone who’s interested. Anyway, Rich Terfry had a brief segment on what he called “pretty hip-hop”. Yes, you heard me right. I’m not a fan of hip-hop or rap. But I immediately glommed on to this guy. I really like this guy and if you want to learn more about him, check his bio on allmusic.com. It’s way too long and I’m way too lazy to condense it for you.

Pure Brilliance

Puro Instinct is two sisters, the teen-age Skylar the guitarist and her older sister Piper on vocals, along with assorted other musicians. They remind me a little bit of the 60s girl bands but with a more modern sound to them. Puro Instinct released a couple of vinyl records on their own and finally, in 2011, a cd titled “Headbangers In Ecstasy”. Their music is dreamy and innocent with fresh, wispy vocals. I haven’t heard anything as refreshing as this group in a long time. My only hope is that a producer-type doesn’t get a hold of the group and try to market them. He’ll surely try to make them “sexy” and over produce them—and totally ruin the group. Listen to them while they’re still fresh and wonderful!

Through the Looking Glass

Before I tell you about Glasser, I’d just like to answer a question a lot of people ask me—“How do you find these groups?” Well, I do a lot of digging from a lot of resources. In this case, I went through the entire lineup of all the groups playing Coachella that I’ve never heard of. Then, I listened to samples of their music on youtube. Tedious? You bet. Worth it? Of course. That’s why my motto is: I listen to a lot of crap, so you don’t have to.

Back to Glasser. It’s the musical project of Cameron Mesirow. Her Dad is a member of the Blue Man Group which features some incredible music of their own. She says she grew up listened to Motown, new wave, punk, grunge, and ska. Her music features beautiful, almost Bjork-like vocals and sparce electronica backing her up. She’s recently toured with xx and Jonsi (from Sigur Ros), and her debut album Ring was released in 2010.

The Other Pogo

This isn’t about the much beloved classic cartoon strip by Walt Kelly but about the audio-visual artist. He currently lives in Perth, Western Australia and his real name is Nick Bertke. There isn’t much about him in the way of a bio on the net, except for the tidbit that he worked briefly at Disney. His work is very intriguing. Pogo takes bits of film and scenes from tv shows and does a painstaking job editing them. Then he sets them to music, which is a mix of original compositions and samples. It must take him weeks to edit a two or three minute video. The results are pure genius. If you enjoy them, do a search on youtube—Pogo’s volume of work is enormous. (Warning, his take on "Dexter" is a bit bloody.)

Toro! Toro! Toro!

Chaz Bundick of Columbia, SC is the alter ego of the group known as Toro y Moi. It’s a chillwave group that that has a dreamy, dancy sound. Chaz recorded a couple albums worth of music back in 2001, but it wasn’t until 2010 that he released his first cd. He sounds a like a cross between Beach House and Panda Bear. I’ve only included studio recordings of Toro because the sound quality on his live recordings is awful.