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Bahamas / Show Me Naomi
ANDREW: Bahamas came out with a great new album entitled Earthtones. This is getting heavy play in the Bagge household. Bahamas have long been an underdog that I think should get the respect they deserve. The song Opening Act talks about how they are always second best and missing praise for their albums (is my music not good enough?!). Well not anymore! The song Show Me Naomi is a great song – the backup singing in this song and throughout the album is fantastic. A great live acoustic version of the album is here:
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Bahamas is Canadian musician Afie Jurvanen (born April 28, 1981, in Toronto). Jurvanen isn’t from the Bahamas; he’s a Finnish-Canadian raised in Barrie (a working class town in rural Ontario). Since 2009 he’s been making music under the name Bahamas--writing songs about sunsets, love affairs, and making out with crooked smiles. Through simple arrangements, he charts an escape route from the snow belt to the coral reefs. His album, Barchords, was released in 2012 to critical praise: Read more on Last.fm more...
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Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore / In Cedars
ANDY: This feels ethereal yet tethered which allowed me to think lofty thoughts about life and God and art and still worry about global warming.
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Meg Baird is an American musician originally from New Jersey and currently based in San Francisco, California after having established her musical career in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wikipedia Meg Baird is a contributing member of the psychedelic neo-folk band Espers, as well as a solo artist and one half of the acoustic folk act The Baird Sisters. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Sudan Archives / Nont For Sale
JOE: One of a handful of misfit tracks in the regular rotation, this one always commanded a little more attention. She’s got everything working from the name, no-nonsense lyrics, ultra-cool delivery, and that ‘fro. Sudan named her album ‘Sink’ because that’s the way she wants her music to make us feel as well as being inspired by her love of “fluidity, movement of jellyfish and water”. Burn one down and I bet you’ll 100% agree.
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Brittney Denise Parks, better known as Sudan Archives, is a California-based violinist and vocalist, who writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from the Sudanese fiddle, she is self-taught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in elements of R&B, and experimental electronic music. Parks grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, US, where she "messed around with instruments in the house" and took up violin in the fourth grade, eventually teaching herself how to play the instrument by ear. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Wild Child / Sinking Ship
KRISTIN: My best friend unexpectedly lost her mother this year. We recently met up on the beach in South Carolina, and she has been learning how to play and this song. It has been stuck in my head/heart since. I think it'll always be inextricably linked to that week, so it feels like walking by the ocean to me, and like loss, and life, and friendship.
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There are 4 active bands using the name Wild Child. 1. A six-piece indie folk band from Austin, TX. Members are: primary singers/songwriters Kelsey Wilson and Alexander Beggins, drummer Carey McGraw, cellist Sadie Wolfe, keyboardist Evan Magers and bassist Chris D'Annunzio They are managed by Pat Cassidy. Their first album, the 15-track Pillow Talk, was released on October 25, 2011 with help from San Francisco producers Evan Magers and Alex Peterson, and mastered by Erik Wofford). Read more on Last.fm more...
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Leikeli47 / Mulita
BRYN: I got all my favorite new music from the Insecure soundtracks this year. Love that show and love the musical selections from it. This tune is a totally fun hype song for me and I would always play it on the rare and wonderful occasions where I was driving around by myself. In a year when my second child was born, solo time with loud bass and cursing really had a special charm to it. :)
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Leikeli47 is a female rapper from Brooklyn, New York City, USA. Little is known about her - she has not revealed her face, birth date or name. Her genre is best described as noise rap or underground rap. She has been compared to M.I.A. and Missy Elliott. Read more on Last.fm more...
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boygenius / Me & My Dog
JOHN: Love this power trio’s EP. It starts with a jangly electric/acoustic guitar rising in volume. In this song Phoebe Bridgers sings plaintively about being so in love that she can’t eat or sleep. The song evolves into a trio of vocal ecstasy - Julien Baker on top and Lucy Dacus underneath. A powerful tune with a unique song structure and beautiful heart-wrenching lyrics. “Want to be emaciated - want to hear one song without thinking of you.” Ends in a swirl…..
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American indie singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus formed themselves a band under the name Boygenius. Their first EP, the eponymous Boygenius, was released in November 2018. “When we met, Lucy and Phoebe and I were in similar places in our lives and our musical endeavours, but also had similar attitudes toward music that engendered an immediate affinity”, says Baker. “Lucy and Phoebe are incredibly gifted performers Read more on Last.fm more...
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Andrew Bird / Bloodless
LINDSAY: Political, smooth and complex. Excellent video too. Love the length and the verse: "Well, the best lack all conviction And the worst keep Sharpening their claws They're peddling in their dark fictions While what's left of us, well, we just hem and we haw."
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Andrew Bird (born July 11, 1973) is an American musician. He was born in Lake Bluff, Illinois and resides in the Chicago area. Bird is a singer, a violinist and, since 2004, a guitarist. He is also an accomplished whistler. His early work, which echoed gypsy jazz and traditional folk, has led into his current sound, which mixes rock with more broad compositions. His years of solo song-craft have now enabled him to produce a sound that is uniquely his own. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Tep No / Toluca Lake (Imad Remix)
SAUNDERS: Something about this song just transports me. I ate an edible and can't think of more to write lol
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Rubblebucket / Annihilation Song
NOAH: Man, I love this song. The snare hits on the beat. The chorus is a beauty. The Yeaehyahyeahayehah refrain. Floating sax throughout, then the heavy baritone sax coda, just ticks all the boxes for me. A story of redemption and a new start. I saw these guys in Cleveland a couple years ago and they put on a hell of a show.
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Rubblebucket was formed after Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth met while attending The University of Vermont. Following graduation, the two were joined by Adam Dotson (trombone, euphonium, vocals), David Cole (drums) and Ian Hersey (electric guitar) and released their self-titled debut in 2009. The group’s second full-length, Omega La La, was produced and mixed by Eric Broucek (Hercules and Love Affair, Classixx, Holy Ghost) and its single “Came Out of A Lady” was chosen as one of the Top 50 Songs of 2011 by Paste. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Khruangbin / August 10
ANDREW: Khruangbin (pronounced krung-bin) came out with a great second album in 2018 entitled Con Todo El Mundo. The song August 10 is actually an experiment where they took their song August 12 from their debut album and learned to play it backwards. I thought it was a great way to form a cohesive bond between the two albums. The record also has a secret song that you have to raise the needle and place to hear. They have a great live performance below. I have heard that they have since added a slide guitarist to the band.
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Khruangbin is an American musical trio from Houston, Texas. They are Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald Ray "DJ" Johnson Jr. on drums. Taking influence from 1960's Thai funk - their name literally translates to "Engine Fly" in Thai - Khruangbin is steeped in the bass heavy, psychedelic sound of their inspiration, Tarantino soundtracks and surf rock. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Low / Dancing and Fire
ANDY: It was difficult to pick one song from the new Low album, "Double Negative." It's a complete work, and the flow between songs and the sustained mood is so important to experiencing it. It's a zeitgeisty record - the crackle of digital interference gets in the way; voices cut in and out; spaces sound empty, lonely, hollow. It's a beautiful, hopeless record for strange, terrible times.
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Low is a slowcore band formed in Duluth, Minnesota, United States in 1993, by Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals), Mimi Parker (drums and vocals) and original bassist John Nichols (bass guitar). Zak Sally replaced Nichols after Low's first album and tour. In 2005, Sally quit the band; Matt Livingston replaced him shortly thereafter. In 2008 Steve Garrington took over on bass creating the current lineup of Sparhawk, Parker and Garrington. Their music is commonly described as "slowcore Read more on Last.fm more...
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Alex the Astronaut / Happy Song
JOE: The aussies were a force in 2018 – there’s at least three other tracks I was seriously considering for this best of. This one’s infectious, carefree and how I want to bring in the New Year. Here’s to a Happy 2019!
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Alex the Astronaut is Australian folktronica singer-songwriter Alex Lynn. Alex has been described as one of "Australia's most powerful and important songwriters". She released her first two EPs in 2017 - the first: To Whom It May Concern which features the single [single artist=Alex the Astronaut album=To Whom It May Concern]Already Home[/single] and was described by Huffington post as "a melancholy number about a bus ride and ruminations on the mundanities of life" and includes the line "there's billionaires for president Read more on Last.fm more...
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First Aid Kit / It's A Shame
KRISTIN: I was trying to be unpredictable with my submission, but I've had this entire album on repeat for a month now, so I had to be true to my "Best Of". I had a hard time choosing a song, but this kind of feels like a New Year "leave the past behind" vibe, so this made it in. I highly recommend the whole Ruins album though.
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There are three bands called First Aid Kit: 1. Swedish indie/folk duo which consists of sisters Johanna (b. 31 October 1990) and Klara Söderberg (b. 8 January 1993) both from Enskede, Sweden. The sisters began composing songs in 2007, taking their name at random from an English dictionary. They began uploading their music to their My Space page and sending their songs to Swedish radio station, this led to live performances and offers from Record Companies. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Radiant Children / Life's A Bitch
BRYN: Another gem from listening to tracks from the show Insecure. Love the sunny, pretty chords and melody of this one with the salty, practical outlook.
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Wye Oak / It Was Not Natural
JOHN: There is a regal stature to this song that I love - the steady pound of the piano, the almost Gallic melody, and the timing - an intriguing 4-2-4-4 beat (try counting it) all the way through that creates a quizzical vibe…..interrupted in the bridge and at the end by a disruptive beat that settles back down into the steady rhythm of the main structure. One of those songs that pick up my ears every time it comes on.
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Wye Oak (née Monarch) is a duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, formed in mid-2006. Wasner and Stack have been playing music together and apart in Baltimore, MD, and chose their name from the honorary state tree of Maryland. If Children is the culmination of many months of recording, polishing and perfecting to achieve what Any Given Tuesday best described as, “. .. . mingling in a room full of shoegaze, alt-country, folk, and noise, shaking hands, kissing cheeks, and making friends with everyone. Read more on Last.fm more...
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SHAED / Trampoline
LINDSAY: They captured a sense of buoyancy in the music that references the concept of the song. Watched them on Tiny Desk doing the stripped down version of this and the singer along with keyboardist brothers discuss the inspiration of this song being a moment when they were hanging out, watching old videos of the boys from their childhood playing on the trampoline. The original video of this is all clips of them as kids. Tiny Desk/Paste Studios stripped down version:
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Shaed is an electro-pop trio based in Washington, D.C. The group consists of lead vocalist Chelsea Lee and multi-instrumentalists Max and Spencer Ernst Read more on Last.fm more...
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The California Honeydrops / In My Baby's Arms
SAUNDERS: Love this groove. If Andrew Bird went to Hawaii...
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The California Honeydrops is an American blues and R&B band, formed in November 2007 playing in the subway stations of Oakland, CA. Digging deep into the roots of American music, the band members embrace the traditions of Blues, Gospel, Second Line New Orleans Jazz, and early R&B. With stellar performances of traditional material as well as their own innovative music, The California Honeydrops get people out of their seats and onto the floor, dancing and singing along. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Madeline Kenney / Cut Me Off
NOAH: The two guitar riffs in this tune are just lodged in my head. Beautifully “off” and unexpected, but it works. I love the end when she realizes “I got a good thing going now”
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Madeline Kenney is an Oakland-dwelling Seattle transplant, whose background in bakeries and neuroscience somehow add up to the production of twang-hazey dream pop. It's like if Loretta Lynn had a secret shoegaze project and an obsession with a looper pedal. Read more on Last.fm more...
2018 Best of the Rest
104 / January 2019 / BurnMix
- It Was Not NaturalWye Oak
- August 10Khruangbin
- Show Me NaomiBahamas
- Me & My Dogboygenius
- In My Baby's ArmsThe California Honeydrops
- Life's A BitchRadiant Children
- Cut Me OffMadeline Kenney
- TrampolineSHAED
- Nont For SaleSudan Archives
- BloodlessAndrew Bird
- Dancing and FireLow
- Annihilation SongRubblebucket
- It's A ShameFirst Aid Kit
- Sinking ShipWild Child
- Toluca Lake (Imad Remix)Tep No
- Happy SongAlex the Astronaut
- In CedarsMeg Baird and Mary Lattimore
- MulitaLeikeli47
