UK-based one-man-band Sieben has a new album out: As They Should Sound. Frontman Matt Howden builds songs with a loop pedal and a violin, which he uses for rhythm and melody. His sound is wonderfully sophisticated and cabalistic, with a particularly British sense of lyricism.

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As abstract as Paul Metzger’s hypnotic, thrumming improvisations are, they have recognizable influences from Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Japanese folk traditions with the Minneapolis-based musician seeming to summon an entire orchestra of ancient sounds and extinct instruments from his cymbal-rigged guitar and 24-string banjo, which he plucks, strums, bows, and taps.

Named after a 1965 track by jazz pianist Stan Tracey rather than the album by King Krimson, Starless and Bible Black draw heavily from prog and jazz to create their spaced-out, stargazing sound that feels like novocaine to the brain stem. The band evokes dark forests and calling loons with Moog, guitar, and wood-nymph vocals, yet nothing threatening lurks in their woods, just glassy-eyed gnomes sipping cocktails.

After blowing people’s minds at the Capital Hill Block Party, then surprising everyone at Bumbershoot, then hopping down to Portland for Musicfest NW, Black Whales have made quite a name for themselves in the past year. One listen to “Young Blood” from their brand new EP, Origins, should clue you in on how far this young band is set to go. The EP was released last month on Mt. Fuji Records. We checked in with Davey Brozowski from the band and asked him to tell us about the music that inspired it. He started with Modest Mouse’s Whale Song [listen below]: ‘”I knew I was a scout, I should have found my way out” are the only vocal lines in the song and they only take up a minute or so of time. The rest is a musical jam that builds and builds into an epic ending that’s littered with different layers of guitar hooks, noise and percussion. Live, it’s even better. And did I mention the bassline? It’s good, really good’. Read the rest of Black Whales’ Secret Playlist.

I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.

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The debut album from Danish duo, Syntaks, is called Ylajali and is a sublimely glitchy, melodically wavering, synth-driven piece of pure sonic bliss. But don’t take our word for it. Think Boards of Canada, think Solvent. Or don’t think at all. Just switch off and slowly drift away. We have it for free download via our Music Download section [psst, it's in the third column of the site]

Beijing’s thriving music scene has no shortage of good bands, but few are as unabashedly innocent and giddy as Carsick Cars. Inspired by the blazing post-punk of Swell Maps, the aloof experimentalism of 90s shoegaze bands, and occasionally the discordance of Glenn Branca, Carsick Cars are equally influenced by the bands around them — PK-14, Joyside, Gar – singing in Mandarin and transcending the derivative unoriginality that marked the Chinese rock scene just a few years ago. Catch them this month on their US tour with PK-14 and Xiao He.

Anna Ternheim is a singer-songwriter from Stockholm who has just released the album, Leaving On A Mayday. Her music has a dark touch about it which hints at influences from Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. We checked in with her and asked her about the music that inspired the recording. She started with the El Perro del Mar song, L-is for Love [listen below]: ‘I heard the song Dog a couple of years ago and was quite impressed. I love the production, the way it builds up and how the beat intensifies throughout the piece. At the same time, the song shows a great deal of restraint. It’s cold, hard, dark, and very beautiful’.

California-based drums-bass-piano trio Topaz Rags may or may not have tumbled out of a desert roadhouse, but their sound evokes the kind of gleefully sinister goings-on you might imagine beneath thrumming bug zappers and a flickering neon glow after the bartender has locked the front door and Bubba has donned his purple cloak.

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From the surreal opening to the feverish end, Fate Unfolds captivates with a tonal palette that is both broad and gripping. Indie kings of the southwest, Tristeza, have been at it for slightly over a decade. Their latest full-length delivers without a drop of disappointment. Fate Unfolds is drenched with the seemingly long lost art of crafting an album that plays as one solid piece. I could pick several ’singles’ that I hear on this record, but to do anything but drop the needle and park it does a huge disservice to the artistry and arrangement of this record as a whole. Herein are huge washes of guitars and synths, layered with drums dubbing back and forth from programmed to acoustic with ease and a backbeat that is anything but ‘indie rock’.

Instrumental bands get a bad rap. It’s mostly because of the Canadian melodramatics that ruined it for everybody in the late nineties. If I didn’t know this record was slated for a release in just a couple months, I don’t know that I could have accurately pinpointed a time period on the recording of these songs. While several production elements hint at a 70s dub feel, there is a mature tension, and raw rock element that is an emergent sound for Tristeza. It’s almost like certain elements invoke the image of Lee Perry slapping hi-fives to Steve Albini behind the mixing console.

Tristeza are also helping spearhead a trend that is integral to the survival and validity of independent music. There will be no US compact disc release of this album. Better Looking Records will distribute the digital format of Fate Unfolds, and Wildlife Vinyl will be pressing the vinyl.
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Depart From Me is the latest full-length album from underground/indie-rap legend Cage, aka Chris Palko. Cage is helped along in this task with production by El-P, F. Sean (Hatebreed), the late Camu Tao and Aesop Rock. We checked in with him to get the word on the music that inspired his latest recording, and he started with Deftones song, My Own Summer [listen below]: ‘This song reminds me of what it feels like to be on all my favorite drugs that I quit doing and the sadness that comes from failed romances that will never be again. I’m referring to the drugs, not the women’.

Analog electronics by British outfit Belbury Poly (Jim Jupp and Eric Zann) make me believe machines have souls and the ghosts of obsolete recording devices are haunting the dusty stacks of libraries debating the relevance of 60s avant-garde music and counterculture.

Cloud Control have just unravelled a newly recorded track, Gold Canary, from their forthcoming 2010 album. It’s straight up pastoral Blue Mountains goodness. I actually heard it live earlier this year and it sounded quite rad.

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Japanese DJs, 80kidz, have added their touch to Metric’s hit Help I’m Alive. Having already created remixes for CSS, Simian Mobile Disco, Phenomenal Handclap Band, and Dan Black, 80kidz have taken Metric’s original recording and added catchy synth loops and bouncy drums. We have it available for free download via our Music Download section [psst, it's in the third column of the site]. Read Metric’s Secret Playlist, where they write about their eight favourite songs right now.

This Athens, Georgia-based trio Hola Halo provides enough catchy hooks, swing, and swagger to melt the most expertly-designed of igloos. On their recording Time Out Here, vocalist and keyboardist Shauna Greeson and her bandmates re-work fuzzy, ’70s-inspired love music. But don’t think they can’t play their pop music, too.

Lindsay Buckingham, guitarist with iconic 70s superstars Fleetwood Mac, can take one note — one earsplittin’, foot tappin’, head shakin’ note — and make it sound like the greatest damn thing you’ve ever heard, as you’ll see on this epic cut from 1977.

Midnight Juggernauts are another awesome Australian band. There’s something amazing going on in the land of Oz, with Empire of the Sun, Pnau, and these guys. I really wish they were coming to London to brighten up my dark, mysterious winters. Come on boys, you know you wanna!

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With nothing more than a floor tom and a microphone, Wham City personality Ed Schrader pounds out the punkest noise I’ve seen in a while. All he does is shout repetitive, absurdist lyrics over tribal beats as he encourages the crowd to should along. It’s cathartic, entertaining, and primal. The Baltimore-based one-man act also hosts a monthly variety show.

Athens, Georgia art rockers Circulatory System have delivered an extraordinary 46-minute album sculpted from five years worth of accumulated sonic experimentation. Signal Morning ricochets across every raw nerve from the poppiest of impulses to the edge of ostensible sanity, without revealing a single cut corner or uninspired change.

To call Zombi a one trick pony would be unfair. They’re more like a one trick battle horse. They have a formula that works and they stick to it. The Pittsburgh duo channel original N.E.S, 80s horror films, and cinematic post-rock into a listening experience that kinda makes you wanna fight somebody. Their songs make me feel angsty in a way I wish more music did. Imagine writing a record with John Carpenter in the year 2012, then you are getting close to what’s really going on here.