Twisted Oak Groove

Laurie Hogin - Benjamin's Macaque (2005)

PJ Harvey - Grow Grow Grow: White Chalk's disengaged mood is the perfect costume for Halloween. This song is backed in scraps of felt, duct-taped to your torso, and squirted with ketchup. It is the howling and encircling of the crisp evening. It is the closed black shudders leaving gaping cracks for mystery. It's the human body with a disproportionately sized head. It's a toy piano echoing in a large empty hall. It's the ornate alone.

--late addition--

No Kids - For Halloween: This is more literal. It is about Halloween, not of it. It is more the improvised dance at the after-party.

MadPop Preview: Bon Iver

Paul Shambroom - Dassel City Council, Dassel, Minnesota (population 1,134),
(L to R): Nancy Nichalson, Ava Flachmeyer (Mayor), Jan Casey, Sherlyn Bjork (Deputy Clerk) [1999]

Bon Iver - Skinny Love (mp3): Northern Wisconsin this time of year is stale like its leaves; fields stripped bare and peppered only with still potential energy bundled in orange jumpsuits. But under the cold winds of dying, carcases nourish the hidden movements of hibernators like Justin Vernon - whose upcoming album "For Emma, Forever Ago" is beefing up for its 2008 release. It's passionate like telling untold stories after a can of beer, passionate like tinkering with greasy projects in the garage.

*See Bon Iver live at Madison PopFest's Muzzle of Bees Showcase (November 10th)

Hush Hush

Scott David Johnson - Public 19 (2006)

Angel Deradoorian - Grey Teeth (mp3): She wears flannel and streaks of oxidized copper around her neck. And she knows exactly where to get the best cup of decaf tea, but never goes there anymore. She once owned a snake that disappeared while she was visiting her mother in Missoula. It comes back every once and a while to tell stories of rainswept trees in her dreams. She often opens her mouth to speak and doesn't. She sleeps best to this lullaby.

Berlin Walls

John Coplans - Self-Portrait: Feet Frontal (1984)

The Antlers - East River Berlin Wall (mp3): Spoken like a regretted misstep, this struggles silently through graceful forests and covers its tracks in fresh dirt. It walks an entire path this way, in divots and corrections. The resulting sinuous residue sustains with a vocal harmony until jealous worms surface to break it down at nature's pace. The rest of The Antler's latest "Cold War EP" can be download for free here.

Microwaves Are Magic

Robert Roscoe - Posterwall on Ludlow Avenue: #1 (2007)

Matthew Dear - But For You (mp3): Once I dreamed of a magical box with a hinged door and a personality of a mute Rosie from The Jetsons. A box that would respond to touches of my index finger by shooting invisible waves of various frequencies at any molecules placed inside. When I woke up, I realized that it was just a microwave. And I awoke with a new appreciation.

Critics Dismiss My Work as Naïve Terrorism

Kyle Trowbridge - Untitled [Critics dismiss my work as naïve terrorism] (2006)

Over the Rhine - The Trumpet Child (mp3): Lindford Detwiler and Karin Bergquist achieve innovation through retrospection in this fresh jazzy take on Over the Rhine. It barrels bold as if propelled by cranks of rusty machinery and swells like its a bit tipsy on something elegantly destructive. The emotive strength of the female vocal is just incredible enough to carry confidence through questionably smooth saxophone interlude. [buy]

Samson Young

"My Sparkling Wonderland"
Animation by video artist Shirley Kong
Composition by Samson Young

Young Samson Young composes new metallic bindings for shelved classics. His commitment to new media art (as founder of Emergency Lab) puts his impressive composition skills in a context that transcends his counterparts. Though sometimes the music melts so softly that one doesn't even notice his 8-bit inspirations.

Samson Young - Ageha Yokyo (live mp3)

Samson Young - Roxy. New York (live mp3)

Plenty of Water For Mud

Ellen Semen - Madame Vomir (2006)

Have you ever dribbled purple Kool-Aid down the front of your white shirt and worn the design proudly for the rest of the day instead of changing? And then put the shirt back on for a second day, and maybe introduced it into your cycle of favourite shirts? Well Quinn Walker certainly has. It's with a similar uninhibited confidence that his eccentricity is exuberantly molded here into small pieces of music for your downloading pleasure.

Quinn Walker - Plenty of Water For Mud (mp3)

Quinn Walker - Baby Neon (mp3)

Troublemaker

Brian Reedy - Beneath the Factory (2006)

Baby Teeth - The Simp (mp3): Anthems by Chicago band Baby Teeth are the type that allure recklessly with their perpetually dirty knees, but always manage to get you into trouble and walk away clean. Abe Levitan's full-bodied vibrato could reassure the presence of a party in an empty room. And only when you're flailing like a pasta-stuffed goose, do you remember you're dancing alone. The passion blasting through my headphones today at work knocked the chord right out of its jack and unleashed an aggressive chorus of "NA NA NA NA" on my silently disapproving coworkers. Abe didn't even seem to notice.

This Will Rock You

Andreas Leikauf - Be Trivial (2006)

Girl Talk - Let's Run This (mp3): Familiar samples construct this old Girl Talk track from an Austrailian compilation called Ministry of Shit. Hopefully it'll help ease the heavy anticipation of Greg's upcoming follow-up to "Night Ripper". It's a Saturday night song you accidentally play on your iPod while wiping greasy chip residue on your jeans. And the crowd rejoices. You can acquire the new album plus three other Illegal Art releases (sample here) by Realistic, Oh Astro, and Stenski as a package for only $39.

How Do You Enjoy Life In My Mind?

Chad Person - Sluggo (2007)

This song teeters calmly delusional on the edge of a schism. It's a place only comfortable for closet sadists, whose repressed desire to control others has silently become masochistic. The ones willing to kidnap and imprison loved ones to the confines of their mind, without kidnapping anything but their own sense of reality. Like hiding racism in politeness, this wanting of someone to never leave, however hidden, ironically will never leave the mind. And in our neural marionette storylines, that someone doesn't ever have to leave. It's certainly more socially acceptable than keeping people in cages.

Adel Bengo - Keep You Here (mp3)

Voice Travels

Anastasia Khoroshilova - Russkie #89 (2007)

Beirut - In The Mausoleum (mp3): It's impossible to watch this take away show and not take away an appreciation for Zach Condon's vocal ability. Visionary songwriter? Absolutely. Incredible Singer? Not always clear. But when he walks his voice boldly down a French street, it flourishes in the familiarity of the freshly antique air and stretches to the point of cracking with curious ambition.

Indie Folk to ROCK the Gates of Heaven

Join us for a JustSayin Showcase this Thursday from 5-9PM at the "Gates of Heaven" Synagogue in James Madison Park. It's a unique event in a unique space - come check it out and discover some new music.

7:30PM Geneviève Castrée [Quebec]
WHIMSICAL FOLK DREAMS
MP3: Raffinere

6:45 Wilhelmina Baker [Madison]
AVANT OPERA MYSTERY
MP3: Lasciatemi Morire

6:00 Vid Libert [Madison]
EMERGING SOLO TALENT
MP3: No One Knows

5:30 The Nonsense Company [Madison]
EXPERIMENTAL THEATER
MP3: Great Hymn of Thanksgiving

West Indian Girls

Daniele Buetti - Why Should I Be Somebody Hope (2006)

West Indian Girl - To Die in LA (mp3): This piece of pop is dedicated to everyone living bold, eating living things without sauce, and living in LA. It smells like a new vinyl bag purchased off the street and swung with excitement.

Chasing Alternative Rainbows

Leo Villareal - Chasing Rainbows [7] (2004)

Radiohead's new album In Rainbows will be available via digital download on October 10th. Let's hope the music is as revolutionary as the release's price points. For the masses, you can download it for free. For the fans, you can choose to pay whatever you can. For the competitive hipsters, the amount you pay determines how big a fan you are. And for the fanatics, you can purchase a discbox which includes a CD and 2xLP vinyl plus a bonus CD with artwork and even more music. Let the bidding begin.

Radiohead - Arpeggi (live mp3): This electronic version of Arpeggi elevates Moby's transcendental landscape by introducing the wandering human character of Thom's vocal into the expanse. What's beautiful stimuli without a sympathetic character in the experience to love and hope for?

An impressive track by track preview is available here.

How much is it worth to you?