If you could recommend ONE lesser-known artist, it would be...
Submitted by lukeprog on Wed, 01/12/2005 - 08:58
Tags:
- Amon Tobin [jazz, electronica]
- Saxon Shore [indie, experimental]
- The Be Good Tanyas [folk, bluegrass]
- X-Ray Spex [British punk]
- Robbie Fulks [alternative country]
- Joanna Newsom [freak folk]
- Keb' Mo' [contemporary blues]
- MF Doom [hip-hop]
Author Comments:
Just comment with your recommendation, and at least a description of the genre(s) they play, and I'll add the musical artist to the list.
Amon Tobin, no doubt about it. Good Lord, this is brilliant stuff. As jazz, it's WAY WAY WAY up there with the greats - indeed, my favorite jazz ever written. As electronica and break-beats, it's just as interesting.
What's stunning is that such realistic-sounding instruments could be made purely with some cheap electronic equipment. It's a great day for music in general when that's possible, and I see Amon Tobin leading the way.
Start with (click for reviews) Bricolage and Permutation.
For similar music, try Xploding Plastix - Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents.
Saxon Shore [indie, experimental] - an amazing instrumental group I heard on my college radio station and fell in love with. They're not experimental in the way that when you think of that type of music you cringe a little. Experimental would be more of a sub-genre but still prevalent through all their songs. Absolutely melodic tunes that I live better by listening to.
Excellent. I'm totally checking these guys out. The Amazon samples sound fantastic.
2 downloadable songs
their blog
If you go to their webpage, they have a few downloads as well - Saxon Shore.
It would be X-Ray Spex and or The Slits and or June Tabor and or Astor Piazolla.
:?)
Excellent. I'll probably look into all of them, but which ONE should I add to the list above?
I'll go with X-Ray Spex because everything they recorded rocked hard (admittedly only 2 albums and a handful of singles). Poly Styrene is a queen, dude!
:?)
The Be Good Tanyas are a great band out of Vancouver. They play what I would call a bluegrassy folk style. I like their first album better then the second but both are very good.
I love the Be Goods, right on Spoky!
:?)
Look, I already get "spoky" and "stooky" confused, and this doesn't help.
:-)
lol! ;?)
I'll throw my hat in the ring with Robbie Fulks. Robbie is a country artist, though in an entirely different league altogether from anybody you'd hear on country radio these days. He has the sound of country music down, and he writes in a highly literate yet darkly humorous style. In short, he sounds like the offspring of Lefty Frizzell and Elvis Costello.
And he's here.
Great! Thanks!
I would recommend Joanna Newsom (though she is relatively famous). She is a member (along with Animal Collective and Devendra Banhart, among others) of the recent freak folk movement. She has one of the oddest voices working today, but her music is absolutely gorgeous.
Now that I know more about them, I think Joanna Newsom and Nick Lowe are both too well known for this list. Can you pick an artist that is even lesser-known than them? :-)
Sorry to be so picky!
Oh! I would also recommend Nick Lowe's solo work if you haven't heard it. It's 70's pub rock, along the lines of Elvis Costello. In fact, both Lowe and Costello were major attractions (no pun intended) of the Stiff Record label, which was the first independent record label in England. Lowe also penned "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", which was a hit for Costello.
Nick Lowe is God.
Did he write 'I Knew the Bride', or did he just cover it?
He wrote it for his then pal Dave Edmunds and ended up recording the song his own self.
Keb 'Mo - (new blues, nice clean sound) You can't miss with his first four albums.
thanks! It's amazing how we, collectively, have so quickly covered almost every major genre!
To finish it off, I recommend MF Doom, who is a great underground hip-hop artist.
Thanks!
But, we haven't quite 'finished it off.' Megaenres like classical and metal are still unrepresented. I never intended to cover all genres anyway, it just started moving with surprising speed in that direction!
He's from Madvillain as well, he may be the new Kool Keith just not as weird and disappointing.
:?)
It's not jazz but if you are still manic about Amon Tobin he gets the full Bazooka Joe treatment.
Cordelia's Dad [shape-note, punk, trad]