In “Ljósið”, Ólafur Arnalds takes classical music in a new direction, giving the song visual treatment – color that swirls like smoke. It moves in a representation between volume and composition. Part of Arnald’s Found Songs collection, in which the composer wrote and recorded one song per day for seven days, “Ljósið” is borderline transcendental; it has the capability to lift you up to a new plane of existence while soothing the mind and body. Arnalds has proved here that he is at the forefront of becoming one of the greatest modern composers, and his willingness to think outside the box with videos like that of “Ljósið” makes him more than worthy of the title.

Found Songs is now available in physical form, both CD and 10″ EP, as well as its original digital state. You can get your copy from Erased Tapes.

Ólafur Arnalds: Ljósið [mp3]

Ólafur Arnalds – Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

In the new age of digital downloading and iTunes supremacy, many artists are turning to giving tracks away as a way to get their name out and about. Maybe it’s effort to get you to come out to your local pub, farmer’s market, or Tully’s to watch them give you the magic live and in person. Vancouver B.C.’s Bend Sinister has graciously joined the hopefuls by giving away 10 free tracks as downloads on their website. And by now we should know that just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it lacks quality.

Bend Sinister wants, and deserves, a following. Their “go funk yourself” rock-n-roll style is very impressive. They are a perfect band for fans of real socially unacceptable rock with a twist of gentleness from the soft heart embedded in all of us. In the spirit of Benjamin Bear, piano drenched and wholesome sounds can be yours with a few clicks of a mouse and a mailing list.

Amongst the 10 free tracks you will receive 9 rightfully chosen cuts from all 3 Bend Sinister albums available. And the extra cut is a stunning cover of The Beatles’ “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”. These guys have made a good move here. Simply because 10 tracks is just not enough. You will undoubtedly click your happy ass to the house that Steve Jobs built and get some more Bend’s tracks. Well played sirs. Well played.

Download your 10 free tracks at their website.

Bend Sinister: Happiness Is A Warm Gun [mp3]

Bend Sinister: 4 Jimmy Brown [mp3]

Opening track “Pärgäjiens” off Tramplini’s new LP, Tumba Rumba sees the Latvian band combining the indie pop of their origins while channeling a sound somewhere along the lines of Sigur Rós minus the vast orchestration. It’s a sound that suits them well; their Latvian tongue is romantic and soft, and when backed by delicate percussion and faint synths everything just comes together. As found occasionally throughout Tumba Rumba, Tramplini features a brief trumpet as the song concludes, even going so far as to finish it with a mute. “Pärgäjiens” is an excellent track, worthy of praise from one of Latvia’s best pop bands.

Tumba Rumba is out now on Series Two Records.

Tramplini: Pärgäjiens [mp3]

Three songs totaling three-quarter hours. That’s a scenario you’d expect from masterful instrumental acts like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or early electronic geniuses like Klaus Schulze. In a way, on Aerial Roots CJ Boyd channels both artists. He has the instrumental aspects of the former and the minimalist drone of the later. “Everytime I Don The Ski Mask” mixes various loops and, for the most part, maintains a delicate balance between complex minimalism and meditative consistency. Aerial Roots is an expansive aural state of being on par with the metaphysical experience.

What makes Boyd’s music intriguing is his seemingly sole use of acoustics. There are loops, and ethereal electronic drones, but the melody is carried by what sounds like an acoustic bass, an acoustic guitar, and occasional percussion. There are moments of paroxysms in which sound build to explosive heights, but for the most part Boyd maintains the calm, reigns it in, and, in a way, tames it. Instrumental, Aerial Roots is a beast ready to pounce but it never quite does. Boyd has pieced together a sound that yearns for more but, as much as it wants to, never quite gives in to temptation.

CJ Boyd: We Know Time (Excerpt) [mp3]

Joyful Noise Recordings [CD, 2009]

1. Everytime I Don The Ski Mask
2. Pensive Pez
3. We Know Time

Upon learning of the new Bakers At Dawn album and covering the band’s new video, another discovery was made. That of Cory Landels, the director of said video and mastermind behind this video for Mount Eerie’s “Between Two Mysteries”, one of my favorite tracks of 2009. Comparing the two, both have the same look and feel. But where “Mesmophone” was pleasant and, in a way, calm; “Between Two Mysteries” has an obvious eerie nature to it. Yet there’s something romantic about the video; as if it was one of James and Laura’s videos made before she was murdered in Twin Peaks. “Between Two Mysteries”, of course, is a song that echos with Lynch’s greatest work.

“Between Two Mysteries” is off Mount Eerie’s Wind’s Poem, out now on P.W. Elverum & Sun.

Between Two Mysteries. from Cory Landels on Vimeo.

Thanks to a recent post by Swedesplease, the premier US blog focused entirely on Swedish artists, I’ve discovered a new netlabel. The label: Peppermill Records. The post covers Bakers At Dawn, a Swedish artist that in the past year or so has released a few items on a FensePost favorite, Series II Records. Their latest finds the band diving headlong into a more experimental sound than the folk-pop on the Series II releases.

“Mesmophone” finds Bakers At Dawn diving headlong into a more experimental sound than the folk-pop in their earlier stuff. It’s a path that they follow throughout You Must Hide Your Love Forever. The change has, in my opinion, allowed the band to stand out with a sound they can truly call their own. You Must Hide Your Love Forever is available for free download from the Peppermill Records site.

Bakers At Dawn: Mesmophone [mp3]

Bakers At Dawn: Love [mp3]

Bakers at Dawn: Mesmophone from Cory Landels on Vimeo.

Universal Indians was an album that bathed in obscurity. After all, opening track “Freedom Ritual” was a blissful track in which Dark Meat flirted with psychedelic trips and prog afterthoughts. It opened with a near two minute a capella before the epic guitars suddenly burst forth to rip off your face. It also had its painful moments, when over-the-top experimentation left little but a gut-wrenching noise. Truce Opium picks up right where Universal Indians left off, but in a way much stronger.

Truce Opium for example opens strong, continues strong, and even during more experimental free jazz tracks like “Flaps” has the ability to w.o.w. I mean, just listen to that opening sax solo and tell me that doesn’t rock. Do that and I’ll think you’re f*ing lame and incompetent when it comes to knowing greatness when you hear it. Seriously. “Flaps” goes from there into a blend of jazz and psychedelic rock; in fact, that’s one area that Truce Opium finds a constant (something lacking selectively on UI): true experimental psychedelic rock.

Bizarre as this band gets at times, with all its members, frequently nearing, if not topping, two dozen; in Truce Opium they all come together in a way that is entirely connected, whether they’re diving into a bout of free jazz (”When The Shelter Came”) or pumping out an epic 10-minute psychedelic jam (”Song Of The New Year”). Quite literally, an adequate descriptor for this band would be: a marching band from the early 70s tripping on acid and taken over by a wild man possessed by a peaceful but slightly angry demon.

Dark Meat is a band astonishing in size and creativity, and despite absolutely amazing tracks like “Freedom Ritual” and “Dead Man” off last year’s Universal Indians, Truce Opium is easily their best work yet. It’s hard to argue otherwise as the male/female harmony vocals in that other 10 minute epic “No One Was There” blasts into another colorful LSD trip, or as opener “The Faint Smell Of Moss” channels Dan Snaith (Caribou) times thirty. It is an album of epics and anthems, of immense mass and girth, of true rock ‘n’ roll the way it was truly meant to be.

Above photo snagged from the Dark Meat Flickr Group.

Dark Meat: The Faint Smell Of Moss [mp3]

Emergency Umbrella [CD, 2009]

1. The Faint Smell Of Moss
2. Future Galaxies
3. Flaps
4. No One Was There
5. When The Shelter Came
6. Last Of The Frontiersmen
7. Yonderin’
8. Song Of The New Year

Here’s a sneak peek for you who love rarities, exclusives and original material. And a bonus for those of you who dig radio in all its forms. The Raveonettes recently visited the Me + You studios for a Viva Radio spot and below you can hear the band performing their song “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)”. The session is Pt. 62 of Me + You, a live series that includes often funny and telling interviews with some of today’s hottest artists, conducted by host Ted Shumaker. The Raveonettes’ session airs at noon today on Viva Radio.

Here’s a snippet from the Viva Radio Me + You blog:

its been established that The Rave’s are damn well suited to be doing what they’re doing and several consistent recorded efforts would justify that. Which is why Album #4, In And Out Of Control, is widely welcomed. It pleased us immensely to have the group up up in here here to talk about feelin’ at ease in NYC, boys who rape, and constantly being on the rise to being the NEXT BIG THING.

Once Pt. 62 of Me + You airs, you can check it out at your leisure by visiting Viva Radio: Me + You. And you can read and see more from the Viva Radio blog post on Me + You 62: The Raveonettes.

“Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed” is off The Raveonettes new album, In And Out Of Control, available now on Vice Records.

The Raveonettes: Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed [From Viva Radio's Me + You]

Please do not re-host this mp3, but do feel free to link to this page and/or Viva Radio Me + You.

The words put to song Cool man. Great girl. seem so simple, but they work oh so well in Darlings‘ chill garage pop youth anthem “Teenage Girl”. Muted colors make the video near black-and-white, a true tribute to the song’s laid-back nature. Footage stems from summer barbecues, and as the wind brings in the first of the winter chills the video extends a welcome hand to those nostalgic memories from just a few months ago.

“Teenage Girl” is off Darlings’ latest LP Yeah I Know, out now on Famous Class Records.

Darlings: Yeah I Know [mp3]

Darlings: If This Is Love [mp3]

Darlings – “Teenage Girl” from Joseph Tirabassi on Vimeo.

The Hartmans have a history of creating garage pop that spans the genre from the jangle-ridden acoustic to the unbearably distorted-noise focused. …Sjunger Tre Ballader Om Dåliga Män is of the former style. The Hartmans give us three joyous tracks, two in their native tongue and one in English. The Swedish group has been busy of late and they remain one of the better pop groups around willing to give us their singles and albums gratis. I could give Sjunger a proper review, but there’s just too much more going on with this band to limit it in that manner.

For example, aside from these three great tracks, in 2009 they’ve given us Svenska Ordnar which includes twelve mixes in three groups of four. There’s the extreme noise ridden The Hartmans Och Råpunken, and another single dubbed Sjunger Tre Snabbare Låtar Om Före Detta Medlemmar I Band. That last one has a near southern-pop influence. What makes The Hartmans stand out is that, on top of several great releases this year, they’ve given them to us. Free.

If you dig the songs included here, head over to The Hartmans‘ website and get yourself some more!

The Hartmans: Men At Afterwork [mp3]

The Hartmans: Clive Burr [mp3]