back!

From Taiwan. I've been moderately busy preparing for college, but I've had some time to look into some music. I got Last.fm to play nice and can now embed my library on my blog, so that's all fun. The new Last.fm is looking pretty spiffy, and has some nice features such as creating multiple playlists for people to listen to. However, you need 45 artists and it's a hassle putting the playlists together. I may end up making a few to see how it works.

Anyways on to what I've been listening to. I listened to some Say Hi (Last.fm) when I got back, cause I was being picky and didn't know what to listen to. The band is pretty good, a bit different from what I usually listen to, which falls in the indie pop/rock/folk mix, but they're worth a listen, especially if you're into heavier guitar stuff and a slightly cold, dark atmosphere.

Just today I listened to Iron & Wine (Last.fm) and The Wrens (Last.fm). Iron & Wine is surprisingly good, considering how folky I expected it to be. Turns out that it's not THAT folky, and though it's somewhat softer and smoother than the usual fare, many of the songs are quite sweet and thoughtful. Good for those calmer, dreamy days. Like if you happen to be lying on a dock somewhere looking at the clouds, and happen to have music handy. Iron & Wine has a tropical (maybe?) sound that often reminds me of Islands (Last.fm), which I thought was pretty unique.

I don't even know where I pulled The Wrens out of. I think it was some blog on my rss feeds that I read. It started out sorta slow so I was wondering about the "indie rock" label, but it quickly picked up and, once again, surprised me. I guess there's a lot of good unknown music out there, which is a real shame, since the artists probably deserve more money, and no way in hell are major labels promoting small artists. Anyways they have a song (Everyone Chooses Sides), supposedly about how they gave up a major career to keep their artistic integrity, which is quite a commitment. So I'll help advertise and tell you to go listen!

Well that's about all that's happened musically recently. I could talk about my trip for ages but it's not really the point of this blog. I might start a personal blog sometime to talk about all the other shit that's going on, but Lauren says that's "faggy". ohwells.