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New Tracks Tuesday: Annuals, Beach House, Sufjan Stevens, Kevin Drew, Ladytron and Matmos

This week's New Tracks Tuesday features The Annuals, Beach House, Sufjan Stevens, Kevin Drew of BSS, Matmos and Ladytron.

The Annuals - MP3: Sore from the new album Wet Zoo

Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene) - MP3: One Night Man new single

Sufjan Stevens - MP3: The Year of the Boar from the new Asthmatic Kitty Records compilation Music for Video Games, Vol. 1

Beach House - MP3: Gila from new album Devotion

Matmos - MP3: Rainbow Flag from upcoming Supreme Balloon LP/CD

Ladytron - MP3: Black Cat from Dedicate

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Note: Musicians, bands, promoters and labels, please submit CDs and music along with a press kit for review to POB 722, RE, CA 95044.

Labels: Beach House, BSS, Free Downloads, Free MP3s, Kevin Drew, Ladytron, MP3s, New Tracks Tuesday, Sufjan Stevens, The Annuals

9:20 AM April 1, 2008 1 Comments

Shortlist Music Prize Longlist Nominees Include Beck, Belle and Sebastian, Cat Power, Neil Young, Tom Waits, The Stills and Wolfmother

The Shortlist Organization will release their official "shortlist" of nominees for the sixth annual Shortlist Music Prize in a couple of weeks, narrowing the "longlist" of 61 albums of 2006 down to the Top Ten.

The Shortlist Music Prize is considered one of the highest honors in the independent and alternative rock music profession. Last year's winner, Sufjan Stevens, has taken the music world by storm, releasing one compilation of amazing music after another.

Stevens' 2005 album Illinoise is full of soft melodies, inspirational spurts of engery, lyrical intrigue and is easily one of the classic albums of the past decade.

Earlier this month, TSO released the long list of 61 nominees featuring a compendium of the best indie and alternative music of the past year, including artists such as like Snow Patrol, Arcade Fire, Mates of State, Band of Horses, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and many more. (See below for the complete list)

The 61 nominees were selected by a panel of nine indie rock artists and journalists, including Sufjan Stevens, Franz Ferdinand, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips, Ronnie Vannucci of The Killers, members of Panic at the Disco, Reverend Moose, editor-in-chief of CMJ New Music Report, and a Rolling Stone magazine rock critic.

To qualify for nomination artists' albums must be released in the U.S. in the past year and not have sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. Panelists are also looking for artists who embrace and push the envelope of the indie rock spirit of "creative and adventurous" music.

"This year's listmakers have created a streetwise playlist of state-of-the art rock, dance and hip hop," Shortlist creative director Greg Spotts said.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody told Top40-Charts.com that this year's Long List "looks like my own iPod." He says the melancholy "Begin to Hope" by Regina Spektor is "a gorgeous record which is simple and devastating in equal measure."

Lightbody also elegantly describes two of his favorite artists - both IRC Featured Artists - praising North Carolina's Band of Horses' Everything All the Time as "sublime, blissed out elegance" and Beirut's Gulag Orskestar as "sweeping swooning carnival" of songs, and the couple duo Mates of States Bring It Back as "twisted, warped pop."

Subscribe to this feed and watch for the Top Ten, and ultimately a full profile of the winner. The winner will be announced sometime in May.

The 61 nominees include artists from 45 different record labels and ten countries as selected by Sufjan Stevens (and based on his taste in music, you might want to check out some of these albums if you haven't already):

Against Me - Americans Abroad Live in London
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided

Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Band of Horses – Everything All the Time
Beck - The Information
Beirut – Gulag Orskestar
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
Cat Power – The Greatest
Country Teasers - The Empire Strikes Back
CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
Cursive - Happy Hollow
Dabrye - Two/Three
Danielson - Ships
Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Heart Bloom
Editors - The Back Room
Field Music – Field Music
Forgive Durden - Wonderland
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
Hot Chip - The Warning
Howling Bells - Howling Bells
Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker – Palm of Soul
Kimya Dawson - Remember that I Love You
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Love is All - Nine Times That Same Song
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Mates of State - Bring It Back
Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Mew - And the Glass Hand Kites
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Mohair - Small Talk
Mute Math - Mutemath
Neil Young – Living With War
OOIOO - Taiga
Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Roots - Game Theory
Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh
Skream - Skream
Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
Teddybears - Soft Machine
The Blow - Paper Television
The Bronx - The Bronx
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
The Gossip – Standing In the Way of Control
The Hush Sound – Like Vines
The Knife -

Silent Shout
The Stills - Without Feathers
The Strokes – First Impression of Earth
The Velvet Teen – Cum Laude
The Weepies - Say I am You
Tom Waits - Orphans
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Vaux - Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones

Labels: Band of Horses, Franz Ferdinand, Gary Lightbody, Indie Music Awards, Mates of State, Panic at the Disco, Ronnie Vannucci, Shortlist Music Prize, Snow Patrol, Sufjan Stevens, The Killers, Wayne Coyne

8:32 PM April 4, 2007 2 Comments

Have a Very Merry Indie Christmas and Happy Holidays from IRC

While no one knows what exactly an Indie Christmas should be like, we have put together a package of mostly non-commercial, independent Christmas songs, which are sprinkled throughout this report.

At some point, just about everyone has had enough of the traditional Christmas songs, so let's try out something else.

Here are some wonderful music videos (no waiting or streaming, plays instantly) of artists (some indie, some close enough) performing Christmas songs:

Fiona Apple sings "Frosty the Snowman"; Travis offers his own Christmas ballad "River"; Death Cab for Cutie play "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", The Flaming Lips perform "Christmas at the Zoo" and and Tim Sweeney presents "DFA Holiday Mix"

Other choices for an indie Christmas holidays include the Do You Hear What I Hear?, compilation, featuring fresh covers of traditional Christmas songs, like "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" by Hem, "Holly Jolly Christmas" by The Format, and non-traditional songs like "Welcome Christmas" by The Clumsy Lovers.

There have been a good number of indie-themed Christmas albums and compliations released over the years by indie labels, most notably perhaps is Sufjan Stevens' simply titled and magnificent four EP box set Christmas Songs.

The boxset feature offers sound quality tested music stream of all 4 EPs, plus information on what the box set contains, including writings from Sufjan himself.

You can also get exclusive MP3s from IRC.

Sample or buy the album's tracks at Emusic.

Labels: Alternative Christmas Songs, Christmas Songs, Christmas Tunes Mp3s, Free MP3s, Indie Christmas Music, Indie Christmas Songs, Sufjan Stevens