songs:illinois

(Ana T. Fernandez)

WeLikeItIndie has two songs from the new record from John Henry & The Engine.

DC9 At Night has a song from Audrey Auld.

Mainstream Isn’t So Bad has something from Cory Chisel.

Can You See The Sunset From The Southside has a nice new (!?) design and lofi mountain music songs from Austin Lucas.

My Big Mouth Strikes Again has something from the new Canadian “superduo” Human Highway.

Future Sounds has a Neil Young influenced track from Brooklyn based The Weight.

(”Tangle Theory” by Joshua Gorchov)

Athens 66 has mixed feelings about William F. Gibbs.

Hero Hill gives props to the new Alejandro Escovedo record.

Leather Canary has the new song from Blitzen Trapper (just about the only blog approved indie rock act I can stomach).

Cowboy Trance gets all nostalgic for Setting Sun.

(Art by Jorge Mascarenhas)

I really like what I hear from UK singer-songwriter Laura Marling. Treble agrees and has the video for her new single.

Hard To Find a Friend has a song from Cheyenne lead singer Beau Jennings solo debut record.

3Hive has something new from Daniel Ahearn, he’s the guy behind the band Ill Lit.

Consequence of Sound has the rambling folk of English singer-songwriter Nathan Clarke.

Filles Sourires, the Netherlands based blog of French chick singers, comes up big again with songs from Loane’s new record.

(b better in the morning by David Choe)

Carry You Away has the coffe house and advertising friendly folk rock of Landon Pigg.

Above The Fold has news about Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez.

There’s a raging debate over at Song By Toad as to whether Chris Denny is ace or the bullocks (not sure what that all means but it sounds funny).

Good Rockin’ Toinight (possibly one of the oddest mp3 blogs) has two songs from Hayes Carll and that’s never a bad thing.

Muruch has two songs from Canadian alt folk singer Brooke Miller.

(Wash Out Your Dirty Eyes by Keiti Ota)

I’m still liking everything I hear from Russian Red, Cable & Tweed mostly agrees but questions her choice of Cyndi Lauper covers.

3Hive expounds on the Joe Pug phenomena (fyi Joe will be performing at the next Songs:Illinois House Concert on June 6 - email me if you’re interested in attending).

The fiendishly good blog Anyone’s Guess has some lofi folk from Nathan Moomah.

Quarterlifeparty has 2 songs from the Wye Oak spinoff Noble Lake.

(Presence Crossing by Pat Rocha)

Usually these mp3 blog weekend wrapups are devoted to posts with mp3’s. But I love an anti corporate mp3 blog spiel as much as the next guy. Here’s The Post-Rockist trying to work his way through feelings of bitterness, jealousy, boredom and hostility towards the music blogging scene.

Nine Bullets has something new from the Appalachian new grassy group Medford’s Black Record Collection.

Things I’d Rather Being Doing has a great interview with Big Dipper.

IckMusic has the AAA pop stylings of Jon Regen.

I don’t fully understand the hoopla around of the Karen Dalton’s of the world. Why explore lost acts from the 60’s when we have so many undiscovered treasures from the present? Anyone’s Guess shares with us the music of NYC based singer songwriter Sharen Van Etten and her homemade music/packaging. The song “Picking Up Rocks” is worth the trip over there all my itself.

Lines Through Lines has two songs and a middling review of the new record from The Weepies.

(Bird With Snake by Stefanie Augustine)

Homo Eclectic has more from The Chapin Sisters.

The Yellow Stereo has two songs from The Oaks.

Instrumental Analysis has a new song from Teitur.

Who the Bloody Hell Are They? discover the “sweet folk” of Sarah Humphries.

Nine Bullets is in the running for blog post of the year with his look at the traditional song “Moonshiner”.

Demo’s from Hank Williams over at For The Sake Of The Song, Hell ya!

We Like It Indie (and others) liked Spanish singer songwriter Russian Red this week.

I somehow missed out on Delta Spirit, if you did too check out this post by Anyone’s Guess.

P.S. and an aside: I have liked what I heard from Christopher Denny but never posted about his music. I was put off by the production which to me mangled and jumbled his Buddy Holly meets Roy Orbison delivery. Thanks to a recent Daytrotter session you can hear what Christopher sounds like stripped down and raw.

Mp3Hugger has the beguiling music of burgeoning folksy UK pop stars…or something like that.

HearYa has two from the Austin “sensation” Leatherbag.

Muroch name-checks my favorite Irish band (the Waterboys) in her review of Freddie Stevenson so I had to check him out; you should too.

There was some good record news this week re: a Whiskeytown deluxe repackaging of Strangers Almanac, Captain Obvious gives a nice preview.

MOKB has the new video for David Dondero’s song “Rothko Chapel”

Obscure Sound has a nice review of the upcoming record by Phoebe Killdeer & The Short Straws.

Indie Muse has a couple songs off the new EP from Jim Ward (ex-Sparta).

BBQ Chicken Robot has three songs from the new Laura Cantrell cd of cover songs.

The Scope Of The Scene (and Songs:Illinois for that matter) wrote about Samamidon way back when, here they revisit this slightly puzzling new folk artist.

The bookmarkworthy site Ick Music introduces us to Canadian dream poppers Kensington Prairie.

(”fat bat man” by Anthony Lister)

Wow someone else has written about Old Man Luedecke, imagine that! In this case it’s the newish canadian mp3 blog A Limerick Ox.

To The Dogs Or Whoever has the lovely, enchanting English folk of Karine Polwart.

Another very new blog (with a very clean layout - I’m jealous) called A Free Man (with the subtitle “Simply Music”) has another song from that Sarah Borges and The Broken Singles record I wrote about a while back.

Bring Me Up has the overly polished, but catchy piano pop of Justin Hopkins.

Seemed like a slow week in the old blogosphere, but Yellow Stereo has two tracks from the new Devotchka cd.

Carl Sandburg Visits Me In a Dream has a couple from the new record from Chicago’s Manishevitz.

Anyone’s Guess has the title track from AA Bondy’s 2007 release (to be re-released by Fat Possum in the spring), a record that continues to reverberate with me.

Instrumental Analysis has a new song from The Two Man Gentlemen Band. This is a record I passed on solely because of the hard PR push (although I wrote about their last record). As you can tell from this song the band hasn’t compromised themselves musically, despite someone’s attempt to garner attention/praise from the vast music blog network.

(Artwork by Emily Eibel)

Herohill has a full album review of Halifax artist Dan Ledwell’s debut Two Over Seven. In it he points to the song “I Have Made You A Mixed Tape” as the showstopper.

Collective Common (some type of netlabel/blog) has the debut album from Champaign, Il native Morgan Orion. You can download the whole thing with all it’s ukele strumming, anti-folk weirdness here.

Time To Play B-sides has as good an interview with Marc Olson (ex-Jayhawks) as your gonna find.

Quarterlifeparty has some interesting freakgrass from Megafaun.

Alright, I’m getting a little fed up linking to You Crazy Dreamers (favorite them already!). This will be the last time I link to them (`til next week). Check out the latest goodness they’re sharing from John Craigie.

Goodtimes Goodtimes has sucked me and The Leather Canary into his orb of folk-tinged singer-songwriterlyness.

Cover Lay Down has Jeffrey Foucault covering Peter Case, Townes Van Zandt, Neil young, Chuck Berry and R.E.M. I’m a big fan of Jeffrey Foucault and I challenge you not to be enchanted by these cover versions.

(Michell Blade - Untitled Tent)

Mp3 Hugger has a nice song from Jenna Nichols who hails from Greenwich Village and is part of a growing new folk movement from that part of the city.

Musorama has something from the new record from Nick Jaina on Hush. This is an artist I championed last year and now seems to have plenty of new fans.

I wrote about Caroline Herring’s upcoming record on Signature Sounds and the song “Paper Gown” a while back. Now Here Comes The Flood has another song from this highly anticipated release.

Cable and Tweed has two sort of ethereal folk-country from Mechanical Bull (one of the songs features John Medeski).

Local Vertical (he of the great header images) has something from Boca Chica (I know weird name but enchanting music).

(Alien World by Bjorn Copeland)

Maybe it’s an acquired taste but I acquired it the moment I heard it. Song By Toad has poetic new music from Gerry Mitchell and Little Sparta.

Obscure Sound once again does a in-depth profile of an under-appreciated performer - this time Nick Jaina and his forthcoming record on Hush.

To The Dogs or Whoever is on a mission (something I can relate to - Jon Jackson anyone?) to get the word out about the English folk singer Andy Whitler with a repost of his music from 2007 and a contest.

Here Comes The Flood has the bluesy singer-songwriter Ernie Hendrickson; he’s got the song “Bad Mixed Up Woman” from the forthcoming album.

Mainstream Isn’t So Bad, Is It has a couple of songs from the Weinland - a record I’m guilty that I passes on.

From the “see I told you so” dept: PopMatters has a nice piece on Songs:Illinois fave Eilen Jewell.

Speaking of Jon Jackson, I’m glad to say my little post about him has created a bit of a snowballing effect. Now You Crazy Dreamers has posted a couple of songs and conducted a great interview with this up and coming singer-songwriter.

(Untitled by Neil Farber)

Neiles Life has some nice indie folk from Austrailia and the duo Angus and Julia Stone.

The now famous (there was a nice interview with Heather on NPR) I Am Fuel, You Are Friends discovers the amazing roots music of The Felice Brothers.

Bruce over at Some Velvet Blog has a new tune from Kate Maki - a Songs:Illinois favorite.

Idolator takes on No Depression and generalizes all to hell about this worthwhile publication

The un-aptly named mp3 blog Pasta Primavera has a couple new songs from Finian Mckean’s new record.

Midwest Record has news of Bo Ramsey’s upcoming record and Minneapolis Fucking Rocks has something from his son’s band The Pines.

(The Animal That Follows by Zachary Rossman)

OK here’s the deal with these weekly roundups. I don’t usually link to the most obvious sites. I mean you should be reading Aquarium Drunkard, Said The Gramaphone and Moistworks daily and it seems silly to link to sites that have far eclipsed this one. But with that said you really should check out Aquarium Drunkard’s post this week about Jim White.

Local Vertical has new music from Songs:Illinois fave and pride of Canada Luke Doucet.

MOKB has two new songs from Cameron McGill, a Chicagoan who has a new record out in early February.

Turn the Page discovers the British indie folk act Noah and The Whale.

Minneapolis Fucking Rocks has one of Songs:Illinois’ favorite alt country band’s new songs, namely Big Ditch Road.

Atomic Ned has the new song/sound from Bob Mould (you may remember him as lead singer of one of the greatest bands of all time).

Art by Mathew Palladino)

How annoying is it to scroll through Elbo.ws and see that everyone and their brother (and his dog) have posted their year end best of lists? Does every half-baked music blogger really think we care that he’s listed Cloud Cult in front of Radiohead or The National over Art Brut or vice-versa? There was so little new music posted or written about this week, but here’s some of what everyone else was saying:

A Space For Music Liberation has a new song off an EP from a band called Gossamer Albatross; kind of an Antony and the Johnsons meets Bright Eyes.

Anyone’s Guess has 2 songs from Petrcovitch otherwise known as SF based folk singer Jessica Peters.

Shattered Satellite has up and coming vulnerable sounding London folk artist Jay Jay Pistolet.

Like I said above I’m a bit peeved by all the year end list making but Lonesome Music gets an exemption with the great/different list they just posted.

More fine acoustic based music from London courtesy of the blog Check the Availability.

Herohill has the polished folk-tinged, Americana sounds of Joe Whyte.

Nine Bulletts hops on the Grayson Capps bandwagon, man it’s starting to get crowded on here.

I was negligent in not writing about the new Megan Palmer cd (sorry about that guys/gals) but plenty of others picked up the slack. Here’s Tha Bomb Shelter’s writeup.

Setting The Woods On Fire has a really amazing post on the great American singer/songwriter/picker/steamboat captain - John Hartford.

Jamie’s Runout Groove has a couple of songs from Dawn Kinnard.

If you’ve been sleeping all year and missed all the great Canadian music released than skip on over to The Late Greats where he’s done a kind of year end wrap-up.

Thus Spake Drake has a movie/music review of Juno with links to mp3’s of Kimya Dawson’s contribution to that flick.

(”Untitled” by Akino Kondoh)

Foggy Ruins Of Time has a song from Santa Barbara based singer-songwriter Lauren Barth who goes by the stage name Pocketful.

Anyones Guess has a song by S.F.’s best alt-country band - or, the whale.

Anyone’s Guess comes through again this week with a write-up of the Oxford based folk group Jonquil.

Captain Obvious has two songs from the debut record from Australian singer-songwriter Simon Moore.

Here Comes The Flood has new music from Bill Staines.

Keep The Coffee Coming must have had a double cappaccino on Dec 5 since Kat came through with two excellent posts: one about Paul Siebel and the other about Steve Goodman.

!tashed has something nice from Jenn Grant.

(Brandts Cormorant by George Boorujy)

Muruch has a “pretty” little song from Oh Susana.

The Hippodrome has lofi Scottish indie folk from Alison and The Mings.

Puddlegum has a song from Preston Edmunds and details on his weak contribution to a Starbucks holiday compilation.

Damn him but Exitfare beat me to the punch on the new song from the UK based band Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit.

Crown Dozen has the single “I’ll Kill Her” from French near sensation Soko. It’s charming, rude, and quintessentially French.

The Glorious Hum has the first song off of Matt Costa’s upcoming record.