2011. BEST FOR GUESTS. 31 lost and lonesome recording co

Lost and Lonesome is a record label based in Melbourne, Australia and was founded by Mark (also a musician and part of The Lucksmiths, Bart & Friends and Monnone Alone) in 1998, along Jane McCracken.
Today, 71 releases later, it has a catalogue featuring artists from Australia - like The Lucksmiths, (the awesome) Fred Astereo and (the amazing) Bart & Friends and from around the world like The Aislers Set, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart and The Ladybug Transistor.
A great mix of bedsitter indie pop with indie rock telling a very relevant part of music history for the past 13 years.

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SINGLES

THE MILLIPEDES COLD SNAP

THE HARPOONS KEEP YOU AROUND

PERSONAL & THE PIZZAS DIET, CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

THE ZEBRAS / THE MOTIFS SPLIT 7''

TWERPS BLACK EYES

EPs

THE ICYPOLES PROMISE TO STAY

THE SOFT CITY FOUR STORIES

CINEMA RED & BLUE BUTTERBEAN CRYPT

CRYSTAL STILTS RADIANT DOOR

RADIATOR HOSPITAL I WANT TO BELIEVE

ALBUMS

MASTERS OF THE HEMISPHERE MAYBE THESE ARE THE BREAKS

SHELLEY SHORT THEN CAME THE AFTER

SONNY & THE SUNSETS HIT AFTER HIT

THE BEETS LET THE POISON OUT

GOLD-BEARS ARE YOU FALLING IN LOVE?

2011. BEST FOR GUESTS. 30 eternal summers

Eternal Summers started as a duo formed by Daniel and Nicole and later became a trio with Jonathan joining the band.
Their from Roanoke, Virginia.
Short songs going to the core of what this band wants to create: jangly, immediate and simple pop songs.
Most of the bands that could be compared with Eternal Summers tend to use reverbs and walls of sound. The beauty of the band's music lies exactly on the fact that they keep things simple and without many effects.
Beautiful, raw and dreamy.
Last year, their debut album Silver, was released via Kanine Records.

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ALBUMS
I spent much of my year reading popular graphic novels and listening to singer song writers and balancing it unconsciously with heavier sounds.  I forget when the year started.  I find they just over lap and fade into one another like some cloudy spiral heading... well, I don't know where it's heading.

I don't listen to much modern music and find most of my pleasure in music to be in the past. I do keep a breast on the latest crazes and shitty hyped up bands and yea, there's some good stuff.  Anyway, here's a list of albums I was into this year that seemed to have a special place in my spiraling movement forward.

AGOLLOCH MARROW OF THE SPIRIT, 2010 (link)

Grim. Beautiful. Heavy. Dark. Nature. Bright. Powerful.  That sums up my year too.

ALCESTE ECAILLES DE LUNE, 2010 (link)

My older brother Matt turned me on to this as well as others on this list.  When you're scraping ice off your windows in the morning this will help you understand why.  It's a beautiful and heavy album. 

GRATEFUL DEAD EUROPE 72' COMPLETE RECORDINGS, 2011 (link)

Ok.  I don't own this and have not listened to 90% of it.  But look this shit up.  They released an entire Europe tour at what many call the best era of the Deads career.  Europe 72' is one of the best live albums which was released  back 1972.  Anyway, they released only 7,200 box sets of this and they sold out in 4 days and cost like 500 bucks.  If I was a rich dead head I would be happy.  Checkout Europe 72' since you don't have the cash. 

RYAN ADAMS JACKSONVILLE CITY NIGHTS, 2005 (link)

This album is wonderful to me and one of Ryan Adams best.  I listened to this as much as I could when I went out west this year with Eternal Summers.  It was a perfect album for me at this time.  I was dealing with some personal addictions of love and substance.  The tour helped me escape some things and see what I was doing to myself, personally.  I hadn't had an album affect me like this in a long time.  It's a beautiful, inspirational and sad album.  Music is fucked up.

OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL BLACK FOLIAGE/DUSK AT A CUBIST CASTLE (reissue), 2011 (link)

These two albums where a constant throughout my 20's.  These two albums taught me what pop was and how you could bend that into something weird.  Their use of noise, pop, darkness and light was a breath of fresh air when I first heard it.  Bill Doss and Will Hart wrote awesome lyrics on these albums.   The kind that would make you want to do something positive and productive or make a cloud and sleep inside its rain center.  

BIG STAR 3RD, 1978 (link)

This album is killer. Just great song writing.  I had it on vinyl for a while and finally got to really listen to it and fell in love with all the songs.  It was re-released as Sister Lovers on 1985.  It's just a good record.  

THE CURE DISINTEGRATION, 1989 (link)

Never got into it until we were on tour with Reading Rainbow this year.  I listened to it repeatedly.  I know some of you may say I'm a little late on this one but i disagree.   I think Robert Smith wrote it when he was 30, so it makes perfect sense to me.  

2011. BEST FOR GUESTS. 29 work drugs

Work Drugs is a project that was started a little over a year in Philadelphia.
Their music is made by beats and crystalline guitars evoking the calm of a desert beach during summer and a big, saturated orange sun setting on the horizon...
I tend to have a problem with some bands making laid back, chillwavey music because they tend to overproduce their songs, but I really like Work Drugs exactly for not doing that. You get to feel the lo-fi, DIY-ish production on their music and that's what makes it so interesting, intimate and enjoyable... it has a jelly-muddy atmosphere.
Smooth-fi, sedative wave (using their own definition) with an escapist vibe.
"... music specifically for dancing, boating, yachting, sexting, and living."

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ALBUMS

DESTROYER KAPUTT (link)
Besides the obvious smoothness of this album, Dan Bejar said in a few interviews that he recorded most of the vocals from his couch.  It doesn't get much cooler than that.
FEIST METALS (link)
We were fortunate enough to catch her and the band at WXPN's World Cafe this fall.  I don't think we were completely sold on the album at that point... but that show was a game changer.

RADIOHEAD KING OF LIMBS (link)

It always amazes us how Radiohead can always stay one step ahead of the pack...  maybe we've bought in and we're a little bias, but Thom Yorke can do no wrong.

M83 HURRY UP, WE'RE DREAMING (link)

We've been singing their praises since first hearing the lush landscapes of 2003's Dead Cities , Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts.  It's about time everyone else jumps on board.

CUT COPY ZONOSCOPE (link)

Can't have a party playlist without at least one cut from this album.  Epic.

2011. BEST FOR GUESTS. 28 heart-sick groans

Heart-Sick Groans is a trio from Sundsvall, Sweden and for the past 5 years, they've been making super fun indie pop.
Not every band manages to create it's own universe - of course, this is a very, very subjective concept - but the boys from Heart-Sick Groans have one: it's funny, odd, tropical, filled with incredibly catchy melodies. Their short and straightforward songs often present rhythmical twists with whistles, claps, hummings, harmonicas and, guitar, ukelele, several chord instruments and drums...
It's fun and sophisticated pop (in a very cool, informal way), with intricate melodies and witty-mellow lyrics.

They have 4 EPs released so far and you can find them to download on their bandcamp.
As various blogs already said: one of indie pop's best kept secrets.

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"HELLLO! We're HEART-SICK GROANS, a happy catchy indie pop band from snowy Sweden ! ! 

START happy winter month to y'all! Here's our TOP FIVE LIST of the BEAUTIFUL YEAR 2011. 

FIRST BEST VIDEO/UPCOMING ARTIST

ULLBASUNEN TA AV DIG HATTEN, DET ÄR EN DAM I RUMMET

Henric shot this video with Jerker Häggström to our friend Ullbasunen. Video contents: WTF creepy eery psyched out Chris Cunningham/Aphex Twin invertion epic. 

SECOND MARTIN'S FAVORITE SONG

TUNE-YARDS MY COUNTRY (link)

MOTIVATION: "The first time I heard this song I started sweating. The only way to stop the pouring sweat was to listen to it again. So now, in order to have a reasonable life, I'm completely addicted to this song."

MARTIN'S RUNNER UP FAVORITE SONG:
BURAKA SOM SISTEMA KALEMBA (WEGUE WEGUE) (link)

MOTIVATION: "I'm already sweaty. I might as well dance."

THIRD GUNNAR AND HENRIC'S FILM CLUB'S FAVORITE FILMS

DRIVE (link)
atmospherically dense and cool with spots of brutal graphic violence, great soundtrack, very clean/cleansing 

HESHER (link)
tragic and funny indie flick, stupid in the best of ways

NUMBER FOUR ON OUR LIST

is a tribute to the Trinidad-Tobago artist EDMUNDO ROS, who passed away this fall at the respectable age of 100 pans. Also, Henric's mom and uncle saw him and his 18 man band live at Viskan, Medelpad, back in '71. 

A bossanova/salsa/cha cha cha band leader with a beautiful voice and extremely uplifting themes and beats. One of our greatest influences of the last couple of years. 

His best tracks:

Edmundo Ros – Good, Good, Good

Edmundo Ros – The Coconut Song

Edmundo Ros – Stone Cold Dead In The Market

Edmundo Ros – Her Bathing Suit Never Got Wet

Edmundo Ros – Who Shot The Hole In My Sombrero?

Edmundo Ros – Maria From Bahia (Remastered) (best part here's when Ed talks to the band choir in the beginning verse)

Edmundo Ros And His Orchestra – On The Sunny Side Of The Street (Cha Cha Cha)

FIFTH BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR (no order)

DELICATE STEVE WONDERVISIONS (link)

Fun! exciting music, sweetly produced. Proof is this Harry Belafonte cover

THE ELECTED BURY ME IN MY RINGS (link)
Rilo Kiley's man voice Blake's third solo effort=great
FLEET FOXES HELPLESSNESS BLUES (link)

LONEY DEAR HALL MUSIC (link)

first 3 songs especially, and SEE this band live JUST DO IT

SIXTH

the heart-sick groans recommends list for the rest of the fall 2011-LIST

Here's ours and yours favorite soundtrack for every day up till NEW YEAR eve!

A PERSONAL UPDATE OF THIS YEAR THAT ALMOST COMPLETELY HAS BEEN: Martin became a lvl 85 WoW fire mage, Johan dropped out of the dentist school and started digging elder people dumping ditches in Jämtland, Sweden. Henric moved into a room in Gunnar's 50's design palace apartment to become his apprentice in the art of cooking, Marcus started buying the most expensive music studio gear around and showed only a mild interest in digesting the gourmet duo's food. 

NEWS FLASH FROM OUR BAND of INTRICATELY WOVEN INDIE/FOLK/SURF-POP: We're currently mixing new songs, Henric just came back from Denmark after shooting a video to the new single "A Bossanova with this Casanova" with a galactic gang of 20 enigmatic artists... Then we'll be releasing these new tracks one by one as the weeks go by… And come spring we hope to release a vinyl with these tracks, and some old goodies! Expect, from our new batch of gems, grandious titles like "If This Canary Stops Singing" and "Black Hair Typography"!

THANK YOU GOOD YEAR

THANK YOU