animal collective

since it came out on september 11, i have been listening to strawberry jam by animal collective a whole lot. i really dig the sense of community coming from the band, being a group of four guys who just like to make music together. they are wholly original and amazing. for reverend green, fireworks, winter wonderland, and peacebone.... all truly amazing songs.

i dunno... they just really appeal to me right now. lyrically they are outstanding. musically they are groundbreaking. i can really think of no artist to compare them to at all but i have greatly enjoyed listening to them. the first time i heard them was in 2005, when a friend burned the previous album, feels for me. i was immediately taken with grass and the purple bottle and have since learned to love the album in its entirety. it is poppy without being unoriginal, groundbreaking without being unaccessible. i then began to hunt down every piece of music these guys have ever created, hearing their almost spiritual sounding campfire songs and loving it, as well as their other releases. panda bear, the drummer/keyboardist/singer/lots of other stuff also put out an album of brian wilson inspired songs entitled person pitch that is equally as good while being amazing in its own way. if i could recommend one band to you who you may never have heard of before, it would be animal collective.

i'm floating in rainbows...

radiohead released a new album on october 10th and after listening to it straight through since then, i have decided that, shockingly, it is quite amazing. first of all, obviously, is the music. it is the most endearing, human feeling album they have put out since OK computer, and it is a nice change coming from the electric coldness (but still brilliance) of kid a and amnesiac. it is (*gasp*) accessible, without sacrificing anything, which is what makes it so brilliant. second of all, they, as of yet, have released it without signing on to any label. they released it on the tenth as a download only mp3 zip file for a price to be named by each buyer. since this is such an unorthodox way to release music, no figures have been produced as to sales, but according to unconfirmed sources "close to the band," the file was downloaded almost 1.3 million times in its first day, making it "platinum." another note of importance is the fact that last.fm lists the ten songs from the album as the top ten most played songs in their database since it came out, with the tenth song being played twice as many times as the next closest song. they are truly something special.