mrshl | blog

Hey, I’m back on mrshl.net to register this month’s Emusic downloads. As the image would suggest, April finds me finally getting into Fugazi. Naturally, I’m entering through one of their late-career records.

Emusic now has Nick Drake in the form of the recent Tsunami release Family Tree. As an Emusic subscriber and rabid Nick Drake fan my big question was how this new release of early recordings compared with the compilations I already had, the out-of-print Time of No Reply and the bootleg Tanworth-in-Arden. Naturally, the internet comes to the rescue:

Two of the best songs on Family Tree, “Been Smokin’ Too Long” and “Strange Meeting II,” were already included on the now out-of-print official release, Time of No Reply. The latter is presented here in a different and inferior version to the earlier version, but it is still an example of how truly original Nick Drake was as a songwriter. He almost always played his guitar with strange tunings, which makes his material extremely difficult to play or mimic. In addition, he is one of those folk guitarists, like Bert Jansch, whose obscenely agile playing makes the guitar sound like it is one of the easiest instruments to play. Just listen to these two tracks for clarification.

Some of the cover material is particularly strong on this release. Nick was influenced by the likes of folk icons Bert Jansch and Bob Dylan. His recording of the former’s “Strolling Down the Highway” is straightforward, but his playing is dead on and his rendition of Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” is just about as strong as the original version. There are also a few demo versions of songs that would later make it onto his first and best album, Five Leaves Left. The beautiful “Way to Blue” is featured here in the form of just Nick and a piano, stripped of the lush string arrangement that was recorded for the album version. There is also a rather nice version of “Day is Done” as a working version.

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There are also a few songs missing that were on the Tanworth-in-Arden record. Namely, a cover of Bert Jansch’s “Courting Blues” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” His version of the Gershwin standard, “Summertime,” was also quite strong, but that too has been left off Family Tree. If you are a rabid Nick Drake fan, you will want to get yourself a copy of this release, but it is probably only reserved for fanatics who have to have everything. I actually prefer Tanworth-in-Arden to Family Tree, even though the sound quality is not as good. It has a better running order and does not feel disjointed with the addition of Molly Drake songs. If you are interested in that one though, you will have to dig around on Ebay or some other dealer of rarities to track it down.

There you have it. Of course, there’s not a lot of overlap with No Reply and it might be somewhat difficult to track down the Tanworth recordings, so picking up Family Tree might be pretty worthwhile. My brief preview listen to the tracks available on Emusic indicate the sound quality is WAY better than Tanworth, which was scratchy and poorly mastered.

I guess today is Emusic day for me, huh? Here’s this month’s downloads.

Guess which song I have stuck in my head? which song

Over at Emusic comes news the site has added the venerable British indie label, Rough Trade. Although only 26 recordings will be initially available, two of those records will easily rank in my upcoming "Top 30 list of Everything Emusic Has to Offer." Todd Burns, from the Emusic employee blog 17dots highlighted those same two records:

The Libertines – Up the Bracket
Those darn Brits and their debut album. You know, before all the trackmarks and NME covers and “concern” for Pete’s health. Humorously prescient AMG review moment:

At this point in their career they’re not as overhyped as many of their contemporaries, so enjoy them while they’re still fresh.

The Moldy Peaches - The Moldy Peaches
The zenith of anti-folk? Adam Green and Kimya Dawson have since gone on to fascinating solo careers of varying success, but this one remains a favorite of mine six years later. “Downloading Porn With Davo,” “Anyone Else But You,” and “Lucky Number Nine” are all pretty great.

He’s not kidding. The Libertines, especially, are a must-download. They combine the druggy, amoral gallows humor of Guns ‘n’ Roses with the versatility, intelligence, and unpredictable song structures of The Clash.

The group actually has a lot in common with the Clash. Two singers with divergent, but somehow complementary styles? Check. Clean, focused guitar playing that mostly eschews reverb? Check. Ragged, catchy-as-fuck half-harmonies that make you want to drink more than humanly possible? Oh. God. Yes. And Mick Jones produced.

Spend your downloads people. Spend ‘em.

So I tried the new Amazon MP3 store this evening. My impressions:

• Unlike iTunes, which only sells DRM music from selected labels and artists, all music on Amazon is sold without DRM, at prices significantly cheaper than iTunes: 89 cents per track vs. 1.29 for DRM-free tracks iTunes. The lack of DRM is crucial if you want to play your music on a non-iPod player, or if you want to escape the limits on sharing and burning tracks.
• Pricing for albums, however, isn’t as predictable as you might expect. For example, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is priced at $13.55 for 28 tracks (saving $16.72 versus the per-track price). But on iTunes, the same record (DRM-free!) is only $9.99, despite the higher per-track price of $1.29. But on normal sized records (i.e., non-double albums) Amazon can save you some money. Feist’s The Reminder is only 7.99 ($9.99 on iTunes). Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here is $4.45 ($7.99 on iTunes).
• The 256k MP3 bit rate is respectable. It’s equal to iTunes’s 256k ACC format. But I’d prefer the variable bit rate Emusic uses.
• Downloading music from Amazon is quick and painless. If you already have an account, you can use your existing user and payment info. And at just 607 kb, The Amazon downloader is a refreshingly lean piece of software. Much lighter than Emusic’s bloated new downloader. Once you’ve confirmed your account and payment info, you can download multiple records during the same session without going through that step again.
• Like the new Emusic download manager, the Amazon downloader will automatically add your music to iTunes or Windows Media Player. That doesn’t matter too much to me, since I use the sickeningly superior MediaMonkey player, which automatically finds new downloads.

Overall, I’m kinda impressed. I might use Amazon.com for things I can’t find on Emusic. But I wouldn’t get too carried away. Amazon’s better than iTunes, and there’s more options if you have to have DRM-free sound. But you still pay more than the 25 cents per track Emusic charges you (average price of a subscription). And I’d still like to see more social features from a music downloading site.

As promised, here’s the second installment of my monthly Emusic downloads on LIAT. Click below to see my brief commentary for each rekkid.

Link: October Downloads: 2007

Today, Emusic releases their first Daytrotter sampler, a free, 7-track EP of live, in-studio jams from bands like Voxtrot, Of Montreal, Dr. Dog, and the National. If you’ve never heard of Daytrotter, Emusic reviewer J. Edward Keyes describes the site as a “stateside John Peel, capturing warm, inspired sessions from bands without artifice or pretense.” Suffice it to say, this first Emusic EP only scratches the surface of the Daytrotter collection. You’ll want to head over there to get more of their special goodness.

Emusic announcement: daytrotter! at 17 dots

If you don’t know already, I’m a huge fan of Emusic.com. I’ve been a subscriber for many years now (since August 2001!), and I tell everyone I meet how great the service is. But this is not an ad for Emusic. This is simply to announce that I’m moving this monthly feature from my personal blog on Vox.com to Life is a Thrill.

Basically, I get 90 Emusic downloads per month for $19.99. Every month I tell you how I’ve spent those precious credits (use ‘em or lose ‘em). One other change I’m making is that I’ll now be appending any comments I make to the Emusic site itself. Just clicky below, and you can peep my DLs for September. To see my past downloads, archived on Vox, click here.

September Downloads 2007

17 dots is the (un)official Emusic.com employee blog. Over the past year, the blog’s readership seems to have grown a ton. Nowadays, a mention on 17dots can mean a ton of downloads (and $$$) for the lucky band that impresses its writers.

Today, Yancey Strickler writes:

In five years, the Octopus Project have gone from an Austin oddball instrumental trio to A Band With Buzz. The buzz was built on the back of their live show — which, damnit, I still have yet to see — and they’ve regularly become That Opening Band people end up liking more than the headliner, the festival-stealer, the one to watch. When their excellent first album, Identification Parade, dropped in 2002, such a growth seemed nigh on impossible, but the new one, Hello, Avalanche (10/9), makes continued success seems assured.

Octopus Project play rock-fused electronic music that’s somewhere between Tortoise, Trans Am, Midwest Product, Giorgio Moroder, Colleen and maybe even Eric Johnson. They like keyboards, Theremins and organs, and heavy 4/4 beats that don’t quite swing enough to warrant hip-hop or big beat sampling, but are close. Honestly, it can border on being clinical at times — pristine is their bag — so it will never be your favorite record and they’ll never be your favorite band, but it sounds good, and they don’t demand much more than that.

I really hope the this next record continues the onward and upward arc for my pals in the OP. I have got to get my hands on it.

hype: octopus project at 17 dots

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=SFlH64YyvIc]

Hat tip: 17 Dots