John's New Music Blog

We're moving to a new home and taking a new name, www.indiemusicexplorer.com. We've moved to a new platform that will give us more flexibility and new options. Come see our new home with the easy to remember address, www.indiemusicexplorer.com.

No, this isn't a plea for money (unless you'd like to send some and then by all means do so), but a request for the readers of John's New Music Blog to help choose a new name for the site.

Since I started this little corner of the Internet back in 2010, it's become much more than just one person posting their opinions about new music, but a place for artists to launch new music. We've helped bands break into the US, sponsored two albums, held a showcase for three performers at the John's New Music Blog Performance Space (my living room) and always trying to have some fun. So with that in mind, it's time for a new name.

The name should be short enough to work as a domain name as well.

So put your thinking caps on and send me your best ideas. Use either the comments section or email me your suggestion.

So you might be asking "What's the prize?" If the winner is close to Philadelphia, we'll buy them a drink and they'll have the satisfaction of knowing that their suggestion was better than all the other ones. If they're not close to Philadelphia, then the satisfaction of knowing they're more clever than anyone else will have to suffice. We reserve the right to reject all submissions and go with our own idea.

Good luck!

Today's featured band is Brooklyn's Selebrities, a retro-pop three piece that wouldn't sound out of place on the radio in 1983. The band is made up of Maria Usbeck on vocals, Jer Robert Paulin on guitar and Max Peterson on the keyboards. The band describes itself as "voguish, summertime goth" and several reviewers have compared them favorably to a certain Manchester band of the 1980's. I'm inclined to agree and say that their sound is both retro and contemporary in combines 1980's synthesizer lines with modern production values and techniques.

Photo by Lucy Bridger

 Selebrities - Night Heat from Selebrities on Vimeo.

The second track is "Can't Make Up My Mind," from their 2011 full length release Delusions. It's more in the style of The Human League and could have found it's way into a John Hughes, Brat Pack film soundtrack. If you like Summer Camp, you'll love this track.



Can't Make Up My Mind from Selebrities on Vimeo.

"Night Heat" will be out on Cascine on March 20; Delusions is available from Darla Records (12" vinyl or download), iTunes, and Amazon.

After a long-ish break from finding new music, we're back with a some new bands and a contest (more on that later). First, today's featured band is London's Still Corners, a 1960's influenced four piece consisting of founders Tessa Murray (vocals) and Greg Hughes (songwriter) and Leon Dufficy (guitar), Luke Jarvis (bass) and Paul Mayhew (drums).

Photo by Cat Stevens (Thanks, Sub Pop)

Still Corner's first full length album is Creatures of an Hour and the first single is the gauzy, lo-fi dreamy track "Into the Trees." The track evokes the retro sound that have been the common theme of the past year made popular by Cults.





The second track is "Cuckoo," a shoegazy song that sounds a bit like M83 and Blouse.


Cuckoo from Still Corners on Vimeo.

Still Corners' Sub Pop debut album, Creatures of an Hour, is available from Sub Pop, and for download from iTunes, and Amazon. They are currently on tour in the UK and will hopefully be in the US before too long.

Sorry for being away for a while, I've been a little busy, but I'm back with the video for Summer Camp's latest single, "Better Off Without You," a summery tribute to all things Southern California circa 1973. Their debut album, Welcome to Condale, drops on November 8 on Apricot/Moshi Moshi.





Previously: Fresh New Music -- Summer Camp
                 New Single from Summer Camp

Today's featured band is Austin, TX's International Waters, a four piece consisting of former Voxtrot member Mitch Calvert on vocals and guitar, Ryan Hall on guitar, Alex Gehring on bass and Marcus Haddon on drums. The band describes their sound as "jangle pop" and cite The Smiths as one of their influences; Johnny Marr comes through in nearly every track. The band is streaming their album 1994 via their Bandcamp page as they look for a label to pay for a proper vinyl edition.


The video is for the song "1994," a song that's infused with surfpop and jangly guitar goodness that will have you listening to the rest of the album.


 1994 - International Waters from Mitchell Calvert on Vimeo.

Here is the rest of the album for your listening pleasure:




International Waters is currently working on new material and should be playing dates around Austin soon. In the meantime, their first EP, It Felt Like, is available for download from iTunes.

Today's featured artist is Nashville's Rachel Pearl, an extremely talented singer and songwriter who I had the pleasure of meeting this weekend at the Elephant Talk Indie Music Festival in Atlantic City. Rachel is the writing partner of Merry Ellen Kirk and she's released two jazz albums and is working on a pop album. Rachel's first pop single, "Like A Video," is a Katy Perry influenced song that hits all the pop song high note with none of the irony; she plays it straight and succeeds.

If you're familiar with Rachel's other albums (Love Extravagantly and Keepin' It Old School), you'll notice that this is a big departure for her and her writing partner Merry Ellen Kirk, but after talking with Rachel and Merry Ellen at Elephant Talk, there's a lot of experimentation going on in the indie scene with pop sounds and songwriting techniques and you'll be hearing more poppier sounding indie music over the course of the year. I've already started to hear it in what's coming over from the UK, it's a bit more upbeat and the sound is fresher and not as filled with despair and gloom that indie rock is known for. The video exudes fun and captures the completely mad aspects of pop music, it looked like a lot of fun to make.




Rachel, with the help of some generous friends, self-funded her album and as soon as I have more information on the release date and distribution channels, I'll pass it along. For now you can download the "Like A Video" single from iTunes and Amazon, as well as Love Extravagantly (iTunes and Amazon) and Keepin' It Old School (iTunes and Amazon). I enjoyed meeting Rachel and talking about the new trends in music and learning that Nashville's music scene is more than just cowboys who think they can sing and play guitar. Watch this space for show dates in the Philadelphia area, you don't want to miss the chance to see her live.

Photo Credit: John's New Music Blog Staff Photographer

Summer Camp, the London duo of Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley (previously featured here), have announced a new single from their upcoming debut album. The single, "Better Off Without You," is a summery '80's ode to breakups that could have come straight from The Human League circa 1983; I hope that the video includes a Rover SD1 (Jeremy Clarkson knows where they can get one cheap, just don't mind the water damage).






Summer Camp is self-releasing their debut album on their label, Apricot Recordings, and you can help bring the album to reality by contributing a few dollars to their campaign (they have all sorts of neat thank you's for pledging). I kicked in £50 towards the effort and if you like the single, you should too. Go to their PledgeMusic page to see what they are offering their contributors.

(H/T: Gorilla vs. Bear and Beachtapes)

Merry Ellen Kirk has just released the single, "Field of Dreams" from her upcoming album The Firefly Gardens. We've featured Merry Ellen in the pages of John's New Music Blog a few times (here and here) and Merry Ellen's voice is somewhere between Tori Amos and Sarah McLaughlin with a little Amie Miriello thrown in for good measure. For someone who's only 21 years old, her singing and songwriting show her to be wise beyond her years. Take a listen to Field of Dreams and if you like it, send her a couple of bucks to help finish the album.








The video is for Merry Ellen's song, "Blinding Me," from her Invisible War CD, is about how eyes can actually be a hindrance in seeing what's really important. It's a beautiful song that gives you a good representation of her voice and her songwriting ability.  





The Firefly Garden is still in the works so please help Merry Ellen make the album a reality by investing in her project (I did, you should too). The Invisible War is available from Merry Ellen's Bandcamp page.

Merry Ellen will also be playing the Elephant Talk 2011 Indie Music Fest in Atlantic City on Saturday, August 6th (click here for the schedule).

This is the new video from Cults for their excellent song, "Go Outside." I'm not sure how I feel about it, it's a great song, but the video is more than a little disturbing. The video features clips from NBC's coverage of Congressman Leo Ryan's ill fated trip to The People's Temple in Jonestown with bandmembers Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion digitally added to the scenes.





Go Outside, by Cults from Boing Boing on Vimeo.

I think the video is too clever by half, the band and the director are making a statement about the power of cults (get it, cults and get outside?), but by inserting the band into the clips, the message is muddled and Jonestown might be considered ancient history by their fans (if they even know what Jonestown was).

I love the band and the song, but the video just doesn't work for me. Go get the album from iTunes and Amazon and listen for yourself.