Wednesday, October 28, 2009

KC Quilty



In early 2008, our travels landed us just across the Ohio River in a smoke-filled Kentucky hotel room the night before an ever-evolving troupe of NYC lovelies known as Le Rug were to perform at a local Cincinnati venue. It was there we met multi-instrumentalist Julian Fader who happened to be half of the percussion duo for this particular music collective at the time. A month later, we ended up featuring Julian's outstanding solo music [February 2008 review + download] and are now fortunate enough to have another update for you. KC Quilty is the Brooklyn, New York based trio of Sadie Dupuis (guitar, voice), appropriately named Ethan Bassford (bass) and of course Julian Fader on drums. Aside from various regional live performance dates, the band is currently putting a few finishing touches on their debut album, titled Clover/Coriander, which will be released through Julian's own label Cooling Pie Records towards the end of 2009. Hopefully? After having an extended listen to the new tracks that were sent our way, we can easily recommend paying attention to this young music project. Good and noisy guitar rock balanced by lovely female vocals guiding the course always piques our interest and this time we have a telling new preview to share.

MP3: Supernova

*Please Note:* In order to properly produce, manufacture and distribute physical copies of the upcoming album Clover/Coriander, the band has created a Kickstarter Page complete with a bashful yet instructional video on how to donate funds for the cause. What do you get in return? We wondered the same thing. There is a Cooling Pie Records Blog entry that details the ridiculously kind lengths this band is willing to go in order to gain your support... by dollar amount in case you hadn't guessed, and I believe they are dead serious about the $2000 range.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Plastic People



Our series of featured artists from Seoul, South Korea based label Electric Muse is unfortunately coming to its conclusion but, before our virtual music flight departs Incheon, we've saved an outstanding duo to leave your ears humming along. Plastic People is the long time music project of Min Kyu Kim (guitar, vocals, programming), who happens to have founded Electric Muse in 2006, and Ju Mi Yoon (vocals, keyboard). After a self titled debut EP in 2002, these two musicians released a pair of albums in Songbags Of The Plastic People (2003) and Folk Ya! (2006) followed by another EP and eventually the music we find ourselves with today. Snap is the title of their latest full-length offering which was made available earlier this year. A listen to the lead track for you...

MP3: Under The Shadow



For those who are hopefully already listening, Snap is a collection of 12 beautifully understated indie-rock songs that seem to draw influences ranging from later Yo La Tengo to early Homestead Records days with a slight hint of shoegaze goodness threaded into some of our favourite selections for good measure. For additional listening and information, please visit the Plastic People MySpace page and also be sure to check out an upcoming live performance as they take the stage, along with friends, October 25 at an annual Seoul event known as Grand Mint Festival. Another lovely song from Snap...

MP3: History

*Bonus* From the 2006 album Folk Ya!
MP3: The End Of Summer

Many thank-you-type love ramblings are in order for the folks at Electric Muse for sending us a box full of amazing music to share with our listeners over the past few weeks. We would also like to give a heads up on a blog that has been following our posts all the while. Indieful Rok is an outstanding resource for all new music from Korea and Korean artists around the world. We highly recommend bookmarking them for your daily music travels. Until our next visit.... 감사합니다 xoxo Casey & Michelle

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Dringe Augh: Individually Wrapped EP



Our unintentionally sparse and drawn-out coverage of various releases from the Electric Muse label will be in the books by the end of this week, but not before we conclude our visit to what we have discovered to be an amazing music scene within Seoul, South Korea. The first of our last three musical entries, which deserves immediate listening attention, is British folk-influenced vocalist/acoustic guitarist Dringe Augh who began writing, recording and performing solo music in 2001. After producing and self-releasing his debut EP Milky Way as well as several demos along the way, Dringe Augh has a new collection of 7 songs in an EP titled Individually Wrapped that was made available through Electric Muse earlier this year. Since we are not well versed in acoustic folk and usually try to avoid describing music as any type of texture, landscape or ice cream flavor (distressed wood, beach at dusk, mint chocolate chip) we will simply explain the result of our listening experience as involving an extended gaze through the windows that keep this little office space warm... very warm. Lovely.

If you find the female vocal accompaniment particularly striking, the woman responsible is Eujie Song of local Seoul duo Sogyumo Acacia Band. Have a listen...

MP3: Tutelar (featuring Eunjie Song)

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Vidulgi Ooyoo: Aero



After spending the better portion of our week away from updating MML, the opportunity to revisit Vidulgi Ooyoo who we first featured here almost exactly one year ago. [October 2008 review + details + music] is once again a treat for the ears. Thanks to our friends at Korean label Electric Muse, our hot little hands are now in possession of the debut, full-length release Aero we spoke about last year. However belated this secondary recommendation happens to be, please take time to explore what we consider a compulsory audio experience for those in need of a proper shoegaze fix. Low volume for daydreaming or computer speakers at full force and the slow building tension will not fail to wash you out to sea... over and over again.

MP3: Siren

Vidulgi Ooyoo MySpace
Vidulgi Ooyoo Cyworld
Electric Muse Last FM