The best in new independent music – free MP3 downloads, photos, artist bios, and more
Vancouver, Canada
The Specials, Ladyhawk, Baad
Vancouver has long been rife with successful musicians that run the music-genre gamut, from Japandroids to Heart, The Be Good Tanyas to The New Pornographers. Slam Dunk adds another slice to the area’s local musical spectrum with their wildly boisterous second album, Welcome to Miami.
Brooklyn, NY
Sunset Rubdown, Damien Jurado
Brooklyn’s Ancient History make mellow sounds for your late night summer subway ride – or for anything really, as long as it’s chill. The intricate compositions feature Donald Ducote (who really looks like Patrick Dempsey in 1987) on vocals, backed by a group of friends playing just about everything you can think of (vibraphone chimes were my favorite addition).
Toronto, Canada
Joy Division, Interpol, Jesus & Mary Chain
Decades, not to be confused with the outlandish number of classic rock cover bands currently hawking their wares across the planet, are a breathe of distilled fresh air, ever so slightly polluted with the fumes of ice cold vodka. Black and white and garage days are forgotten. No more empty beer cans crushed and stuffed with cigarette butts. Decades have polish, sophistication and a well-oiled maturity beyond their years. And while their apparent influences may seem obvious in the immediate sense, the band has written their own cache of disparate pages that bind together so well: emphatic yet atmospheric guitars drift through a decisive backbeat to create a layered haven for a vocal range that swallows either Quaaludes or broken glass as the moment requires.
