Indiecater Christmas Goodness
There’s a lot of Christmassy stuff happening in the blogosphere at the moment. Basically, given that the music industry tends to grind to a halt over this period, I guess that there isn’t that much for people to write about, particularly those of us who are primarily driven by new music.
To fill this gap a lot of musicians, particularly Americans – who seem to take Christmas music a little more seriously than we do here in the UK, where it is regarded with a sort of awestruck horror most of the time – seem to record one-off Christmas songs. Nevertheless, it is to an Irish label that I point you, and none other than Indiecater Records, set up by fellow blogger Kevin from mp3 Hugger. Indiecater tend to release one of two kinds of album: either long lost albums which Kevin feels do not deserve to be lost to the mists of time; or Indiecater compilations, which are paid assemblies of songs by independent bands, which Kevin sells in order to both spread the word and bring a little revenue to the artists whilst doing so.
Given this general approach, it hardly came as a surprise when it turned out that he was releasing and Indiecater Christmas Compilation. As per usual, I hardly know any of the bands, but then that is part of the point of things like this. It’s a very small amount of money – six and a half Euros – and that money goes to help support independent music by directly putting money into the pockets of the bands who are the bread and butter of websites like mine, and like Kevin’s.
Two bands on there who I do know are My Teenage Stride and The Winks, both of whom are superb. So here’s an incentive to shell out your hard-earned.
My Teenage Stride – Ears Like Golden Bats
The Winks – Slumber Party Let’s Go
The Winks – Birthday Party
More Montrealers make their way into the music scene, and they fit very much into the general Canadian dramatic-indie-with-instruments landscape quite neatly.
Given they’re from Montreal I feel I would be neglecting my duty by not mentioning The Arcade Fire, but I can’t really think of much of a comparison, so maybe not. Who they do remind me of a little actually, is Architecture in Helsinki, with touches of CocoRosie in the slightly unusual, almost hesitant female vocal. The music is very pop indeed, such that it’s slightly surprising to discover that the whole thing is created mainly by cello and mandolin, albeit surrounded by a varying cloud of accompanists on all sorts of other instruments.
I don’t know what the proper term should be for slightly eccentric indie-pop played with lots of proper instruments and a little helping of anarchy, but it is a definite constellation forming in the musical heavens and this lot sit firmly therein, twinkling happily away at us from the night sky.
The Winks – Guitar Swing
The Winks – Slumber Party Let’s Go
