Although it didn't originally have anything to do with their sound, the Cowboy Junkies' name wound up seeming pretty accurate: their music was grounded in traditional country, blues, and folk, yet drifted along in a sleepy, narcotic haze that clearly bore the stamp of the Velvet Underground. The vast majority of their songs were spare and quiet, taken at lethargic tempos and filled with languid guitars and detached, ethereal vocals courtesy of Margo Timmins. Over the late '80s and '90s, the group recorded a succession of critically acclaimed albums that found favor in the alternative rock community. Read more at allmusic.com
Download 12 (!!!) entire live shows from the Internet Music Archive in the .shn format
If you're unfamiliar with shn files, read this old article of mine.
V/VM has released a CD of Aphex Twin plunderphonic.
In league with plunderphonic pirates and dancefloor punks like Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Kid-606, and DJ Olive, Manchester's V/Vm ("volume versus mass") crew brought a well-needed boot to the backside of the increasingly humorless dance scene of the late '90s, polarized on one side by mindless club trance and on the other by self-serious bedroom boffins. A duo comprised of James Kirby and Andy McGregor (aka Jansky Noise), V/Vm produced a series of releases notorious for their crude (but lovingly detailed) packaging, high collectability (usually only 100 to 500 copies), and, in many cases the music itself, a devastating assault on both copyright laws and hearing levels. Read more on V/VM at allmusic.com
Download V/Vm "HelpAphexTwin"4.0 MP3 previews here
Aphex Twin 2002 : “My favourite artist at the moment is Ceephax Acid Crew. It's Andy Jenkinson, Tom Jenkinsons (SQUAREPUSHER) brother. Its f**king wicked. It's funny because if people ask me "So, whos going to be the next big star of electronic music?", I always say him. But he only does a new track like every three months or so. [Read More]
Under her pseudonym Cat Power, Chan Marshall has been enthralling and occasionally infuriating listeners since the mid '90s with her poignant, pensive, sometimes self-consciously fragile brand of Southern-accented nouveau folk blues. While her flightiness is a matter of record and in the past she has been known to alienate even diehard fans with astonishingly brief live sets, she also has a dusty aching croon that pierces the heart without even seeming to try, and an elegant minimalist approach to composition that draws intelligently and emotionally from some of the most potent musical traditions. In the span of just a half-dozen releases, Marshall has carved out a personal niche for herself equal to that of any of the seminal singer-songwriters of the '70s, building a musical legacy whose reverberations will be heard for years to come.[More]
A track by Arne Van Petegem, for his third for the ever excellent Morr music. Arne's recent work has included contributions to the rapturously received "Blue skied an' clear" compilation, his 7inch "To Simply Lie Here And Breathe" for Morr's “A Number of Small Thing”s and the 'Heart without a mind' ep presented last week as a taster of his new sound. Clearly, he has not been stuck for ideas since his two previous albums for Morr, bridging further the camps called 'indie' and 'electronica' which have become such comforting bedfellows over the last 12 months. "i'm what's there ...” is Styrofoam’s most poppy record to date, and like all the finest pop records, theres a lingering sense of introspection and melancholy lying scacrely below its shimmering surface. But anyone with an interest in richly textured electronic sounds will be as satisfied as those who cherish beautiful melodies, catchy tunes and lyrics. According to insound.com
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Although it didn't originally have anything to do with their sound, the Cowboy Junkies' name wound up seeming pretty accurate: their music was grounded in traditional country, blues, and folk, yet drifted along in a sleepy, narcotic haze that clearly bore the stamp of the Velvet Underground. The vast majority of their songs were spare and quiet, taken at lethargic tempos and filled with languid guitars and detached, ethereal vocals courtesy of Margo Timmins. Over the late '80s and '90s, the group recorded a succession of critically acclaimed albums that found favor in the alternative rock community. 
In league with plunderphonic pirates and dancefloor punks like Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Kid-606, and DJ Olive, Manchester's V/Vm ("volume versus mass") crew brought a well-needed boot to the backside of the increasingly humorless dance scene of the late '90s, polarized on one side by mindless club trance and on the other by self-serious bedroom boffins. A duo comprised of James Kirby and Andy McGregor (aka Jansky Noise), V/Vm produced a series of releases notorious for their crude (but lovingly detailed) packaging, high collectability (usually only 100 to 500 copies), and, in many cases the music itself, a devastating assault on both copyright laws and hearing levels. 