"Referring to themselves as experimental glitter-art post-punk, the cumbersomely monikered Meanwhile, Back in Communist Russia is an indie rock band from Oxford, England. Consisting of Pete ("guitars center"), Ollie ("guitars right," bass), James ("guitars left," samples), Emily ("monologues"), Tim (keyboards), and Mark (drums), the group formed in 2000 and quickly got to work on a demo. The sextet debuted through a split release shared with Moonkat on Tinfoil (I Only Wanted Something to Do but Hang Around) and later released a 7" (No Cigar) of their two songs from the release." More info
brocoli.org: "The universe of Minizza was born from the joining of various contrasting musical genres, stylistically tied together through electronic processing. It’s strength: drawing original ideas from experimental music that reinforce pop music’s catchy composition.
With luxurious ambiences, Minizza’s first album is simultaneously catchy yet demanding. Music for Girls is a musical trip that gently starts by caressing one’s auditory senses, with tracks like the upcoming hit Monoball, and gradually warms up to the more experimental climates of the later songs." More info
fuzzylights.com: "The minimalist violin/guitar/organ collective Fuzzy Lights formed in August 2004. Usage of live looping enables them to shift between spacious soundscapes to walls of sound, building emotionally charged tunes. For the past year they have been performing in and around Cambridge and have recorded their first mini EP, "in silence we weep", which contains a handmade sleeve with an original photograph print. Having only 2 core members (with occasional guests), Fuzzy Lights certainly distinguish themselves with this fact (think Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion with seven plus performers) but manage to pull the traditional post-rock formula into more delicate areas while maintaining the ever present noise outs."
Wikipedia: "Beth Gibbons (born 4 January 1965) is the vocalist for the trip-hop band Portishead.
She met bandmate Geoff Barrow in a Government business start-up scheme. Barrow and Gibbons joined jazz guitarist Adrian Utley, and the sessioners John Baggott, Jim Barr and Clive Deamer to record three successful and critically-praised Portishead albums. Admired by artists as diverse as Dr. Dre and Robert Plant, the latter used Gibbons's musical associates in his own projects.
Gibbons has also collaborated on a separate project with Paul Webb, aka Rustin' Man. In October 2002, the album, Out of Season, was released in the UK, and in October 2003 it was released in the US.
She was reported in the spring of 2005 to be working on the soundtrack of a French language film, her Piafesque singing making her especially popular in that country. She also produced lyrics for Joss Stone.
"Suffering for your art is most definitely overrated but I do get a certain, I don't know, satisfaction from being able to deal with my paranoia and insecurity." —Beth Gibbons"
thirstyear.com: "Established in the late 70s as an independent marketing company, Thirsty Ear pioneered the concept of specialized marketing to the yet-unnamed alternative music world in the U.S. As such, Thirsty Ear was hired to implement campaigns in this new area for virtually every major label, working with such now-legendary artists as David Bowie, The Talking Heads and The Police, among many others.[...]
Since its beginning in 2000, the story of the Blue Series has been one of focused, organic evolution. From free jazz masters, legends in their own time, to some of the most innovative producers working in the world of modern hip-hop and electronic music, the Blue Series has come to encompass some of the most exciting developments in creative music since the turn of the new millennium. Featuring such present-day jazz legends as William Parker, Tim Berne, David S. Ware and Matthew Shipp, and augmented by DJ Spooky, U.K. electronica titans Spring Heel Jack, and hip-hop innovators El-P and Antipop Consortium (to name just a few,) the Blue Series acknowledges jazz's luminescent past without allowing it to smother its artists' desires to pave new ground." More
Thirsty Ear has been featured at Jazz on 3 (BBC Radio 3). The whole show can be downloaded from the Thirsty Ear homepage.
bangonacan.org: "The long-awaited followup to their acclaimed all-Steve Reich debut, ALARM WILL SOUND, the young 22-piece new music band featuring voices, strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussionists, takes on twisted techno master APHEX TWIN in ACOUSTICA.
Alarm Will Sound, who the NY Times calls "the future of classical music," has, with a cadre of 10 arrangers, painstakingly recreated and rethought Aphex Twin's legendary electronic work for an all-acoustic ensemble. From creative new transcription ideas to using non-standard "classical music" instruments to ensuring that all four drummers are kept busy with Aphex Twin's unimaginably intricate beats, this sounds like no CD you've heard before. With bonus remixes of the remixes by the emerging Berlin-based techno master Dennis DeSantis."
Portmanteau is another band from the Weilheim galaxy. The band consists of Christian Heiß (member of lali puna), Gerald Schrank (member of iso 68) and Christian Ziegler.
They describe their music as IDM, with influences from Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and Tortoise.
epitonic.com: Piano Magic is a loose collective of sorts, with an ever-changing lineup originally inspired by bands like This Mortal Coil and The 6ths. Core member Glen Johnson formed the band in 1996 with Dick Rance. Over the years his quiet bedroom project has expanded and changed as Johnson enlisted the help of friends, acquaintances, and moonlighters from other bands. It's oddly appropriate that Piano Magic has a revolving membership, because its music has a graceful fluidity and malleability that defies rigid structure. Over the course of numerous albums and singles, Piano Magic's music has evolved from lo-fi instrumental noodling to pop-electronica trickery, and then again into a lush vocal and orchestral pastiche.
bobbybaby.net: "Bobby Baby is Ella. Ella is 22 years old. She lives in Malmö, Sweden. Ella started out playing the guitar 10 years ago. Today she plays a lot of instruments. She used to play acoustic guitar and sing with the band Alien she. Ella has recorded many songs. They are often simple with lots of unexpected noise. But Ella doesn't mind. Now she tries more advanced recordning technology though. Ella has used a lot of different aliases through out the years, for example Kangasmukko and Ella Glockenspiel. Now Ella is Bobby Baby and this site is for sharing her music with you. Enjoy."
waterlilly.ch: Water Lilly is one of the main figures representing the Swiss electro scene today. Behind the decks since 96 and producing from 99 she materializes a subtle mixture of analogue atmospheric sounds with a pumpy dancefloor feeling. This charming killer-behind the decks lady carries her records worldwide, alike her live performances have graced fine venues such as Luxx in New York City, WMF in Berlin, Batofar in Paris, Luxclub in Lisbon, or the Discotheque in Barcelona. Read more
Billy Gould: The Global Village...more than just a modem. How about, "real life"??
What is generally known as "world" music is a misnomer. Somehow, this category has become associated with a nostalgic, romanticized, and sometimes even condescending view of other (non-US) cultures. To me, the real "world" music consists of those modern bands, who make today's music IN THEIR OWN CONTEXT, but with their own identity.
In these modern times, we have the power to cross-pollinate cultures and ideas more freely than ever. Or, at least, we do in theory. Yet, thanks to the inevitability of big business marketing, that doesn't happen and everything we hear seems to be a derivative of the USA or the UK.
Remember, just because you haven't heard about it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and this is what KOOLARROW Records is all about: bringing light (and ears) to a diverse range of music previously denied any semblance of mass attention. Read more
download.com: Alt-country combined with drum loops and electronic effects? Only in Germany. But the results are surprisingly true to the genre, considering Klaus Patzak's restrained vocals and slow-burn tempo. Patzak's songs simmer with a spaghetti-western feel that makes Broken Radio's music uniquely atmospheric--and unusually fun.
kraak.net: Guillaume Graux first came to our attention with his visuals when we asked him to contribute these on our festival in 2001. Later on we discovered he was also making music. At the start, he was clearly influenced by Mego/Sahko/Touch but within a couple of months this influence became less obvious throughout the introduction of guitars which makes his music a kind of haunting trip somewhere between Pita and Fahey. Somehow threatening but softly gliding into a realm of beauty and comfort. A treasure island for sound research where the real listeners are the real winners. More info and MP3 downloads
mercandede.com: "Mercan Dede believes that when you put digital, electronic sounds together with hand-made, human ones, you can create universal language, capable of uniting old and young, ancient and modern, East and West. It’s a bold claim, but the Turkish-born and Montreal-based musician/producer/DJ has the career and the music to back it up. When he takes the stage with his group Secret Tribe, he hovers at the side behind his turntables and electronics, occasionally picking up a traditional wooden flute, or ney to float in sweet, breathy melodies, while masters of the kanun (zither), clarinet, darbuka (hand drum) and whatever other instruments he’s decided to include that night, ornament his grooves and spin magical, trance melodies to match the whirling of the group’s spectacular dervish dancer, Mira Burke. "
allmusic.com: "Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos) was one of several female singer/songwriters who combined the stark lyrical attack of alternative rock with a distinctly '70s musical approach. Her music falls between the orchestrated meditations of Kate Bush and the stripped-down poetics of Joni Mitchell. In addition to reviving the singer/songwriter traditions of the '70s, Amos revived the piano as a rock & roll instrument. With her 1992 album, Little Earthquakes, Amos built a dedicated following that continued to expand with her second album, Under the Pink." Read more
earlabs.org: "For many years Slovak music of the 20th century has been developing under the pressure of a totalitarian system. Anything new and unconventional in comparison with the set bounds of the culture of the socialist society threatened its strength and safety of the aesthetic criteria in the eyes of the dogmatic cultural policy and therefore was expelled to the margin of the social interest, culture, even beyond the borders of arts" Read more
allmusic.com:"Combining a romantic dreaminess with a massive array of instruments, occasionally heavy guitars, and fragile pop melodies, the Japanese folk-psych band Nagisa Ni Te (On the Beach) is among the most innovative and eclectic groups of the late '90s. Consisting of multi-instrumentalist Shinjii Shibayama, and his partner and musical inspiration Masako Takeda, the group has been compared to a wide range of experimental and emotionally direct groups from the Velvet Underground to Belle and Sebastian." read more
From boomkat.com: How the Los Angeles indie scene of the late 80's, populated by the likes of Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate, Opal and Mazzy Star found sympathy in a Berlin circa 2004 remains a wonderful mystery. Julia Hummer, a German film actress well known in her native country as an ‘onscreen teen wildchild’, together with her musical accomplice, Christopher Uhe, have brought a modern European response to this sound.
In Dude, Where’s My Country?, Moore takes aim at America’s ruling class after September 11, 2001. He looks at the Bush family’s business dealings with the bin Ladens and asks why Osama’s relatives were quickly flown out of the US after the September attacks when the rest of the country was grounded."
greylodge.com: “To win without fighting is best,” Sun Tzu said. For the Chinese philosopher/general war was coeval with life. Tzu viewed the world as a network of combat zones where the stakes are high and struggle is the primary mode of being, where no one is to be trusted, and survival depends on nothing less than unconditional victory. Actors Ron Silver and B.D. Wong narrate this 2,500-year-old work of wisdom that continues to guide and inspire people of all cultures, teaching the principles of strategy required in everything from sports to business to affairs of the heart. Augmented by commentaries and anecdotes, this audio edition maintains the spare, near-poetic tone of the original.
waterlilly.ch: Water Lilly is one of the main figures representing the Swiss electro scene today. Behind the decks since 96 and producing from 99 she materializes a subtle mixture of analogue atmospheric sounds with a pumpy dancefloor feeling. This charming killer-behind the decks lady carries her records worldwide, alike her live performances have graced fine venues such as Luxx in New York City, WMF in Berlin, Batofar in Paris, Luxclub in Lisbon, or the Discotheque in Barcelona. 
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