Music Ihde Listen to

“I am a corpse, you are a corpse.                                                                         We’re courageous corpses moving without a course.”

To my great delight, Mimicking Birds are at it again with a new single entitled “Dead Weight.” 

Having just announced a long string of summer tour dates (Des Moines being the closest stop for us Minnesotans), any reasonable person might expect to find a new album on the horizon, but seeing as the band is only a year removed from the release of their formidable sophomore album “Eons,” I could see this single serving as the extent of the band’s promotional holdover until their inevitable third record (either way, no complaints here). 

Yesterday, the music world received some very, very fortunate news. Valley Maker, the brainchild of Austin Crane (a Seattle singer-songwriter by way of South Carolina), has signed with Brick Lane Records and will be announcing a new album (slated to release later this summer) in the days to come. 

For anyone who had the distinct pleasure of listening to Valley Maker’s most recent effort, “Yes, I Know I’ve Loved This World,” this is big news, and even more so considering how cloudy the future of this project once was. Citing unease with the way that “YIKILTW” was recorded--and a discomfort with the final product that was ultimately released--Crane took the record down from the group’s BandCamp page amidst fan-wide acclaim. Although this move initially felt knee-jerk and misguided, it came with a promise that the reworking of the album’s songs (accompanied by a move to Seattle) would lead to the brightest possible future for the band. As difficult as it was for myself and the fanbase at large to understand why a nearly perfect album deserved a death sentence, we put our collective faith in Crane and his decision, understanding how important and necessary this sort of control over one’s art can be.

With yesterday’s announcement, and a new album looming, the time has finally arrived for Valley Maker to begin making waves once again, and I--along with so many others--could not be more ready to hear what Crane has waiting for us up his sleeve. 

SEOUL is a group that I hadn’t heard of before stumbling across them earlier this week on Spotify, but after listening through their debut album, “I Become a Shade,” I believe that I may have finally found the group to fill the Snakadaktal-sized hole in my musical heart.

Things are looking up for the residents of Cleveland, OH. Not only are LeBron, Delly, and the rest of the banged up Cavaliers leading the NBA Finals 2-1 (halfway to bringing the city its first championship in 51 years), but local indie-rockers The Lighthouse and the Whaler are gearing up for the August 28th release of the their 3rd album, “Mont Royal.” 

Earlier this week, the first single off of the new record, “I Want to Feel Alive” was released by Roll Call Records, and even though the formula doesn’t stray far from Michael LoPresti and co’s signature sound, the effects of the marriage with Roll Call are felt in the form of noticeable gains in production quality. Although the band has never been hindered by their indie sound, fine tuning of this sort can only continue to add to the group’s allure--helping them to garner the larger national audience that they surely deserve. 

COIN--A trendy new group from Nashville, TN that offer an altogether unique take on a genre (pop-rock) that has been markedly watered down over the past decade. Their self-titled debut is out this week on Columbia Records, and if you’re not too hipster to listen to anything (regardless of how cleverly it’s written) that could potentially be labeled as “catchy” or “radio friendly,” you’ll find your head bobbing along to COIN’s dance-inspiring hooks in no time at all.