Author: Ryan Dunn

An arresting set of music. Enjoy.

Nineteen songs; varying shades of Haloweenness. You will find a range of styles here (yes, including Salem), but you will not find “Monster Mash”, sorry. Nor will there will be any Kanye West (sorry “Monster” fans), but there is one rap verse.

Enjoy, if you dare.

Similar to his Found Songs LP from 2009, Ólafur Arnalds has released Living Room Songs, a project recorded over the course of one week from the bedroom of his Reykjavík apartment, and released for free as each song was finished.

This time, however, he included videos of each recording to accompany the music. The album will be packaged and released in high-quality form later this year. You can pre-order it here, and receive a free postcard.

Enjoy the album on his website, and have a look at the genesis of these beautiful compositions below…

Day 1 “Fyrsta”

Day 2 “Near Light”

Day 3 “Film Credits”

Day 4 “Tomorrow’s Song”

Day 5 “Ágúst”

Day 6 “Lag Fyrir Ömmu”

Day 7 “This Place is a Shelter”

On October 10, 2011, Matthew Herbert will release his latest LP entitled “One Pig.” According to his label’s website, it is an album “made entirely from recordings of a modern pig’s life cycle from birth to plate.”

I was intrigued with the concept on a number of levels, so decided to give a listen to the meaning behind the project.

I left the video not wholly convinced of his motives. I think Matthew is purposefully standing in the gray area of the matter, and it’s a win/win for him in this case.

One one hand, he has an easy out as an artist to say he is simply observing and presenting his emotional reaction to a realism he has no control over. Editorially he gets to present the life cycle of a food product typically very distant from its consumers.

On the other hand, however, he is also sensationalizing the process to a degree. Even if his money is going to charity (not sure whether it is), having an EP of Micachu remixes crop up as a PR strategy suddenly turns an austere, introspective set of field recordings into a flavor of the month musical romp through the inevitable pipeline of hipsterdom.

Here is an iTunes link where you can preview the album and preorder if you can unearth the beauty beneath its grating tone:

Preview Album.

Cass McCombs’ album “Wit’s End,” came out back in April, and it’s been a slow burn for me. My apathy had nothing to do with how laid back, quiet, reserved and melancholic it was, because I rather like all of those qualities in an album. I think it may have been the general coating of malaise spread over top of everything, a suffocating feeling like sleeping with a garbage bag for a blanket.

However, in returning to the album a couple of months later—and a couple of months wiser—I now find beauty in the despondence, comfort in its distance. And the above video for lead track and single, “County Line,” expresses that tone perfectly. What I first construed as depressed alienation I now embrace as the echo of a comforting voice across a windless field.

I intend to wrap myself up in this album for a little while, and see how it fits. The good news is that it’s not a garbage bag for a blanket after all, more like a coarse but cozy wool. Hard to sell that to you as Summer breathes down our neck, but the nights can get chilly.