Stocking Stuffers

Anyone who knows Brittany and I, knows about Beautiful Notions. Born out of an escape from the workload and frustrations of architecture school, we've been remaking/ruining perfectly good songs for four years now.

Now translated to the working architecture world about 1,700 miles away, we've rekindled our lo-fi hack-job approach to musical creation. Our next victims are of the holiday variety and we're excited to officially announce our latest project: the yet-to-be-title Christmas album. Keep your eyes open for a December "bad Christmas sweater CD release party" and enjoy this teaser:

_Michael

Lovely little morsels

It's been a bit of a hiatus from the blog world. Not so much that I've been uninspired or uninterested, just a little busy. Luckily, I still get a daily listen into the music world (while doing other work) whether through following about 20 blogs, getting acquainted with the weeks new releases on tuesdays, or reading up in magazines. I really love finding new artists, albums and sounds. Unfortunately, for every enjoyable song I hear, I probably sit through at least portions of twenty truly terrible ones. Lucky for you, you won't find in this blog post any of those musical equivalents of a class of third graders learning "hot cross buns" on the recorder.

Recently I've been fortunate to stumble upon three new bands that I'm excited to share. First up: Free Energy out of Philly. I think they had a song featured on IMEEM at some point and it really struck me. This is that music that just feels good to me. It's fairly simple and playful and has those shades of Weezer accessibility that I remember first introducing me to a serious love of music when I was a young lad in Kansas. They recently had a west coast tour fall through but said they'll probably be in Cali in early 2010. Should be a fun show.

Free Energy - Dream City


Free Energy - Free Energy

Oh man do I love this band this week. Even better is the fact that I have tickets to see them at the Rickshaw Stop on November 22 for a mere $10. Freelance Whales are out of Queens and put out a beautiful album, Weathervanes, recently. Chock full of songs influenced by the likes of Sufjan Stevens and The Postal Service and just a great listen.

Freelance Whales - Location


Freelance Whales - Generator ^ 2nd Floor

Quebec Antique released their debut album, The Abbey Tapes, and are relatively unknown out of Oregon, Texas. It's another really beautiful album, much sleepier and moody than the previous two, but check out the songs on their myspace page and I'm sure you'll really appreciate the build of their music and the swelling textures.

Quebec Antique - Right As Rain

_Michael