Griff says; bringen Sie mir meinen Glockenspiel!

I was browsing through the CLLCT website when I noticed that 'A Pile Of Lo-fi!' (featured here previously on Streetlamp) have recently released the latest volume, number 6 since you ask, of their free, lo-fi, indie-music taster series. As always it's well worth a listen and contains a number of previous Streetlamp recommendations such as shalloboi, Wisdom Tooth and Tinyfolk. I also noticed that this volume contains an excellent song, Blue Highways, by the criminally under-rated Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. For those of you who dont know, the group’s principal members are Jasmine Dreame Wagner and Alex Wilson (pictured) who retreated to Wagner’s childhood home in the woods to record chilling lo-fi lullabies and country dream songs. As well as this track for A Pile of Lo-fi, a new album, reportedly to be titled Buttermilk Channel, is also apparently in the offing. We look forward to that and as soon as we know more we'll post it on here. In the meantime, I also noticed that Cabinet of Natural Curiosities have made a sweet, home-made video for their absolutely outstanding song Owllullaby from the Searchlight Needles album. This song has been a firm favourite of mine for a while now and so I need little or no excuse to post the video (below).



I hope you loved that as much as I do. A free MP3 of the song can be downloaded from the band's last.fm page and their official website (where you can also order the band's CDs).

Watching that video with it's cute, baby-blue glockenspiel instantly reminded me of a few other videos by Streetlamp favourites. You see, I own that self same brand and colour of glock and, therefore, I can't help but notice when it pops up on screen. For no other reason than that, I'd like to share some of these videos with you tonight. First of all there's Scotland's own Camera Obscura with their acoustic cover of 'Some Guys Have All The Luck', hastily filmed, and nicely intimate for that, in a camper van at the Connect festival in Inveraray in 2008.



Did you spot the glock? Here it is again, in another charming, low-budget video, this time by Spanish indie-pop darlings Mittens (previously featured here on Streetlamp). On this occasion it is part of a perfectly-performed, synchronised glock display, which is sure to amaze and delight.



Finally, I'm going to feature a video which we've shown before on Streetlamp but which I'm posting again as Ray and I both love it. This time it's Guillermo of Mittens in his other guise of Wild Honey (featured here previously on Streetlamp). This is the fantastic Isabella. Now play that glock!




Griff
xx

Griff says; Grab a pile of lo-fi!

Lo-fi is a rather inexact term, don't you think? As it defines the recording technique of the music rather than the actual genre it does admit an awfully broad spectrum of styles. This can make the search for the particular brand of lo-fi that you favour a rather exhausting one. We here at 'The Streetlamp' are here to help you out on this quest and today's tip for the enthusiastic DIY music aficionado is; "Grab yourself a pile of lo-fi!"




A Pile of Lo-fi! is a free monthly compilation series celebrating the creativity, ingenuity and resourcefulness of independent artists and features music that is hosted and supported by CLLCT.
A Pile of Lo-fi! Vol. I was released in April 2010 and featured songs by the likes of Tinyfolk and Wisdom Tooth.
Vol. II, released just one month later, featured songs by Garden on a Trampoline, One Beer Prophet and boy scouts, as well as songs from returning artists such as Accordion Boy and Dressed like Wolves.
Today, we're celebrating A Pile of Lo-fi! Vol. III, which was released on 15 June.


To give you a taster of the sort of quality you can expect on the compilations we've chosen our two favourites tracks and given them the 'Streetlamp' video treatment.
First off we have the excellent primitive pop sound of 'Blind For You' by Shalloboi, which will soon have you shimmying with it's classic I-IV-V chord structure and splashy tambourine beats:


Now we give you the dreamy 'Flashing Lights Have Ended Now' by Foxes in Fiction.



Both excellent, I'm sure you'll agree. Now go and check out more from both of these prolific and inventive artists and, of course, anything else that takes your fancy from Vol. III. And remember, for truly independent artists, every song you download and share, every tweet you retweet and every blog post you reblog, helps to ensure that the people who make the music you love will continue to make music for you to love another day.

For any musicians out there, submissions for future volumes of 'A Pile of Lo-fi!' may be sent to: apileoflofi@gmail.com
All you have to do to contribute is have a recording of one song and either attach it in an email or post it elsewhere and send a link. With advances in home recording, the definition of lo-fi is subjective, so there’s no need to think your recording is too rough or too shiny. It’s all about real folks sharing homemade music.
A Pile of Lo-fi! can also be found on myspace

Griff
xx