i’m going to make a website this weekend and start posting all of the songs i’ve ever made ever on it. it’s going to be the comprehensive putay song catalog. everything will be available to download. it’ll all be free. and after that i’m going to post everything new that i do as well. i’m taking all of the terrible pressures of commerce out of making jams.
no sweats. - Matt Pusti

Matt Pusti makes some of my favorite music in the universe. He’s also making my music some of my favorite music in the universe.

Matt’s obsession with noise laces his hefty electronic music with subtle delicacies no one should be forced to live without.  You may know him as “Makeup and Vanity Set” … RIP.

After some initial difficulty¹, Matt has put up a website of his ‘jams.’ Do yourself a favor and check it out.

1. In matt’s tumblr blog, he cites the following areas of difficulty

1 the amount of songs versus how much webspace i have is sort of an issue. it’s a lot of jams. 2 writing out all of the code for the links will probably take me forever and i really didn’t have any time to do it this weekend. 3 the last makeup and vanity set record was (is) technically supposed to be released on matt and paul’s cassette tape label, so i’m sort of hesistant to put that online since i committed to releasing it with them.

Photo by Brittany Pyle

Elsinore, of Champaign, Illinois, does something new in a surprisingly familiar way. Maybe new is the wrong word to use, but there are only a handful of bands¹ doing something similar to what Elsinore does.

The band is not afraid to embrace the lost art of harmony. At times they have more part harmony than I’ve heard since my high school choir days. Thank heavens the pitch is perfect or this would be intolerable. They really pull it off.

Their song Landlocked is close to 7 minutes long. Though I’m not a fan of big, fluffy, lengthy and epic song segments without epic vocals to match, I listened to this whole song on accident without realizing it was happening. I think that means they did a good job. Speaking of vocals, Ryan Groff’s lead vocals are crystal-clear and pleasantly high. They’re especially enticing when you catch some of their smarty-pants lyrics².

Listening to Groff’s vocals coupled with the interesting sound of their instrumentation, I can’t help but imagine I’m watching a new Wes Anderson film. Like most of the other parallels I’ve drawn, it’s more of a tip of the hat than a full-body check.

Here and there they get this weird old-timey feel. Sometimes I fancy I’m listening to Elton John pretend to be a player piano somewhere in the old west.

Really neat band, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of these guys.

1. See The Snake, The Cross, The Crown, The Shins
2. “landlocked by cash crops” etc.

I’m getting old. I haven’t enjoyed going to shows for years. When I do venture out into society to observe live music, I take special pains to miss the opening bands and catch the mid section of the set I want to see. I have literally seen The Cure play and wondered when their set was going to end. Needless to say, it’s gotten pretty bad.

That’s why I am so astounded by Gone City. The first time I saw them play I totally lost it. There set feels like 5 minutes of a good dream to me. I danced and clapped and completely forgot that my aging bones start to ache when I’ve been standing for more than 10 minutes.

Mike Flynn, Paul Brantley, Jesse Palmer, and Billy Gemmill seem to have a firm grasp on killing it. This band specializes in catchy, thick, straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll and I cannot get enough. They only have two songs up on their myspace; I guarantee you will be moving within the first measure of their song Devil’s Got My Soul. At first glance, the message seems a little sketchy, but upon closer examination the song isn’t nearly as evil as it lets on. Devil’s Got My Soul is featured in a yet unreleased independent horror film.

Take a look at their EPK. Seriously, somebody sign these dudes so I can single handedly buy all their records.

Send me an email about your favorite unsigned artist and maybe I’ll feature them next week.