About Jeff
A NY born boy with a great drive for all things alternative. Throughout his career to date, Mr Rosenstock has gone from strength to progressive strength. His time with the bands Bomb The Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches through the mid to late 00's was in no way lazy, releasing upwards of 6 LPs collectively with the bands and in his (what I can presume little) spare time starting the first donation based record label Quote Unquote Records. QUR has been steadily releasing brilliant music ever since its creation, from bands such as the amazing Hard Girls which I am a recent and extremely grateful convert to.
Now lets get into the proper juicy stuff, his 3 solo releases; I Look Like Shit, We Cool? and WORRY (pictured chronologically below). ILLS and WE show the honing of his craft, each LP growing in style and finesse, taking whats brilliant and carrying that forward. His latest release which came out just last October was how I first got to find out about his music, mainly by the track Festival Song which popped up on the ever current KVRX. Keeping all the Pop-Punk goodness from his previous releases and delivering just short of 3 minutes of bouncy, passionate tuneage for your ears. One of the lead singles Blast Damage Days is featured below so be sure to check it out. Overall WORRY shows that his talent is no where close to slowing down and I'm 100% behind wherever he chooses to go next. Keep up the good work!
This new Modern Pleasure track has got summer festival vibes written all over it. Messina which was released by the Leeds 5 piece just a few days ago is full of jangly guitars and breezy vocals that are perfect for a June afternoon sitting on the sunny grass at Isle Of Wight festival (or wherever) with a cold fruity little number in your hand. Alternatively it is great to listen to sitting at home on a miserable tuesday day and just dreaming of a warmer climate....either or. Enjoy!
As I hope you can tell, I have had a bit of a re-brand of this blog. Musicopedia no longer....now The Beacon, I think it looks and sounds nicer, more professional and all that good stuff. I hope you like it too. Anyway, on with the feature:
This month I want the whole world to know about Jessica Lea Mayfield and fall for her music as hard as I have. She is a 26 year old singer songwriter from Kent, Ohio and has released 4 solo and one joint album to date. Yes she is incredibly prolific.
Her first released material back in 2005 was called White Lies and she released it under the name of Chittlin'. The album is very much rooted in folk/roots sounds with a splash of Country here and there. Finding out she made this when she was a teenager shows how talented she was from such a young age.
Following that came her first release under her birth name called With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. The difference between her first and second album (and so far all following releases to date) is the progression and experimentation that is added and grown with each piece of music she releases. WBSH shows JLM keeping the great guitar techniques from the previous but mixing and messing with vocal effects and adding other more electronical sounds and techniques to the music. One of many of my favourite tracks off of the album is Bible Days which has haunting yet melodic vocals that I find oddly hypnotic.
Her next release was Tell Me which was released in early 2011 and is her most commercially popular LP to date. On first listen I noticed a clear difference with the vocals (than from the previous work), possibly how they were recorded, they sounded slightly brighter, definitely clearer, the instrumentation sounds more refined and you can tell she is getting even closer to truly becoming a master of her instruments.
The latest solo release 'Make My Head Sing...' is a turn down a different alley in terms of sound. If the previous LP was JLM sounding slightly 'pop' this has dirty grunge written (or wiped) all over it. Straight off from the first track 'Oblivious' you can tell, everything has a darker, more dulled down sound with catchy chugging guitars and more down heartened vocals. This album has to be my favourite from JLM, I think it includes the bits and pieces that I loved from each of her previous albums and combines them to create this epic piece of music.
JLMs latest musical venture is with Seth Avett (from The Avett Brothers fame) They have released a 12 track album of Elliot Smith covers. Prior to this LP I hadn't really heard much music from Elliot Smith, only references made of him from people in movies and TV trying to sound cool. But these two singers make the songs feel so heartfelt and full of emotion I can imagine that they are in a relationship singing the songs into each others eyes. Beautiful performances all round.
Wherever she goes next, I know it is going to be magical and truly exciting. Check out the video below for some live tunes. She is a talent and hopefully keeps making stuff for years to come. Enjoy!
To add even more buzz for their début album, Wolf Alice have released Freazy about a day ago. It is less rocky and has more of a pop element compared to the other tracks they have released so it should make for a nice mixed selection of tracks on an expectedly great first album. From their ever growing fan base on both sides of the pond, I think Wolf Alice are going to be a big big act and seeing as it is festival season they are going to rise and rise up that line up bill. Perfect sound for summer time sunshine. Hopefully their album holds up against the hype. Enjoy!
This track came to me out of the blue when I was listening to KSMT radio this morning, for like 5 random minutes the vocals really caught my attention. Mona Lisa is the Dead Saras latest released single from their third album and it has edges of rockier tones but after listening to some of their previous releases, I was pleased to hear they have heavier tones and even more powerful vocals. I hope you all agree that these guys are an exciting band and I look forward to listening to their albums over and over again. Enjoy!
