LimeWire Music Blog

Halloween has ended, and the parade of ghouls and goblins has passed us by. But now the days grow shorter, the air colder and more bitter, and our pre-holiday-season anxiety just that much more pronounced. What can soothe our itchy psyches during this uncomfortable time? Well, just this week we’ve got plenty of poultice for the soul on tap, from a warm-blooded, open-hearted troubadour to some star-quality practitioners of twinkly, groove-kissed ’80s-esque pop, some sci-fi hip-hop, and a treasure trove of lost gems from old lo-fi fave.

Tigercity – Ancient Lover
You would think by now things would have at least shifted over to Greenpoint or Clinton Hill or something, but the popularity of Tigercity seems to confirm the fact that hot new indie bands are still required to call Williamsburg home. In their case, maybe it’s because the trio’s blend of jheri-curls-and-keytars New Jack R&B and synth-laden, ’80s-style pop a la Howard Jones — as displayed on their first full-length — would find them getting their asses kicked in, say, Bay Ridge. Catch them now before the Behind the Music-style decadence sets in and they’re forced to move to L.A. to “get their heads together.”

Will Stratton – No Wonder
With his soft, murmuring vocals, lambent acoustic guitar patterns, and dreamy tunes, young troubadour Will Stratton mines a loner-balladeer feel somewhere between Nick Drake and Red House Painters-era Mark Kozelek. In an era where it seems like you’ve got to be either abrasive, ironic, or self-consciously psychedelic to get a leg up, is there room for an earnest guy with a sackful of affecting tunes and a downright romantic approach to music-making? Answer in the affirmative, at least for yourself, and start the ball rolling in the right direction.

Gift of Gab – Escape 2 Mars
It appears that being half of Blackalicious and a key member of the Quannum Collective isn’t quite enough to keep Gift of Gab (known to the U.S. government as Tim Parker) busy. While we’re not exactly sure where GoG finds the time to keep a consistently fruitful solo career going, science-fiction-soaked, synthesizer-caked, trippy-as-a-mofo underground hip-hop gems like Escape 2 Mars make us awfully glad he does. Pals like Del tha Funkee Homosapien and some Quannum cohorts are along for the ride too.

Guided By Voices – Suitcase 3: Up We Go Now
Speaking of “where does he find the time,” let us return yet again to the case of Robert “Inactivity is the Enemy” Pollard. Good gravy, it was surely just a couple of weeks ago when we were marveling in this very spot about the Guided By Voices founder’s compulsion to release a new batch of tunes every 30 seconds, via his kazillion post-GBV projects. Did you really think that meant he wouldn’t follow up on the first two volumes of the Suitcase series, with a third quadruple-length set of GBV rarities, demos, and other assorted ephemera? And more to our purpose here, do you imagine for a moment that it won’t be worth hearing? We thought not.