LimeWire Music Blog

So the economy is in the toilet, the political landscape is a nightmare on both a national and global level, and at times it seems like you can hear the hooves of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundering in the distance. At least we’ve still got music! And even in the early weeks of of 2010, this year is already shaping up to be even better than the last for innovative artists new and old, especially this week, whether those artists aim to get us feeling good ‘n’ greasy with some honky-tonk country or stimulate our gray matter with some artfully deployed ambient sounds.

A Broken Consort – Crow Autumn
Moody Brit Richard Skelton is no stranger to darkly evocative ambient soundscapes; he’s spent years turning them out under a variety of names, including A Broken Consort. But his latest ABC offering, Crow Autumn, finds Skelton pushing himself further than ever, with an electro-acoustic arsenal of sounds that tickle the ear one moment, and tunnel straight toward the core of the soul the next, employing an orchestral sensibility too often lacking in recordings that fall under the “ambient” umbrella.

Xiu Xiu – Dear God, I Hate Myself
Speaking of darkly evocative, Jamie Stewart isn’t about to be accused of pandering to the masses with pop fluff anytime soon. The work he has produced as the artistic core of Xiu Xiu over the last few years has been a constantly shifting whirlwind of sounds and sensibilities, but the one thing admirers could always count on was his dark-night-of-the-soul lyrical outlook and pain-is-my-pen-pal vocal delivery. Rest assured, in case you couldn’t tell from the title, these elements have not altered.

The Title Tracks – It Was Easy
It’s true what they say – the end of one thing is always the beginning of something else. If post-hardcore faves Q And Not U hadn’t decided to call it a day, we might not have had the pleasure of acquainting ourselves with The Title Tracks. This is where former Q And Not U drummer John Davis displays his skills as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who pursues a peppy, power-pop path far removed from the sounds of his old band. Just goes to show you never know what’s around the next corner.

Reckless Kelly – Somewhere In Time
You may know Reckless Kelly as country rockers who like to put plenty of bite in their twang, but this project is a bit of a detour. It’s a tribute to an artist called Pinto Bennett, of the band The Famous Motel Cowboys. It turns out Bennett was hugely influential to Reckless Kelly in the latter’s formative years, and now the band’s paying him back with an album full of their versions of his tunes. The end result is that Reckless Kelly dips into more of an old-school honky-tonkin’ sound than ever before, which is no bad thing.