Indie Music Universe

White Apple Tree consist of two young brothers with a desire and passion to play music for the world.  The addition of the drummer and bass player complete the sound.  They have over 2,900,000 plays, 2,000,000 profile views on MySpace and 36,000 friends.  They are often compared to Shiny Toy Guns, Coldplay or The Faint, blending blasting dance beats with melodic piano and vocal melodies.  The live show is a high energy performance that brings everybody to the floor.

Their sound has been described as eclectic, complex, occasionally awkward and witty. Although Ryan Lawhon, with brother Taylor Lawhon and drummer Stefan Mac are based out of Northern San Diego and South Orange County, their music is far from the Southern California surf rock norm.  With lush ambient guitars, quirky synths and the occasional “four on the floor” kick, White Apple Tree has created a unique and refreshing take on modern electronic music.

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Popularity: unranked [?]

While most bands only dream of finding the right chemistry, Los Angeles-based duo Mad Planet oozed it from the very beginning.  Vocalist/bassist Cooper Gillespie and drummer Greg Gordon were bartending at the now defunct Hollywood nightclub Safari Sam’s when sparks flew–both musically and romantically–and they decided to pair up as a couple and a band.

The duo immediately discovered a shared love of trip-hop, rock and jazz. “We wanted to go in more of a Massive Attack, Portishead direction,” says Gordon, who had previously been a member of the Nervous Return, a punk-rock outfit that toured with the likes of Blink 182 and No Doubt.  Gillespie had fronted Bang Sugar Bang, an aggressive punk-rock trio, and felt compelled to try something new.

Mad Planet began recording their debut album in early 2009, using their Silver Lake apartment as a studio.  Gillespie and Gordon wanted to craft their own distinct sound and turn their musical vision into a reality, so they decided to record and produce the album themselves.  “It felt great to do everything just the way we wanted it,” says Gillespie.

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Slutterhouse could be described as an outlandish crossover between underground electronica, mainstream club music, and rock n’ roll.  Most importantly though, Slutterhouse’s sound is the result of an alliance/tension between two very different personalities: Rabih Mick Salloum and Nabil Saliba.

Originally from Beirut and based in Paris, Slutterhouse released their debut album Made in Dance in the Middle East last fall; it was described by Time Out Magazine as “one of the finest electro-pop albums this critic has heard since Gary Numan first donned eye-shadow.” Slutterhouse’s debut record received both critical and public acclaim, while the band was featured in prestigious magazines such as ELLE and The Daily Star, and even made the cover of the February 2010 issue of Lifestyle Magazine.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

By Kristin Anderson

Hello my Indie lovers, I have some news from the mothership.  I have made contact again with a new species of music.  This time having delved into an electric candlelit dream of classical revelation and electronic revolution. 

TEALIGHTS is an indie-electronica band with classical infusions founded in June 2008. Early into its conception, the band found itself experimenting with vox harmonies, electronic beats, live drums, synths, pedals, keyboard, guitar, bass, cello, flute, melodica, and bells. Mary's luminous brand of vocals twined with lead singer Nancy's delicate, droning tone sets the perfect balance for Tealights. To accentuate Mikey's electronic brilliance, Brett creates another dimension using gadgets and live drums.

Tealights began debuting their sound locally in September 2008 and have grasped comparisons to the likes of The Cranberries and Portishead. They have since graced the stage as opening acts for the Octopus Project, Parenthetical Girls, the Evangelicals, Starfucker, and Asobi Seksu. In March 2009, Tealights officially released their demo. The official debut EP entitled Take Us By Sea will be released on Sept 29 at the Drunken Unicorn, followed by an east coast tour in October and southwest tour in November.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

SPACE IS THE FACE-THE SCIENCE NONFICTION OF KOKO DOZO

KOKO DOZO are a Global Funktronica Duo from New York City by way of Outer Space!

Polarity/1, multi-instrumentalist/arranger/composer/producer, makes songs without borders and beats for curved dancefloor using REAL SPACE-AGE COMPUTERS! In his laboratory cave he grinds up shards of lost cultural artifacts, barks and growls of ghosts in machines and luminescent sarcastic spaghetti. Then he adds a pinch or two of the house special surreal spice. P/1 has four cult classic CDs of both electro-folk songs and all-instrumental electronica on subTEKst Recordings including one by Audioplasm. He also composes for film and for performances by Battery Dance Company and Quorum Ballet of Lisbon.

Out of this smoking brew flies Inter-Galactic Empress Amy Douglas who vaporizes the earwax of her victims with four and a half octaves worth of nuclear acid lung power. A punky songwriting funk-ette who sharpened her teeth on Earth at downtown NYC legendary music haunts, including the notorious Squeezebox House Band where she played keys and did a whole lot of singing,  she has worked with numerous legends from George Clinton to the late great Illinois Jacquet. From jazz to funk to punk, there is nothing her tongue hasn’t torched.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Celldweller is a Detroit, Michigan based rock band that was created by artist, performer, producer, songwriter, programmer, and remixer Klayton, the former frontman and songwriter of the bands Circle of Dust and Argyle Park.

Klayton began as a producer pseudonym in the early 90’s. Now, over a decade later, he uses the name to deliver his vision of progressively combining multiple genres of music. Taking a unique approach to mixing styles, Celldweller fuses the electronics of drum & bass and techno, with rock and orchestral elements, meshing the synthetic and the organic, darkness with beauty, into a cohesive blend entirely its own. Celldweller songs have frequently appeared in several movies, trailers, television shows, and video games.

Klayton had gained a devoted cult following in the mid 90s because of his industrial metal band Circle of Dust. After the dissolution of that band, Klayton concurrently released both a posthumous collection of reworked Circle of Dust leftovers titled Disengage and an album for a new project, Angeldust, created in conjunction with illusionist Criss Angel. Both albums demonstrated Klayton's shift away from industrial metal and towards more goth and darkwave influences, incorporating richer electronic instrumentation and greater emphasis on melody. This change in style was a major step toward the sound that would come to define Celldweller's output.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

The Tee-V crew from Threadless.com sits down backstage with Mitchell Scott and Tim Hoey of Cut Copy as they answer some questions courtesy of the Threadless community.

Cut Copy is a band from Melbourne, Australia. Their sound, often labeled as dance punk and/or electropop, draws considerable influence from 80s new wave and post-punk genres.

Their latest album, In Ghost Colours, was very well received by fans and music critics.  Entertainment Weekly (p.117) states:

"COLOURS’ instant anthems crackle with soaring vocals and fanciful, fluttering synths that rival the creations of Hot Chip…"

Popularity: 2% [?]

Blind Man’s Colour, a Experimental / Psychedelic / Ambient band hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida, rose from relative obscurity to a band to look out for in 2009 after a simple promo post on Kanye West’s blog.

The band’s sound, according to Indie Rock Cafe, can best be described as dreamy, trippy, chorus laden and synthesized electro pop with obvious influences from Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Animal Collective.

Blind Man’s Colour consists of Kyle Wyss and Orhan Chettri, who began playing together since they were both in the 8th grade.  The two have released a number of self-produced mixes of their music over the years, but have yet to make an official release — which, by the way, is currently in the works.  You can, however, download their 4 song EP titled The Rainbow Faces on their blog here. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8% [?]