Shock Mountain

I’m majorly disappointed that Skeletonbreath released a new album back in May without my knowledge. After stumbling upon them in some dark corner of Last.fm, I eventually tracked down their debut album, Louise, with the help of a now-deleted last.fm user. Blown away by their incredibly unique sound as well as their overwhelming energy, I could not wait to hear any new material. Finally, the day has come, months too late, to hear new Skeletonbreath music, still tough to describe and still with the energy of an army of punk bands. Describing themselves as a “disco-prog-metal-meets-noise-surf-Klezmer-bass-drum-violin-trio”, Skeletonbreath plays something which is just about spot on with that description. Fans of any mentioned genre, as well as fans of gypsy punk will go apeshit over this. Pretty much if you like music, you will go apeshit over this. It’s great to see such an incredible band get more exposure, as their previous album went drastically underheard. I posted it on an old blog of mine a while back, if people seem to be liking this, I’ll throw that one up too.

MySpace

Buy

-Max

J.G. Thirlwell is a man with many names. He is probably best known under his moniker Foetus, but there are many variations on the name. Anyway, this is the official soundtrack to the popular show The Venture Bros., which is a satire on classic cartoons, mainly Johnny Quest. The music itself is very lush and contains too many instruments to list (even if I did know what they were). I encourage you to download this even if you aren’t a fan of the show.

- James

Myspace

Buy

Clara Rockmore is recognized as, without a doubt, the most talented performer of the Theremin of all time. Most people are familiar with the eerie sound of the electonic instruement in movie soundtracks. Two metal antenaas function to detect the position of the players hands and the musician must use one hand to control volume and another for pitch. I believe that the machine is secretly controlled by magic. This album is comprised of Clara playing the Theremin with piano in the background. This album consists of classical music that she learned to appreciate in her youth when she was taught violin by Leopold Auer. Clara brings new life to the work of composers long since passed with a machine that many of them could not have imagined in their wildest dreams.

Watch a video of Clara performing here.