Stumbling around the internet in search of music is a pastime of mine. There’s a lot of methods to scrape out the strange & new nuggets from around the web. A ton of sites offer free downloads, contained within mailers or in the nooks and crannies of their websites. A few of my favorites do come from a email lists: Oh My Rockness deals out a handful & Filter gives you one each Monday when they send out their email list.

A lot of times, I’ll just grab whatever freebies the web has to offer, shove them in my iTunes and let random work its magic. Via this method a lot of weird and interesting things that I probably wouldn’t have give the proper time to have gotten my ear. This week I’ve assaulted several times by The Death Set and their song ‘Negative Thinking’. From the Kraftwerk-by-way-of-an-Iowa-methlab drum programming to the earnestly fuzzy vocals, the song drips with a minimalist intensity that, once adjusted to, is inescapably charming. Each time the song would pop on, the chopped up samples scattered over the intro would always make me think that early 90’s industrial mp3’s had found their way into my library*. Once the buzzsaw guitars appear the whole affair propels itself forward, propped up on the chanting vocals and an almost calming layer of keyboard. Maybe they’re something like Atari Teenage Riot for the modern days, who knows, but like most of the other bands from Baltimore that have popped up on the radar lately…the key is the jittery, infectious fun.

The Death Set follows that unspoken citywide manifesto to a T.

The Death Set - Negative Thinking

* As a result of this post, I will now devote my free time to writing a virus that forcibly downloads Front 242 & really early Thrill Kill Kult onto your computer. Look for it 4th quarter ‘08.

I’m a fan of mashups just everyone else. Audiobytes For Autobots is a charming new addition to the scene (anyone with a penchant for sampling the Talking Heads that much is o.k. with me). The new Girl Talk is enjoyable enough, a bit of a retread of the same concepts…but fun none the less. We could even trace it back to 2 Many DJ’s if you feel like digging through to the vintage.

But, in these modern times, we need more mashups. This year has seen the release of The Cool Kids debut EP Bakesale, another fantastic feat of Chicago hip-hop. This fun bit of minimalist hip-hop shares the same title as 1994’s proto-indie classic Sebadoh release. See what I’m getting at?

Someone needs to bring the two together. Now, my song chopping skills are intensely rusty otherwise I’d screw this up myself. Instead, I’m reaching out to you, Internet, to take on the task. There’s got to be someone out there with the time and the chops to mix some of Lou Barlow’s manic lyrics with the sparse beeps and claps from Chuck Inglish’s production.

Pretty please?

There’s even 2 mp3’s down here to get the ball rolling.

I look forward to what you have to offer, Anonymous Internets.

The Cool Kids - What Up Man?

Sebadoh - License To Confuse

Arthur Magazine is a fantastically bizarre blip of a free publication. Nothing else really exists like it and at the moment the fate of the magazine is in jeopardy. When Jay Babcock, present manager of the mag, bought out the magazine from his ex-partner, he landed himself in a tough financial place. The magazine is looking to collect $20,000 by the first of July, in order to have enough funds to resume publication. At the time of posting, they’re close — just $317.00 away from the final goal. Scrape together a few bucks to give to them via Paypal.Though they’re close to the desired goal, anything above the line can and will help.

Arthur is a geologic sample from far below the surface of any scene. Reading the magazine brings on a grand sugar rush reminder that a million bands will spend their lives intensely focused on music that will fly below the collective radar. I have to tip my hat to any mag that’ll devote as many words as they do to noise music, doom metal, and all things on the periphery.

One of the key features that is worth reading each and every issue is Bull Tongue, a column by Sonic Youth grand master Thurston Moore and Byron Coley (contributor to another great publication Wire Magazine). Each month they dig through and discuss piles of strange records in the most charmingly relaxed manner. A lot of times people are forced to wax pretentious about the obscure and the weird, but Bull Tongue always does so in an breezy manner.

Arthur keeps an archive of recent issues up on the site in PDF form. Go poke through and read some of the fantastic words they’ve assembled over the years. If you like, give a little money to keep a unique entity afloat.

Ditherer is by far one of the more challenging albums I’ve encountered this year. There are far more outwardly bizarre records that have been and will be released this year, but Fog has slipped us something of a wolf in pop music’s clothing. Contained in the expanse of Ditherer are songs that feel somewhat normal, but are propelled by some psychotic veneer. As an album, it shifts gears compulsively; blindly slipping between the twitchy clatter of Inflatable Ape to the lazy mourning of What’s Up Freaks.

I initially struggled with this album, constantly wanting to write it off for a short attention span and a jarring lyrical sense of humor. Little spastic touches like the deranged rising scale riff in the middle of I Have Been Wronged give light to the type of semi-charming psychosis that the album exhibits. The learning curve, even for one who’s got an ear for this kind of skewed outlook, is a little tough. I found myself charmed by one song at a time, listening to that track alone in the mindset that I’d never crack the riddle of the other 10 tracks. Slowly, a new song would catch my ear and I’d decode the foreign melody.

Albums, like this, that come clear over time, after a challenge of repeated listen are ultimately rewarding ones.

Check out these live sets from University of Minnesota’s Radio K which features both a six song set of Andrew Broder solo as well as a three song set with the full band.

Also an Onion AV Club interview with the trio from late 2007.

Fog - Your Beef Is Mine

An update to earlier post regarding the tantalizingly ‘free’ Sigur Rós & Björk show to be held in Reykjavik this weekend (June 28th). The good folks at National Geographic will be webcasting the show for all to see.

Tune into National Geographic Music from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET (begins at 8 p.m. BST/London or 7 p.m. GMT/Reykjavik) to see, as they put it on their site…”some Björkage“.

National Geographic was never good at jokes.

And, please, don’t make Sigur Rós into a verb.