Billie The Vision and The Dancers - I Used To Wander These Streets
In any fair and just world Billie The Vision and The Dancers would be sitting pretty with a nice contract and adoring fans. Or maybe the Swedish band likes giving their albums away. In any case, this is the fourth free and legal online album from one of my favorite artists featured on Free Albums Galore
I Used to Wander These Streets is another excellent album of soft folk-rock tracks. It actually may be a little more mellow and wistful than their other efforts…if that is even possible. Lars Lindquist carries songwriting duties and vocals admirably on both upbeat treats like “Lily Fro m The Middleway Street” and melancholy ballads like “Relay Race”. One interesting surprise is the pretty “Liar and a Thief” that manages to throw in a nice turnabout on a Guns and Roses line. If you already checked out the other albums by this band you will want this one. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?
The album is available in 128kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music, support the artists by going to the store and buying the better sound quality CDs or maybe a t-shirt or two.
The Upstairs appear to be Indonesia”s answer to
The Very Sexual’s Post-Apocalyptic Love is some of the most infectious indie-pop to blast out of my ipod in a long time. It is a tasty collection of very tight pop songs loaded with great harmonies and irresistible song-writing. My favorite tracks include “Anti-Valentine” and “Billy Idol Look Alike Contest”. Think of a mixture of Dandy Warhols, David Bowie, and The Weezers. It’s another excellent Indie-pop effort free for the taking.
There’s something slightly annoying yet so irresistible about Shorthand Phonetics. The lyrics ramble about nothing. The sound quality brings a new lo in lo-fi. I’m not even sure if this is emo or a parody of emo. So why do I like it? Because the vocalist sings with a cleverness that shows he is in on the joke, the guys can really play their instruments, and it is…in one word…fun!The two albums tip their satirical hands in the titles, Fanfiction: From the Seriously Absurd to the Absurdly Serious and Apparently…I’m In Medicine / Love, or the Illusion of the Beginning Symptoms of It. They are meant to be a conceptual part one and two of the life of Hanabishi Hideaki, a high school senior in the first album and a first year Med student in the second album. He is self absorbed, befuddled with every day problems that won’t go away, and obsessed with girls. In other words, he sounds like me forty years ago or, for that matter, the average teenage boy today.
The
Canadian singer/songwriter
I briefly mentioned Listen when I featured Tryad’s
In doing research on The Dead Bodies’ new album Cock Cock Cock Cock Xanadu Xanadu, I discovered that there appears to be more attention give to the album’s title than the music. The best explanation of the title is that it is a take off on the roman numeral CCCXX but that only makes me ask what is the significance of the number 420. It could also be a reference to the avian influences in John Hilton’s Lost Horizon. (You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you?)
Kansas City resident
Jaimina Johnston’s two albums on Jamendo, which I previously reviewed
There must be something in the air of Glasgow, Scotland that fosters cheerful optimism. Although sounding nothing like
One of my favorite record labels is
Stay by 
British singer/songwriter
Earlier in the year I featured the first volume of a continuing series from the 


Post Human Era’s Where I’m Going Half The Time is a pleasant contradiction in net label music. While most internet projects concentrate on rave beats, drones or experimental sounds, Post Human Era has a foot firmly set in melodic pop. Whispering vocals float over easy mid-tempo beats and
You have to admire a band that appears to have modeled themselves after 
Lucrecia may not send out flames but there is something warm and innocent about her simple voice. In fact it is the simplicity and intimate nature of this short EP that makes its enjoyable. The five tracks offer about 20 minutes of soft pop that is gentle and irresistable. “Counting Backwards” may be the best track. Its wistful arrangement assures it gets plenty of plays from me. However the other four tracks will have you smiling too. This is a nice choice for relaxing vocal music.
