Weather.com tells me that it’s 32 degrees outside, but I can still feel spring in the air. There are pitchers, catchers, and the rest reporting to Florida. Fantasy leagues are, ahem, springing up. It’s certainly sunnier. This excites me. The winters in which I don’t get to ski are just something for me to get through. It’s the subsequent nine months of the year that make me feel like a human being. Here’s to hoping that our PA groundhog was wrong this year and that we’ll find ourselves with an early spring.

I’ve stumbled upon quite a few free eMusic downloads lately and have been checking out some stuff. Here’s what I’ve found…



Astrobrite – Crush

In anticipation of my Loveless 180g LP arriving in the mail I was hurtin’ for some new shoegaze stuff. I wasn’t familiar with Loveliescrushing, the band that spawned this side project, but the few samples I heard didn’t excite me as much as Astrobrite. It’s noisy as hell. Certainly less melodic and than MBV or Slowdive, but worth a listen for anyone into that type of stuff. Notable is the fact that it was all recorded to a 4-track machine without the use of keyboards… which is surprising given the overall sound. Also worth noting is that Astrobrite is a great band name in theory, but sounds much too much like Astroglide for my liking.



The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust

I thought the last Raveonettes record sucked. They took away the fuzz and uncovered that without it they were a horribly boring band. Luckily the fuzz is back, and although it’s not as prominent as it was on Whip It On or Chain Gang of Love, it’s for the better. A bit of filler, but if you’ve dug stuff by them in the past, you’ll be excited to hear this one.



Mojave 3 – Puzzles Like You

The fact that I’d never stumbled across this band makes me realize that I know even less about music than I thought I did. After obsessing over Slowdive’s Souvlaki for the last few weeks, I decided to wiki search the band to see what the members were up to. Luckily, they’ve been prolific and remain excellent. To Hold Your Tiny Toes and Breaking The Ice are two of the best new songs I’ve heard in a long, long time. It’s nothing like Slowdive, but that’s ok.

Maybe more of this blogging in the future. I miss it.