Slowcore Days

Carissa is team Carmissa's resident expert on slow jamz, so I may be getting in a little over my head here- but rainy days call for slow songs and man is it ever raining out today.

Growing up, my tastes gradually shifted from alt rock radio, to punk rock, finally to indie rock when I started ninth grade at the dawn of the current millenium. At that time my sonic landscape was populated with the heart on your sleeve, guitar driven indie pop of Belle and Sebastian and Rilo Kiley and the unabashedly self indulgent middle class boy blues of Bright Eyes and Cursive. As I entered college my eyes were opened (mostly by Ryan Newmyer) to a world of 'smarter' indie rock including bands like Pavement and The Silver Jews. These days, as evidenced by the success of Dan Deacon, MGMT, and passion pit, people seem to embrace the catharsis of sweaty electro spaz dance marathons, rendering the nights I remember sitting on my step dad's porch discovering Belle and Sebastian with my first love, and those whiskey fueled Silver Jews sing a longs, somewhat quaint and dated.

Surprisingly, the Pitchfork review of the Dark Was the Night compilation expresses my feelings on current indie rock pretty well. The gist of it is basically that while the guitar driven, melodic, folkie indie that had its heyday in the 90s and early 2000s was good, it hasn't grown much and has become a bit stale, being displaced by what Carissa and I have dubbed 'indie prog' (Swan Lake, No Age, Women, etc) and music with a heavy synth and computer component (Passion Pit, Hercules and Love Affair, the list goes on forEVER).

Lately, maybe because of ATROCIOUS weather I've been experiencing, I'm finding myself drawn to current purveyors of folkie slow jams featuring stringed instruments and drums and am being reminded that some people are in fact still finding ways to make the sounds I came of age to relevant, beautiful, meaningful, and innovative. Here are a few of them:

Elephant Micah (he recently made most of his music available digitally on his website with the request for donations. Joe O'Connel works hard and I recommend you throw a few bucks his way)
Malaysia
Passage
Feedback, So Long

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
Buriedfed
The Debtor

Deer Tick
Baltimore Blues #1
Ashamed

Bon Iver (duh)
Blood Bank

Julie Doiron
myspace

photo credit to Carissa Hamman, photo of Microwave Background circa 2005