NPR's best bandcamp albums of 2011. You can usually listen to the albums for free at the website.
The 5 Best Bandcamp Albums Of 2011
- Song: Los Angeles Guitar Dream
The Brooklyn band
Spanish Prisoners recently released a collection of dreamy, shimmering pop music called
Gold Fools. The songs are wrapped in a warm melodic haze — lightly psychedelic and instantly memorable.
Fela Soul is the sort of mash-up album that never gets tired. The concept is fresh and simple: Take the music of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti and marry it with the raps of De La Soul.
Fela Soul is the work of
Gummy Soul producer Amerigo Gazaway, who makes his ingredients sound as if they were born to be together. (There's also an instrumental version of the album that you can also download for free.) Nashville's Gummy Soul, a boutique soul and hip-hop label, was founded by Walter Clark and started as a radio show on Vanderbilt's WRVU.
Download 'Stakes Is High'
- Song: Guns and Ammunition
Not to be confused with anything by The Beatles,
The White Album is a trio from Copenhagen. The band's debut,
The Album, is a gorgeous collection of indie-folk songs that recall the simple beauty of work by Jose Gonzalez and early Red House Painters.
Download 'Guns and Ammunition'
- Song: Last Night I Heard Everything In Slow Motion
Oliver Tank is a 21-year-old downtempo electronica artist from Sydney who released a gorgeous six-song debut EP called
Dreams in November. There are already cries of Tank being "the next
James Blake," but the differences outweigh the similarities. Tank holds the advantage on melody right now, and his arrangements may have deeper colors to them. That said, if you're fan of Blake, Oliver Tank's
Dreams will likely be sweet ones.
Download 'Last Night I Heard Everything In Slow Motion'
From Champaign, Ill.,
The Dirty Feathers' members drink from the same fountain of rock as
Iggy & The Stooges,
Jack White and any number of the bands that cut classic 45s compiled on the
Nuggets box set of psychedelic rock. Bands like The Dirty Feathers pop up in almost every city in America, but this is clearly one of the best. Its album
Midnight Snakes rocks hard from start to finish: The songs all sound familiar (a little
Doors here, a little White Stripes there, a lot of garage rock everywhere), yet every song is played with serious conviction and psychedelic garage-rock proficiency.
Download 'Midnight Snakes'
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