Today will finish up my second week as a VJ. at mtvU. I’m not sure I could have dreamt myself up a better job. My day to day is spent listening to new music, researching info about bands, shooting VJ hits, and of course, once a week, shooting The Freshmen. In my downtime, I read blogs like derringer and ultragrrrl, websites, namely pitchfork, and listen to college radio stations that I subscribe to in order to find out about the newest and most talented bands on the scene today. Right now, I’m feeling pretty passionate about electro-clash and electric indie pop bands—and so it comes as no surprise that my favorite right now is “The Knife”. The band is made up of a boy and a girl from Sweden, and while they’re only touring in Europe right now, I think we’ll see them over here within the year. They basically run their own label, Rabid Records, and have won a plethora of music awards in Sweden. Their synthesized sound is unlike any I’ve heard before, and their use and mixing of calypso is genius. If you haven’t checked them out yet, I’d stop whatever you’re doing and get to a computer to download at least “Pass this on”, “Heartbeats”, and “You Take My Breath Away”. Also, head to youtube and watch all their videos that you can find. I don’t even want to comment on them- just watch ‘em. As for other electronica, I’m still listening to a bit of LCD Soundsystem, La Dusseldorf, Kraftwerk, and Electrelane, who are all putting out some great stuff right now. In other sounds, I realized the other day that Architecture in Helsinki’s “Do the Whirlwind” video is unbelievably well done, and hilarious at that. AIH is an avant-garde band on Trifekta Records originating in Australia. They’re big on using school band instruments like the brass instruments and the recorder. I haven’t gotten fully into them yet but I really enjoy their diversity in sound and I hear that they match the Arcade Fire in their ability to perform. I’m definitely going to check out their next show as soon as possible. Alright well that’s it for today. I think I’ll devote my next entry completely to Phil Elverum (previously spelled Elvrum), who represents some of the best music coming out of this country.
