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I imagine everybody goes through it every now and then: A growing frustration with your existing library of music. Especially if - like me - you listen to music whilst you work. I seem to recall reading somewhere that we don’t listen to much of our total music selection, settling on some favourites and playing those. To that end, I have a ‘not recently listened to’ smart playlist in iTunes, so I can dive into some old tunes on occasion.

Anyway, I digress. I’ve ‘discovered’ a few quality bands of late. I’d previously mentioned The Decemberists, who Frances and I saw live last month, and still highly recommend them. Two other acts are getting a lot of play-time here at Leyton FM, and there are a few other bands that some readers might want to check out.

The first is Arcade Fire. They’re riding high in the charts at the moment with their latest album, ‘Neon Bible’, which I’ve been listening to for, er, a fair while now. I picked up their first album, ‘Funeral’, over the weekend and suffice to say it’s absolutely superb. My musical nemesis Gordon McLean (for it is he) enjoyed their Glasgow concert…. Sounds like it was a great performance.

I’ve not explicitly mentioned Joanna Newsom before, but she most certainly deserves wider attention. Quirky but evocative, she is a harpist who best known here in the UK for the music used in “Orange’s New York Blackout advert”. Once more Mr McLean [shakes fist] was flagrantly taunting me once more with his tickets to her Glasgow concert, one I particularly wanted to go to, but ebay sales were at a too-healthy markup despite my eagerness.

Snow Patrol’s latest album ‘Eyes Open’ was a Christmas present to Frances that I simply can’t get enough of either. It’s chock full of quality songs, and really deserves all the rave reviews it’s been getting.

On the fringes of my airplay time are a few others. I’m poking about Air’s new album (Pocket Symphony), but it’s not grabbed me after a few listens, and I’m feeling a mite relieved I didn’t go see them at Glasgow’s ABC after the Guardian’s review. “Four Day Hombre” have some potential that another week or two might mean they grow on me, but “Clap your Hands say Yeah” just sound like they’re trying too hard, and hit a few raw musical nerves in a bad way with their opening gambit. But more listens are still in order for all of these. And of course Scott Joplin has been getting Piano time and airplay too.

Suggestions from readers of music are always welcome too. Glasgow band The Fratellis were mentioned to me last night as a band to check out….

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Glasgow, Music, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.