Living in Europe, you have to face one unfortunate reality: there’s an awful lot of terrible pop music on the radio. Derivative daytime techno, Eye-of-the-Tiger-esque rock anthems: “Party Rockin’” is about as musically inspired a track as you can hope for around here. Perhaps it’s just the limited number of stations that reach us in the mountains, but while Bon Iver may sound French, but you won’t hear Justin Vernon’s new album on the radio.

So it comes as a welcome relief to find that there’s a rich vein of indie-style music beyond the FM band. In particular, the mellow, minimalist acoustic sound of Bertrand Belin has been the perfect accompaniment for slipping into the long, cool evenings of autumn.

Stripped of ornamentation, these tracks rely not on layer upon layer of interwoven sound, but simply a guitar, drum set and Bertrand’s quiet, ethereal vocals. It’s music as design: a kind of sonic expression of St. Exupery’s dictum that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away.

[PS: The video above comes courtesy of La Blogotheque, which, by virture of its awesomeness, probably cancels out all of French radio all on its own. Check out their ongoing series of "Takeaway Concerts," from Aloe Blacc to Maps and Atlases.]

Other People’s Poetry, that is—an online mixtape series on the Yours Truly music website. The concept is pretty simple, ask indie artists to make compilations of their favorite songs for a person and have them hand-write a note to go along with it. All them are worth a listen (there are a lot) but lately we’ve been jamming to the mix that Princeton’s Matt Kivel made for actress Amanda Seyfried, who he seems heavily crushed out on, judging by his note below.

Aren’t all the best mixtapes born of unrequited love? Check it and download it, using the little arrow on the side of the player, below.

TRACKLIST:
- Teengirl Fantasy: Cheaters
- Hercules & Love Affair: My House
- Princeton: To The Alps
- Iggy Pop: Success
- MGMT: Siberian Breaks (Ed Banger All Stars Remix)
- Actress: The Kettle Men
- Oneohtrix Point Never: Stress
- Laurie Anderson: Falling
- Mayo Thompson: Fortune
- Symphony of Science: The Poetry of Reality

Phase II Mixtape by Princeton

If getting one great song on a #MusicMonday is awesome, then getting 22 is way awesomer. And pretty lucky too. We found this great mix of new music on the Yvynyl Tumblr and proceeded to download it and put it on repeat. There’s a little something for everyone on here, from The Weeknd’s sexy mystery soul to some surfy summertime jams via Big Wave Riders and the Eternal Summers. Really, you can’t go wrong. Just make sure that after discovering these great bands, you buy more of their music and check out their live shows.

Tracklist:

The Neighborhood – I Won’t Get You Down
The Weeknd – House of Balloons > Glass Table Girls
Joywave – Winnipeg
Black Books – The Big Idea
Snowmine – Beast in Air, Beast in Water
Family Portrait – Other Side
Triptides – Shadows
Jeremy Lee Given – Arapaima
Eternal Summers – Prisoner
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Thought Ballune
Slowdance – Sweetness
Oregon Bike Trails – High School Lover
COOLRUNNINGS – Dracula is only the Beginning
John Maus – Believer
Collage Party – Eri
The Sandwitches – Summer of Love
Quilt – Children of the Light
Lotus Feet – Evidence
Big Wave Riders – Skater or Die
BeachesBeaches – OOAH
Die Jungen – In the End
The Dogs – We Don’t Have to do Anything

LUCKY LUCKY (A VYNYL MIXTAPE) | DOWNLOAD

Leisure Package is a website curated by Portland-based creatives Tom O’Toole and Ada Mayer. We follow them, and also Tom’s awesome Tumblr blog, Weirdo Vibing. Yes, these are places of great inspiration. It’s always nice when creative people take the time to share their favorite songs and even nicer when they package up their favorite tracks as a mix and make it available for download, complete with artwork. This compilation has a great mood throughout, bouncing from decade to decade without skipping a beat, from the opening VU classic to Flying Lotus to Patti Smith. It’s the kind of song collection that makes you think about the open road and maybe even plan a long drive simply to give the audio a worthy visual accompaniment.

IF I STAY TOO LONG IT’S ‘CAUSE I LOVE YOU | DOWNLOAD HERE

Yes, there is a band called Oregon Bike Trails, and no, they aren’t from Oregon. But yes, they do make great music for cruising on your bike, and doing other fun stuff in the sun. We stumbled across this free track on You Ain’t No Picasso, accompanied by a nice little interview with OBT maestro Zach Yudin. Picking up where bands like Best Coast and The Cults left off last summer, there seems to be a real reverence for vintage 1960s California pop going on in indie music lately. We think it’s a gas, daddio.

If you do too, you can download not one, but two sunny songs from Oregon Bike Trails HERE.

As always, buy some music from this great new band and do your part in supporting 4-minute doses of vitamin D through your headphones.

Wow. We are BARELY getting this Music Monday post in while it is still officially Monday. Paying taxes, dealing with the aftermath of a wild weekend, and of course the fact that it’s just a Monday have the potential to derail things. But songs like Rachel Goodrich’s “Light Bulb” have the power to make it all better again. On this remix, she teams up with fellow Floridians ANR (Awesome New Republic) to add a little low end to her sun-shiney single “Light Bulb.”

And, if you like the above, you can (and should) buy Rachel’s full album HERE.

Last week I stumbled across a pretty amazing youtube channel by a guy in Sweden who calls himself “Log Cabineer.” He shoots these really simple videos of a record player spinning old vinyl in front of the landscapes surrounding his cabin. They are powerful, calming, and have the amazing ability to transport one from their seat in front of a computer screen to a magical outdoor setting. Something about the way each video feels like a still life, with very subtle movements—clouds shifting, a fly hitting the surface of the lake—and the music mixing with the ambient sounds of nature is really enchanting. Have a look. Oh, and check out the video where the dog grabs his beer on command. What a life.

When we first heard the tUnE-yArDs track “Bizness,” from the forthcoming album  w h o k i l l (April 18), we really thought it was an African-tinged world-beat song from the ‘80s. It was on a mixtape, which strips all context away, leaving only the sounds to speak for themselves. Then we dug a little deeper and found this amazing video. It combines a few things we love—unbridled movement, eye-catching design, rebellious kids—to compliment the upbeat soundtrack, which is quickly becoming the background music for our own Spring moves.

Download the track:
tUnE-yArDs | BIZNESS | DOWNLOAD

Something about the barrage of images from Japan and Libya over the course of the last few weeks reminded me of the film Baraka, which was released almost twenty years ago. The movie has no plot or narrative, instead relying on powerful imagery and a dramatic soundtrack to convey a deeply resonant message about the relationship between mankind and nature, mankind and each other, civilization and the wild, good and evil, and the common thread that connects it all.

Music by Dead Can Dance draws you into the imagery; the lack of narration lets you draw your own conclusions. In today’s digital world, where we consume visuals in a montage-like way, this film forces you to slow the carousel down a bit and meditate on the blessing that is Earth.

This jam from the forthcoming Guided By Voices tribute album Sing for Your Meat—featuring Flaming Lips, Blitzen Trapper and Thurston Moore to name a few—builds perfectly and actually allows you to decipher the lyrics, which are almost inaudible in the perfect, crunchy original. Hard to believe this live cover has higher production value than the original, but hey—it’s a GBV song.

Get an MP3 of the Cymbals Eat Guitars version below.

CYMBALS EAT GUITARS | GLEEMER (GBV COVER) | DOWNLOAD