I am back from vacation, with minimal clumsiness (my ankle’s recovering though). I have a ton of music that I’m very excited to get to work on this week. But first is a themed-post, inspired by the Boundary Waters, nature, trees, and wilderness, here are some mostly-free EPs that has found themselves on my iTunes.

LYNHURST
lynhurstmusic.com ♥ myspace.com ♥ twitter.com ♥ myspace.com/theabdomen

Lynhurst – Exactly

Remember last week, when I said I have never heard of Lynhurst? As it turns out, I actually do know who they are. Driving north, I was fumbling through some CDs I was going to listen for review when I came back home, and I pulled out Lynhurst. Immediately, everyone in the car was saying, “That’s Abdomen!“.

I thought that was really funny, because I have actually seen The Abdomen play before, when they had their dad in the band. So, basically, when Mari joined the band, displacing their father, they changed their name to Lynhurst. Although I think their name change is good to reflect a different band and direction, I’m not quite sure why their biography doesn’t list the fact that the were The Abdomen (are the embarrassed that they used to be called The Abdomen?).

Regardless, we now have someone in the car to review the album later.

VENICE IS SINKING veniceissinking.net ♥ myspace Venice is Sinking – Compass Venice Is Sinking is from REM-hometown Athens, Georgia. They’ve been enjoying some great press, by the likes of NPR, Paste, and Under the Radar. So when they offered me tracks from their forthcoming digital EP called Okay (out September 22^th), I did give it a chance. The EP includes two cover songs, “Compass” and “Give Up”, but despite being a cover lover, I’m not as hip to know that those songs were originally by a band called Okay (which I am assuming they named their song and EP as tribute to the band). One of those cover songs was made available early as a free download via Some Velvet Blog. Here’s some touring information: 09/19/09 Kindercore Records & Owl Athens, GA 10/03/09 Lawrence University Appleton, WI 10/29/09 New Brookland Tavern Columbia, SC 10/30/09 Union Hall Brooklyn, New York 11/01/09 Snug Harbor Charlotte, NC If you can’t wait until September 22^nd, you can get the EP early for $3.99 at download punk. Incidentally, I did read that their ~~press company~~ record label/comic book company is One Percent Press, which is based in Minneapolis. I snooped around their website, they look quite fanziney, which is cool.		THE CO-OP co-opsounds.com ♥ myspace Lisa Piccirillo, Patrick Thomas – Night Time Is The Right Time (To Be With The One You Love) The Co-Op Spring 09 Sampler is a free 4-track sampler that you can download from the community of musicians called coopsounds.com. I did check the sampler, which went down quite easy and smoothly. My instant favorite is this 30-ish cover song called “Night Time Is The Right Time (To Be With The One You Love)” by Lisa Piccirillo and Patrick Thomas. Thomas does great bluesy vocals, while Piccirillo pour out the soulful portion of the song. Seems Thomas is offering a a free song every month. Piccirillo is doing a few dates in the Northeastern area: 09/16/09 Caffe Lena Saratoga Springs, NY 09/17/09 Perks Coffehouse Norwood, MA 10/09/09 Pioneer Arts Center Of Easthampton, MA 10/10/09 River Arts Morrisville, VT Off Central was also keen on having me check out the free Upswing EP from Syd (one of the founding member of Co-Op). Syd sounds like an acoustic singer/songfolker, which I will confess that we get too many acoustic singer/songwriter. You can also follow Syd on twitter or in real life: 09/15/09 University of Rutgers – Camden, NJ 09/16/09 University of Delaware Newark, DE 09/18/09 IOTA Club & Cafe Arlington, VA 09/19/09 World Cafe Live (Upstairs) Philadelphia, PA 09/27/09 The Monkey House Winooski, VT 09/29/09 University of Maine-Augusta Augusta, ME 09/30/09 University of Maine – Bangor Bangor, ME
DINOSAUR FEATHERS dinosaurfeathers.com ♥ myspace Dinosaur Feathers – Parallel July Even if I’m wrong about assuming that Dinosaur Feathers is a brand new band, based out of New York, just their name “dinosaur” alone makes me think they’ve been around for ages. Their free EP Early Morning Risers is available for download on their official website. It’s a mixture of experimental warps, pots & pans, and gurgling vocal effects, which I can’t say is to my liking – but there are legion of fans out there that loves this sort of sound. Where Feathers is good is when they have some melody harmony – as found on the singing and guitar parts of “Parallel July”. I feel that the music sounds like Caribbean or World music, which is interesting for a US-based band… but not too surprising considering that singer Greg spent some time in Africa. Looks like the band will be taking over CMJ this year: 10/08/09 The Studio NY 10/10/09 State Capital Records Release Brooklyn 10/20/09 Cross Pollination CMJ Showcase 10/20/09-10/24/09 CMJ 2009 New York		JENNY GILLESPIE jenny-gillespie.com ♥ myspace.com/jennygillespie Jenny Gillespie – Vanishing Point Jenny Gillespie is a young singer/songwriter from Chicago, Illinois. Her debut album Light Year was released earlier this year (2009). Well, I would hardly call 8 tracks an album (more like a really extra long EP), but it does clock about 40 minutes, so technically it is an LP. Like the cover artwork indicate, this is a mellow, easy-to-listen to record. Gillespie’s voice is usually the main focus, although the occasional pianos (“Hydra”) or violas (“Vanishing Point”) does take the spotlight sometimes. I thought “Vanishing Point” is a great introductory song to Gillespie – you can head over to the official website for a free download of the song. If you like this, you should definitely give her debut 2004 EP, Love and Ammunition a try. It’s free on archive.org. Light Years can be purchased via MP3 at amazon or iTunes. Also, she’ll be playing at Uncommon Ground on Devon on October 8^th.