some minnesota love

A couple of weeks ago I found a new band to obsess over... a band which comes from Minneapolis and goes by the name of Cloud Cult. Since hearing their new album, The Meaning Of 8 (due out 4/10/2007), I just can't get enough. Yes, this is old news I know... but it begs the question: just what are they putting in the water in Minneapolis?

Beyond Cloud Cult I've recently "discovered" two more Minneapolis bands who've recently put out some really good shit.

Mouthful Of Bees. Their record The End was released on 2/15/07 and is of the indie art/power pop persuasion. Of course this is not the first blog ever written about Mouthful Of Bees, and in some light research (i.e. the first page of a "mouthful of bees" google search) I found several blog posts about them. Unsurprising to me is that I saw them at least twice compared to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah & fellow Minnesotans Tapes n' Tapes. Mouthful Of Bees skillfully wind their way through rockers as well as slower tempo songs. The album's production is fuzzy, and there are sporadic bursts of noise (hence the CYHSY comparison?) but at the center of it all are some real fun songs. Personally, I rather like the fuzziness in some cases. Who wants to forever listen to slick production that completely masks the spontaneity and even heart of the songs? So are these youngsters poised to become the next indie blog darlings? Time will certainly tell... just remember that although you may not have heard them here first, at least you heard them here before you heard them on Pitchfork... :)

Listen to The Now. Buy the album.



Download "The Now" (mp3)
from "The End"
by Mouthful of Bees (Afternoon Records)
Buy at eMusic

The Original Mark Edwards. He's not as new as and not quite as "my cup of tea" as Mouthful Of Bees, still The Original Mark Edwards released a great album entitled The Doom Loop on February 13. Sadly, a google search turned up precious little information about this man. Besides his MySpace page, the most I could find (well, OK, so I looked for like 5 minutes, but I'm lazy!) was at the Minnewiki. The album? Stylistically, it's all over the place. Not that that's a bad thing. Keeps you guessing, at the very least. I grabbed the album from emusic the other day.... don't get me wrong, I love emusic, but I wish they'd have some sort of liner notes downloads to go with the albums. From the Twin Cities City Pages I learned this:

It's also a solo project in the most extreme sense; just check out The Doom Loop's credit line: "OME: guitars, vocals, bass, drums, beat box, Wurlitzer, kitchen pots, violin, electric kazoo, synthesizers, hand claps, tambourine, programming, piano, toys, clarinet, organ." Amazingly, that's about it. The liner notes go on to mention that one Steve Goold, a real brick house of a drummer, performed on half of one song, and that Edwards's wife Heidi sang backup on two others. Mixing duties on a handful of tracks were farmed out. Otherwise, everything the listener hears on The Doom Loop—with its six-part vocal harmonies, unholy warbles of recircuited children's toys, and countless tracks of guitar, synth, and kitchen utensil clamor, all twisted and chunked together like so many Rubik's cube blocks into no solid color but something that much more interesting, nay, original—all of this is the work of one man.

He experiments with vocals, he experiments with instruments, and the result is an incredibly likable album. I've only listened to The Doom Loop a couple of times, but I can say that the comparisons to The Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel and Apples In Stereo are not unfounded. Think 1960's pop meets 2000's synth experimental. Very nice.

Now listen to these songs and buy The Doom Loop, too. Yay Minneapolis!



Download "The Doom Loop" (mp3)
from "The Doom Loop"
by The Original Mark Edwards (Princess Records)
Buy at eMusic

Download "Danger, Danger" (mp3)
from "The Doom Loop"
by The Original Mark Edwards (Princess Records)