Radio

This week’s discovery was China’s Shijing Stereosystem, a band from London, England with a decidedly Asian flavor. The new album is provocatively entitled Propaganda, and it’s terrific through and through. Big drums accompany music that can only be called Chinese, although our knowledge of traditional Chinese music comes primarily from watching movies. Here, the traditional sound is wedded to a mashup of indie rock, hip hop, and pop for an intoxicating blend. We especially enjoyed “Red Book” and “PinYin vs China Girl.”

We’ve also been enjoying The Revenants from Boston, whose sound changes with the year. The new album I Love You Pookie embodies a contemporary pop sound with the rough edges of indie rock. Seattle-based Hello Meteor are more in the electronic pop vein with elements of ambience. We played the mesmerizing “Egression Protocol.”

New music is back now that Valentines Day is out of the way.  Who knew such an antiquated holiday could prove to be such a distraction from the important task of releasing tunes…. Favorite records this week: The Cyrkle‘s Revival: Indeed, an album of brand new material from the mid 60s pop band that gave […]

Valentine’s Day should be inspiring given that the topic of pop music for many years and still today, is love. But it was slim pickings in the new music department, so for this week’s playlist, we hope you enjoy quite a number of songs from 2005 and 2017, for no particular reason. A few new […]

Gustave William Lemaire, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Being less than a week before Halloween, it was the best and only time this year to trot out the scary music. This year, we’ve been celebrating since Michaelmas, which is early indeed for this sort of thing. But it’s been cool and grey here much of […]

This week’s show waffled between the themes of war and weather, in between rafts of new music from the likes of Flight Week, Vanishing Twin, Lucky Star USA, and the High Dials. Lots of anti-war songs including a new track by our own XoXoXopher called “Get Rid of War.” Too bad that theme never goes […]

Despite the sunny warm weather of the last few days, Fall was on our minds. We played a fair amount of autumn foliage music on Bubble Wrap Radio this week.Also in there, new music from ImJudas, The Clientele, Louie Zong, and Cleo Sol. This month, we’ve been enjoying random tracks from Big Stir Records new compilation Stir The Cauldron, a Halloween collection chock-full of seasonal chills and thrills.

Lots of interesting new music from artists we know and love, and bunch more from bands we never heard of before, including the usual assortment of seasonal rarities and oddball recordings from CG.  Leading the pack, Enemy Airship, a new group that I just discovered from St. Louis, Missouri, whose new album Emperor, Somehow has […]

Bubble Wrap, the radio show, continues intermittently. We continue to broadcast the show from our home base every Wednesday night we can from 7-9pm. We had more than a few technical difficulties this year, but we aren’t complaining. We’re lucky to be able to do the show at all. Sometimes we think of giving it […]

Périsélène and Mégadef prove that French people can rock. Mycatisgreen (from Belgium) gave us another ep of life-inspired ditties. Our favorite, “Bicycle,” features the inimitable Eric in the kitchen. Fontaines DC shock and amaze with — sung vocals! Could the British talk rock trend be on its way out? Ned Risely proves folk doesn’t have to be hokey. And bufflehead is fun to say (their songs are pretty good too).

The work don’t quit, as they say.  It’s August, when everyone gets back to the old routine, and life starts anew.  We aren’t sure how that works.  Distracting us from intermittent anxiety were the hushed ambient waves of Bartosz Lugowski, the mixed media adventures of Zach Promesa, and the romantic swirl of Veronique Bilodeau. Big Rips (yes, that’s their name) wowed with a from-the-heart rock epic appropriately entitled “Everything Has Sucked Lately.” Jonas & I, Finland’s entry onto the indie-pop world stage, sound lonely and northern on their latest track “Yellow Walls.”  A bit like Simon & Garfunkel if it was just Garfunkel…