Since I can never dredge up enough material to put together a mix, I’m forced to post about artists, even if they only have one good tune. Not that Kimbra doesn’t have more than one good tune in her; it’s just that she hasn’t released anything else yet!

Having said that, the tunes I have for you today are rather lovely. The first, Settle Down, is eclectic and almost unidentifiable by genre, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway: a bit of old fashioned soul and jazz mixed with a smidge of RnB, followed by some good old fashioned pop slatherings. But perhaps I’m entirely wrong.

Kimbra is an up and coming artist hailing from the land of the long white cloud (New Zealand!) who’s debut album, Vows is due this year. I can hardly wait!

Downloads

Settle Down – (YouTube)
Two Way Street – (YouTube)
Good Intent – (YouTube)

I have a good feeling that we’ll be hearing more from these plucky English lads in the future, if not already. Their music has been liberally sprinkled on all manor of things, including films, ads (apparently anyway: we certainly don’t get them here) and awesome video game trailers starring Batman (which is where I happened upon their music). This isn’t a bad thing, everyone: what better reward could there be for producing great music than to make sure a wide variety of people get to sample it?

And boy howdy, what music it is too. It’s a delectable mix of indie rock, mixed in (at times) with just a hint of gypsy punk and also what Wikipedia calls Neo Funk. Which is seriously awesome! As I’m sure that I’m doing a disservice to them with this lousy post, I highly recommend that you dive into the following YouTube links and then proceed to buy their album. It’s the only right course of action.

Downloads

From The House That Dirt Built
Oh No! Not You Again! – (YouTube)
How You Like Me Now – (YouTube)
Short Change Hero – (YouTube)

Like m’colleague, Hugh, I was pretty smitten with Imaad Wasif’s first solo album. I believe his words were “I think I’m in love”, and they’re sentiments that I also reflect. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to keep checking up on Mr. Wasif, so you can all thank the revival of either/or that I’m here to alert you to his newer stuff.

Since one of our mottos is something about being better late than never, I bring you The Voidist from the historical depths of… 2009. This is most certainly a different album to his debut, but it retains the dreamy vocalisation and mesmerising lyrics that defined it. There’s something kind of lo-fi with this release, almost as if it was recorded in the 60s or something: a bit of psychedelic twang and a darker sort of ‘flower power’ feel that moves way past the quiet, reflective mood of the debut.

As per usual, I am lousy with describing music! Also, as per usual, I have no MP3s, but I do have YouTube links and one to his page on the Tee Pee Records site.

Downloads

From The Voidist
Redeemer – (YouTube – Video is a bit NSFW)
Widow Wing – (YouTube)
Imaad Wasif on Tee Pee Records

I bet you didn’t even notice we were gone. To which I say: shame on you! I hope you keep better watch on more important things.

Anyhoo, the point is, we are back and kicking! Relatively. Our old host went down the gurgler, but I’ve resuscitated the site and all its posts, thanks to our good friend, kol. We are not reliant on his server anymore though, so there shouldn’t be any extended downtime as I am hosting it myself. Also, we got a fancy domain name too! Having said that, the domain and the even newer hosting aren’t quite ready, so you’ll have to make do with another subdomain.

either/or is back again, and we’ve got a new theme. I have built this from the ground up with the assistance of Dan from Logic & Trick to integrate it with WordPress. I hope you like it! If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to pass them along: this is the first time I’ve done a WordPress theme and I’m afraid that I’m a total newbie at it. As well as that, let me know if you find any bugs.

With any luck, we might be just a tad bit more frequent with our posts, but there’s no guarantees! Good music doesn’t just float by every day, y’know. As usual, if you have any music you think we’d like, or like to promote (if we like it, that is), then feel free to post a comment on this post (we will have a proper email system up eventually).

In the meantime, welcome and enjoy! Hugh and I hope to keep you filled to brim with good, wholesome tunes.