I have on my calendar to talk about St Paul, Minnesota's The Small Cities (thesmallcities.com) today, because they have an EP coming out on May 23rd on Common Cloud Records (edit: the official release date is May 27th). Their biography doesn't really list anything that exciting - however I can draw a conclusion that one of the guys might be Swedish: Leif Bjornson. I would also reckon that they (Leif and David Osborn) met in a small town (Amery, Wisconsin).
I had to look that up on googlemaps, which actually looks kind of close to Minneapolis/St Paul.
Having listened to the EP, I thought "Fargo" was a little more exciting than the opening track "This City", which seems to have a backup singer on the lines "the city's grown bigger since you've gone". "Fargo" is also a faster-paced song, and I enjoyed the bassline on this track.
The two other songs, "Trust Me, I'm NOT a Stalker" (just that title alone is kind of creepy) and "I'm Gone" (with some interesting use of some odd sounding percussion instrumental) sums up this band as very indie/alternative. They're a little slower sounding band, but it's introspective, which also means you have to be in the mood for this.
I am told that they are playing at The Turf Club for a CD release party on May 23rd and at Eclipse Records in St Paul, on June 13th.
I wasn't asked to talk about Wisconsin's Venna (vennamusic.com) who released their debut EP, last month on April 22nd, but I thought I should mention it as they're also on the same record label.
Apparently this band is working on some demos and currently selling it via etsy.com, and as you know I'm actually a big fan of homemade/handmade craft stuff. The CD case looks like it's wrapped in tissue paper (?) and held together by yawn with a pin.
I did manage to listen to their 6-track EP, and this bands seems to be mostly acoustic guitar-driven. They're centered around some folky vocals by singer Heather.
Of all the songs, I thought "The Reckoning" was the best in the EP, which features some other instruments and you can hear the thumbing from Mikey.
Finally, I was recently offered "Game Over", from Pennsylvania's Retar-D2. You can grab even more demos MP3s from his myspace.com/retard2, and apparently they are from his to-be-released album High Scores!
The song starts off with that very, very familiar Pac-Man dying theme and then goes into a trance/beat song. It's repetitive at first, but waiting to the middle of the song and you start to hear some melody. This song should definitely appeal to all nerds and gamers.
I later read that all his songs are constructed from samples from drum-machines made in the '70s or '80s, so just keep that in mind when you hear it.
Links: thesmallcities.com myspace.com/thesmallcities vennamusic.com myspace.com/vennamusic
