Music Alliance Pact 05/2012: MILE ME DEAF

Very late in the day, but still on the 15th of the month, we bring to you the most interesting new and free tracks from around the world, curated by international music bloggers and publications with an eye on their local scenes, this month with Austria’s MILE ME DEAF.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Mile Me Deaf – Wild At Heart
Mile Me Deaf is one of the other bands Killed By 9V Batteries’ Wolfgang Möstl plays in. And although side-projects - such an unfair name for a 500+ songs oeuvre - are usually a space for weird shit your band mates didn’t agree to, their first album Eat Skull, and especially the first single Wild At Heart, is surprisingly free of noise and distortion. Instead, it creates the last-day-of-summer-holidays feeling you know from Girls and Beach House.

June 1: AT, Wien, Gartenbau Kino (Record Release Show)
August 4: AT, Salzburg, Rockhouse (STUCK! Festival)

Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the whole 34-track compilation through Ge.tt here.

Find all MAP tracks below:

Once again, we bring to you the most interesting new and free tracks from around the world, curated by international music bloggers and publications with an eye on their local scene. This month, we are featuring A Thousand Fuegos: The Treachery of Things (Seayou/Fettkakao) was released two days ago and can be streamed in full length on Bandcamp.

Right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the whole 35-track compilation through Ge.tt here.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
A Thousand Fuegos – No Up No Down
“Don’t you know that everything we build up once will fall apart someday?” Time and religious metaphors are recurring themes on The Treachery Of Things, from which No Up No Down is taken. The album circles around the notion that we can never grasp the true identity of the things around us; they remain passive while we assign attributes to them. A Thousand Fuegos started out as a lo-fi project and these days focuses on beats, loops and spacey synths that create a mystical atmosphere.

April 17: AT, Wien, Rhiz (Album Release Show)
April 18: BE, Brussels, AB (w/ Soap&Skin)
May 16: AT, Dornbirn, Soundnoise Festival 

This month, we welcome Puerto Rico Indie to the MAP. Our favourites from April’s compilation include the Dutch Aafke Romeijn, all-over-the-Feuilleton Alabama Shakes (USA), and the award for best band name goes to Walter Benjamin (Portugal). Find all 35 tracks below:

(c) Dominique Hammer

Once again, we bring to you the most interesting new and free tracks from around the world, curated by 38 music bloggers with an eye on their local scene. In March, we are featuring the wonderful Giantree with their song Communicate from We All Yell, out on March 23 on monkey. (listen and read more here).

Right-click on a song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the whole 38-track compilation here.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Giantree – Communicate
With past major label experience, the founding members of what is now Giantree found a new home on an indie label, but without denying that what they are doing is pop in capital letters. Their debut album We All Yell comes with synthesizers and catchy hooks. Communicate, a song about fragile beginnings, was a radio hit in Austria.

March 16: AT, Feldbach, Club Glam
March 23: AT, Wien, Haus der Musik (CD Presentation)
March 29: AT, Graz, PPC
March 30: AT, Wr. Neustadt, Triebwerk
March 31: AT, Weitra, Gmündrockcity… and many more

This month we welcome Quick Before It Melts as a new representative for Canada. Read all about the 38 tracks from around the world below: 

(c) Anna Kohlweis

Why she is no longer mostly a bird we don’t know, but as Squalloscope Anna Kohlweis sounds graver, less cheerful than as Paper Bird. Nonetheless birds and other metaphors of freedom remain an important part of not only her blazer in the picture above, but also of her new album Soft Invasions, out on Seayou on March 16 (listen to the album in its entirety). Squalloscope is our second ever submission to the free monthly, worldwide Music Alliance Pact compilation.

Right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the whole 36-track compilation here.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Squalloscope – Domino
One-woman-factory Anna Kohlweis has released three albums as Paper Bird, however these days, she prefers her new alias Squalloscope. Goodbyes in bus terminals, long train rides, sitting on planes and bottles of wine have influenced her upcoming album Soft Invasions. Domino is a singer/songwriter take on R’n’B combined with postmodern lyrics: “I’m a copy of a copy of a copy of a woman, you’re the copy of a copy of a copy of a guy”.

March 27: AT, Wien, Rhiz (Album Release Show)

Among the other submissions to this month’s MAP we especially recommend Cosmo from Argentina (imagine the Arielle soundtrack sung by Devendra Banhart) and Brodsky (what Beirut would sound like if he were Russian). Also, we welcome El Parlante Amarillo from Colombia to the MAP blogger bunch. Listen to and read about the full February MAP compilation below:

(c) Nikolaus Ostermann

We’re thrilled to be part of the Music Alliance Pact (MAP), joining 35 music blogs from all over the world who have, since 2008, been showcasing artists from their respective countries by providing an MP3 each and posting them simultaneously on the 15th of every month. It’s our first time on the MAP, and we are delighted to kick things off with one of our absolute favourite bands who are about to release their fantastic debut album (can you tell we’re excited?): Diver.

Right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a .zip file of the whole 36-track compilation here.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Diver – Illusions
Quiet is the new loud. Diver, a folky trio from various places in Austria and Germany and now based in Vienna, play beautifully melancholic songs with three acoustic guitars and lyrics that go “everyday reality is an illusion of possibilities”. Illusions is the opener of their first full-length album Kites, which will be out later this month. In the meantime you can listen to their self-titled debut EP on Bandcamp.

January 25: AT, Wien, TAG (Album Presentation)
January 27: AT, Steyr, Röda 
February 2: AT, Wien, B72 (Spot on Vienna)
March 9: AT, Klagenfurt, Parkhaus
March 23: AT, Linz, Posthof
March 29: AT, Krems, Filmgalerie
March 30: AT, Feldkirch, Theater am Saumarkt 

From this month’s submissions we also especially recommend the wonderful Apparat (Germany), folktronica by Esperanza (Italy) from the Munich-based Gomma label, and Toggi (Iceland) letting bankers and lawyers bleed in a handclap-heavy song. Listen to and read about the full MAP mixtape below: