Indie | Musicosity

Indie

Okkervil River

Okkervil River is an indie/folk rock band from Austin, Texas USA. Formed in 1998, the band takes its name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya. The band currently consists of Will Sheff (vocals, guitar), Justin Shurburn (guitar, keyboards), Lauren Gurgiolo (guitar, pedal steel, mandolin), Scott Brackett (keyboards, trumpet, percussion), Patrick Pestorius (bass, keyboards) and Travis Nelsen (drums).

Artist Type: 

City and Colour

City and Colour is the recording alias for Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green, who is also the guitarist and vocalist of the St. Catharines, Ontario-based post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. He plays melodic acoustic/folk music, and is often accompanied by a rotating number of Canadian indie rock musicians, such as Daniel Romano and Spencer Burton of Attack in Black. The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas, a city, and Green, a colour. His reasoning for the name was that he felt queasy "putting the album out under the name Dallas Green".

Green began releasing City and Colour songs on the Internet for fans to download in 2004. Eventually, he compiled and rewrote several of these songs to make his first album, Sometimes. The full length debut was released on November 1, 2005 to a good reception, described by one reviewer as "dynamically gentle and vulnerable". The cover art was designed by Scott McEwan, in a tattoo-esque style; Green "still may decide to have some of them inked at a later point in time". Sometimes was re-released on Vagrant Records on January 13, 2009, which was the first time the album was available in physical form in the United States.

Green's second album, Bring Me Your Love, was released on February 12, 2008 and features a wide array of instruments not used on his previous recordings (such as harmonica, banjo, drums and lap steel) giving it a more folk-influenced sound. The album also features collaborations with other musicians, such as Canadian musician Gordon Downie of The Tragically Hip on the track "Sleeping Sickness", and additional instrumentals done by Matt Sullivan and the members of Attack in Black. The lead single, "Waiting...", was released on Green's official MySpace page for the first time featuring a "making of" video. The album is named after a short story by Charles Bukowski. It is also a line sung in the closing track, "As Much As I Ever Could."

On September 26, 2008, City and Colour embarked on their first American tour, in support of Bring Me Your Love. On the tour, the band supported Tegan and Sara along with Girl in a Coma. This tour was followed by a headlining tour of the US in January 2009, with support from William Elliott Whitmore. In October 2008, Dine Alone Records announced a special 2-disc limited edition of Bring Me Your Love to be released on December 2, 2008. Only 6,000 copies are available; 5,000 in North America and 1,000 in Australia.[5] In Canada, when the record label put up the album on pre-sale on November 20, 2008, so many fans tried to pre-order it that the store's website crashed.

In January 2010, City and Colour embarked on an additional US headlining tour, again supporting Bring Me Your Love, with supporting act Lissie, and an additional UK tour in June 2010, supporting P!nk, along with Butch Walker, along with a few headlining dates. On these tours, Dallas Green performed two new songs by the titles of "Silver and Gold" and "Oh Sister", as well as a couple of never-played-before covers - "Murderer", originally by Low, and "Grinnin' In Your Face", originally by Son House.

On February 23, 2011, it was officially announced on the Dine Alone Records website that City and Colour's third album would be titled Little Hell and was set for release in June 2011. On March 23, 2011, the official track listing was posted on City and Colour's official website. On April 5, 2011, "Fragile Bird", the first single off Little Hell was released to the radio. The song had its world premiere on Australian radio station Triple J, where the band was touring at the time. The single became City and Colour's highest charting single, reaching No. 1 on the Canadian rock/alternative chart. On August 5, 2011, Alexisonfire announced their break-up. George Pettit wrote a message on the band's official website saying Dallas had been planning to leave to focus on City and Colour, as balancing the two bands had become too difficult.

City and Colour announced the release of the new album entitled The Hurry and the Harm to be released on June 4, 2013. The song "Of Space and Time" was released on March 11, 2013 prior to the announcement of the new album. The song "Thirst" was released on April 1, 2013 on City and Colour's Soundcloud page.

City and Colour announced the release of the new album entitled If I Should Go Before You to be released on October 9, 2015. The song "Woman" was released exclusively on Beats 1 station on Apple Radio on July 15, 2015 hosted by Zane Lowe.

www.cityandcolour.ca
www.myspace.com/dallasgreen Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Artist Type: 

Cut Off Your Hands

Cut Off Your Hands is: Nick Johnston (vocals), Jonathan Lee (guitar), Philip Hadfield (bass), and Elroy Finn (drums). The Auckland based band include Gang of Four, The Cure, Death From Above 1979, Whirlwind Heat, Joy Division, Split Enz, and James Chance and the Contortions among the chief influences on their skittering brand of proto-punk styled indie rock. Their self produced debut EP "Shaky Hands" was released in August 2006 on Speak N Spell, and includes the singles "You and I" and "Expectations".

Artist Type: 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Unknown Mortal Orchestra first dropped into the world in late 2010 as a bandcamp account carrying a single called ‘Ffunny Ffrends’. ‘Ffunny Ffrends’ was everything you imagined it might be – alien beatnik pop music that echoed 60s psychedelia and krautrock minimalism with just a hint of gentle weirdness that suggested its roots might equally lie in the verdant indie of the equally distant New Zealand scene.

Artist Type: 

The Delta Lions

The Delta Lions are an Australian country/indy/blues influenced rock band based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Comprising Michael Ferfoglia (guitar/vocals), Mat Taylor (drums/vocals), Ryan Wilson (bass) and Ben Leece (guitar/vocals), The Delta Lions punk rock roots and love for classic song writing, give the band a unique, soulful, sincere sound. Strong guitar driven riffs and sing along choruses with lyrics about the good old days help the band reach an audience young and old.

Artist Type: 

Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett (born Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright, on September 7, 1979) is a violinist and singer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and winner of the inaugural Polaris Music Prize. On December 18th, 2009, Pallett announced that he would be retiring his old artist name, Final Fantasy, and would be henceforth releasing his material under his own name. Previous albums released under the Final Fantasy name are planned to be re-packaged and re-released under the new name of Owen Pallett.

Artist Type: 

Jim Ward

He is the former lead singer/guitarist of the post-hardcore band, Sparta, which is currently on an indefinite hiatus. Ward is also founding member and lead singer of Sleepercar. He was formerly the guitarist/backup vocalist in the post-hardcore band At The Drive-In.

Artist Type: 

Foster the People

Foster the People is an indie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California, United States in 2009. According to the Pumped Up Kicks Songfacts, the band started off as a solo project for vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Mark Foster, who had been working as a jingle composer for commercials. As his songs became more grandiose, Foster enlisted Cubbie Fink (bass, vocals) and Mark Pontius (drums). The band released their debut self-titled EP in January 2011. The band's debut full length album, Torches, was released on May 24, 2011 on Star Time/Columbia.

Artist Type: 

Cut Copy

Cut Copy is a synthpop band formed in 2001 at Melbourne, Australia, and made up of Dan Whitford (lead vocals/keys/guitar), Tim Hoey (bass/guitar) and Mitchell Scott (drums), Bennett Foddy being a former member. Their sound is much in the vein of contemporaries such as Daft Punk, drawing considerable influence from older bands such as New Order, Electric Light Orchestra and Kraftwerk. It began in 2001 as the project for Dan Whitford, however in 2003 Whitford recruited a band, and in 2005 toured internationally for the first time, visiting London, New York and Los Angeles.

Artist Type: