Peter Bradley Adams - Leavetaking (Sarathan Records, 2008)

Leavetaking, the second solo album from Peter Bradley Adams, is a warm and inviting exercise in less-is-more songwriting. A mostly mellow affair, Adams mines a rich vein of American music that dates back to the Laurel Canyon crowd of the sixties and beyond. It is an album rich in texture and emotion, the sound of a man quietly pouring his heart out onto tape.
Prior to striking out on his own, Adams was a member of Eastmountainsouth, a group that was signed to the Dreamworks label by Robbie Robertson, a key member of The Band. If an endorsement from In(High)Fidelity isn't enough to grab your attention, then it would be foolhardy to ignore the judgement of a man, who in addition to being a part of the classic Americana album, Music From Big Pink, also served time with Bob Dylan and played an intrical part in the recording of the Basement Tapes.
Peter Bradley Adams sings with the conviction of a man who has lived, loved and lost. The album's opening track, The Longer I Run, speaks of an man suffering for his art, a man who "breaks his own heart to keep writing these songs". While, Under My Skin, is a paen to a love that transcends the everyday, the kind of love that consumes you whole.
Peter Bradley Adams is a modern-day troubadour of the highest order, and Leavetaking is an album that will stay with you long after the final note has played.

Key Tracks: The Longer I Run, Under My Skin, Always

Check Out: http://www.myspace.com/peterbradleyadams

Why? - Alopecia (Anticon, 2008)

Simeon's Dilemma is one of finest tracks on Why?'s incredibly fine album, Alopecia. It also utilizes an interesting spelling of the name 'Simon'; it looks Old Testament. Stranger still, is the little known story of how I came to be made aware of Why?'s music. Not very oddly, my old housemate - an excellent source for quality music - alerted me to the existence of Why?, recommending I give them a listen.
My old housemate's name: Simeon (spelt with an 'e').
Yet, the story does not stop there, for before I was able to give Why? a listen, I received another email from Simeon. He faced a dilemma brought on by a heady mixture of hard inner-city living, a fondness for the amber ale, life as a part-time student and a full-time connoisseur of only the finest musical delights.
Simeon's Dilemma
Weird... and Why?'s music is a little bit weird too, but in a very cool way. An eclectic melding of inie-guitar-pop-meets-a-little-bit-folkie-meets-ernest-hip-hop-troubadour. When is the NME going to start coming to me for genre descriptions?
Alopecia is an album unlike anything else your'e likely to hear this year. It is utterly original; a melding of music, words, and mulitple genres in order to create something entirely new.
Aside from all of my hype, though, the music is just really good. Listening to this type of music will make you cooler.

Key Tracks: The Vowels, Pt. 2; The Hollows; Fatalist Palmistry

Check Out: www.myspace.com/whyanticon

Girl Talk - Feed The Animals (Illegal Art, 2008)

Building upon the sampladelic stylings of 2006's much-lauded, Night Ripper, Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) has taken his cut-and-paste-on-crack stylings to even greater heights on his latest release, Feed The Animals.
For music-nerds and dancefloor-fiends the world over, each new Girl Talk release is like some teenage wet-dream: a popping, locking, and dropping trip through modern musical history. Girl Talk's ability to bring seemingly disparate musical genres together is quite astounding; his ability to borrow from a multitude of artists to create something entirely new and original is, quite simply, jaw-droppingly brilliant.
To give you some idea of why we are so in awe of Girl Talk's skills, it is reported that in order to create Feed The Animals, Gillis managed to squeeze somewhere in the the vicinity of 300 hundred samples into the albums 14 tracks. Yet, it is not simply the number of the samples, but the way in which they are seemelessly interwoven, that reveals the true genius of Girl Talk.
Currently our favorite album track, Hands In The Air, blends Tag Team's Whoomp! There It Is, with Big Country's, In A Big Country, with Kraftwerk, and Hot Chip, and Afrikaa Bambastaa, and the Velvet Underground, and Aerosmith, and Michael Jackson, and Genesis, and so on and so forth. Excellent.
So, while copyright attorneys the world over breathe a collective sigh of despair, download Feed The Animals for the price you wish to pay, before the physical version hits record stores in September.

Check Out: http://www.myspace.com/girltalk

In(High)Fidelity Giveaway!!! Falcon!!!

You need only look below this posting to see what we think of Falcon's very cool debut EP. Now - in conjunction with the Planetary Group - In(High)Fidelity is happy to present you with the opportunity to win a copy of this stunningly assured set of songs.

The first two people who send benedmonds@hotmail.com an email, with "Falcon Giveaway Yes Please" in the subject line, will each receive a copy of the EP... Good luck.