New Music: Plants and Animals, Dead Confederate and Why?

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Posting has been pretty scattered here recently but it's not because there's been a lack of good new music. Here are a few albums worth checking out that are available now or coming out soon.

Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue

Yet another band with a great debut album and a ton of potential from Montreal. Plants and Animals remind me a lot of Blitzen Trapper, in that they are able to vary styles and influences from song to song while sounding cohesive. Really there is something here for almost everyone, country-psychedelic-hippie-prog-folk-guitar-rock might be an apt term. Plants and Animals debut album comes out next Tuesday March 25th. (TIYL: Blitzen Trapper, Broken Social Scene, Neil Young, Arcade Fire)

Plants and Animals Myspace

Dead Confederate - Dead Confederate EP

Although this EP came out in 2007, I am just catching onto this band now. I have heard them compared to other "indie" bands that share their Southern heritage (Dead Confederate are from Georgia) like My Morning Jacket or Band of Horses but I don't think they sound much like either band. If anything Dead Confederate have more in common with bands like Black Mountain or The Black Angels. This is just a five song EP (you can get it through Amazon or iTunes) but they are reported to have a full length album out sometime in 2008.

Dead Confederate Myspace

Why? - Alopecia

The Anticon label and their roster of weirdos has come a long way. If you aren't familiar Anticon began in the Bay area as an "avant-garde" hip-hop collective. They are responsible for one of my favorite hip-hop albums of all time, Deep Puddle Dynamics, which was a one-time album whose members were/are: Sole, Doseone, Alias and Slug (from Atmosphere). Anticon is responsible for some brilliant stuff (Themselves, Cloudead, Sole's Bottle of Humans) but recently their hit-or-miss catalog has been mostly misses. Just when I thought Anticon and it's members have became irrelevant Why? and Doseone's band Subtle (Subtle isn't on the Anticon label but Doseone is a founding member) have taken the indie-rock road. Why?'s most recent album, Alopecia, is a truly brilliant, beautiful mess. If you can get past Yoni Wolf's unique voice then there you may a lot on here enjoy, as long as you like your music on the weird side.

Why?'s Myspace