Video: Open Mike Eagle- Pissy Transmissions

Los Angeles MC Open Mike Eagle lets loose his latest video from his critically acclaimed 2010 album, Unapologetic Art Rap. Can any of you guess what band was sampled?
Check Out Open Mike Eagle on BandSoup Here!

Industry Article: The New Rock Star Paradigm

OK Go’s Damian Kulash wrote a very interesting article for the Wall Street Journal about success in today’s record business. I’m sure you read at least three of these types of articles a day, but this is one of the best that I’ve read in awhile. It’s full of great insight, quotes, ideas, and examples from highly successful artists.

Music is getting harder to define again. It’s becoming more of an experience and less of an object. Without records as clearly delineated receptacles of value, last century’s rules—both industrial and creative—are out the window. For those who can find an audience or a paycheck outside the traditional system, this can mean blessed freedom from the music industry’s gatekeepers.

Read the Article Here


* Leave your thoughts and comments if you have any. We would love to hear and discuss with both fans and artists.

Kyle Cox

Kyle Cox is an Orlando, Florida based singer/songwriter that recently released his critically acclaimed five track EP, To All My Old Friends, free of charge. The album focuses on various events and emotions in life that have a tendency to make us stumble and fall. 

On the EP, Kyle morphs from sincere to catchy to melancholic while blanketing his infectious pop-folk vocals over streams of classic piano, folk guitar riffs, and moody compositions. Each track carries a different ambience-- ranging from folk and blues to pop-rock and country-- but is cohesive and tactfully put together, giving it a ton of replay value.

What surprised me the most was finding out Cox isn't signed. He is merely a young and humble twenty-something with a deep passion for music that exercises his natural born talents on his free time, not taking his very serious and mature sounding tunes too serious at all. "I never plan on or really want to make sustainable income from the music I write. I love my job here at the church so much that it would be really difficult for me to leave. But I still really enjoy writing, recording, playing my own music, and I don’t think I’ll ever quit doing that." 

Perhaps it is his nonchalance that gives his music that free and organic feel. Void of desperation, visions of fame and fortune, and worries of where he fits in with everyone else, Kyle just has to worry about Kyle. It's these types of artists that make the most heartfelt music and heartfelt music best explains what the young Kyle Cox creates.

You Can Stream the Entire EP on BandSoup.com Here! Free Download Link Available When You Click "Artist Link"!

Here is the video for Come Back Home off the EP:

Insightful

San Diego hip hop producer Insightful has just dropped a gem on BandSoup. His new album, The Flowers in My Mind, is a 28-track instrumental album full of pure electronic energy that slowly scales buildings built of binary code, blows through gardens of fiber optic flowers, and swirls through the back of your eyelids like blessings from Buddha when played.

"Got No Eyes" is a perfect example of what the entire album has to offer. You can stream the track on the main site by clicking here.

Smooth, sleak, and surreal-- this is what 2011 should sound like.

Download: Insightful- The Flowers in My Mind (Click on "Artists Link")

BandSoup.com Presents: Rabbit Stew (Free Hip Hop Compilation)

BandSoup.com has just cooked up a hot pot of independent hip hop, hence the aptly titled (get it?) 17-track compilation available at your doorstep for a free download!

Our first hip hop compilation features some of the finest emerging independent hip hop artists from various spots around North America: Open Mike Eagle, Intuition, and Nocando from Los Angeles, California; Aleon Craft from Atlanta, Georgia; SkuFL from Miami, Florida; 7even:Thirty from Jackson, Mississippi; Black EL & Ryan Durkin from Boston, Massachusetts; MadKem from Queens, New York;  Mally & The Sundance Kid from Minneapolis, Minnesota; RoQ'y TyRaiD from Phoenix, Arizona; Chuuwee from Sacramento, California; Poetic Republic from Cleveland, Ohio; WrittenHouse from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The NewOld from Chicago, Illinois; and Cloudy October from Portland, Oregon. 

In one compilation we have literally covered every crevice of the United States and showed you what they had to offer in the world of hip hop. In one compilation we touched on the weird, the emo, the grimy, the danceable, the raw, the jazzy, the spacey-- what more could you ask for?

Here are a few samples from the compilation below, as well as the link to the free download.

Sample 1: Intuition- Buzzkill ft. Slug (of Atmosphere)

Sample 2: MadKem- What We On

Click Here to Download Rabbit Stew

Tracklist

1. Beat Maker Beat aka Spacekid- AmourContact

2. Open Mike Eagle- I Rock (For the Unemployed)- Awkward Remix

3. Aleon Craft- Project Blue Beam

4. SkuFL- Two Wheels

5. Erik L & 7even:Thirty- Future Flow ft. Hezekiah

6. Nocando- Two Track Mind ft. Busdriver

7. Black EL & Durkin- Go! ft. Outasight

8. MadKem- What We On

9. Mally & The Sundance Kid- Heir Time

10. RoQ'y TyRaiD- I Quit!

11. Chuuwee- 6 Feet Deep

12. Freddie Joachim- Strawberries

13. Poetic Republic- The Media

14. WrittenHouse- Melodi

15. Intuition- Buzzkill ft. Slug

16. The NewOld- Life Style

17. Cloudy October- Inlaw (alternate take)


Download our Indie Rock Compilation from 2010 Here!

BandSoup.com 2011

Happy New Year from BandSoup.com! BandSoup is preparing a grassroots campaign starting January 3rd to help draw more artists and music fans to the site. Please read below on how you can help!

BandSoup is making big strides in 2011 to become a larger and smarter music community. On top of constructing a new interface, adding new interactive tools to engage users, updating our affiliated blog, and strengthening our online marketing presence, we are making it a point to interact with current BandSoup users to gain their insight and experiences in using the site. In a few months, we will have new features available on the main site and a survey form for users to fill out to help the BandSoup team smooth out any of the site's bugs and shortcomings, as well as making your experience more fun and engaging. Until then-- we need your help. We need to continue to have artists upload music and encourage music fans to visit, listen, and bookmark. To get BandSoup out to the masses, we will rely heavily on grassroots, word of mouth marketing through social media networks, links, blogs, and daily conversations. Here is how you could help us continue our mission to spread independent music around the world: Link people to our website http://www.bandsoup.comand http://blog.bandsoup.com via twitter, facebook, myspace, or your blog/website.   Continue to upload your new music to BandSoup.   Keep us up to date with your news, album releases, free music downloads, videos, and anything else you might want to share on our blog (email to:ryan@bandsoup.com).   Let us know any suggestions that you may have for the site or blog. We really appreciate your time and music and look forward to hearing your new tunes! Sincerely, Team BandSoup http://www.bandsoup.com http://blog.bandsoup.com

2 New Songs from Ghost Ghost

New York's Ghost Ghost let loose two new holiday tracks while we were switching over our blog, and even though Christmas and 2010 has come and gone, we felt that they still needed to be heard.

Please Stay for Christmas Eve features a vulnerable sounding Ghost Ghost under a psychedelic snowstorm of ambient guitars and electronic pulses, while Christmas Comes Whenever You Come Home shows a lighter side and sound.

You can also check out Ghost Ghost's video for Time is Gravity, which was released in November of 2010.

Listen to Please Stay for Christmas Eve on BandSoup / Buy
Listen to Christmas Comes Whenever You Come Home / Buy

Walden(pond)

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau conducted an experiment in home economics by living in a small, self-built cabin in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. His intentions were mainly to conduct an experiment: Could he survive, possibly even thrive, by stripping away all superfluous luxuries, living a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions? During his voyage of self discovery, Thoreau emphasized the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in his writings; and over 150 years later, a band that shares the same name as Thoreau's book and cabin home, emphasize the same sentiments in their sound.

Walden(pond) is an emerging Grand Rapids, Michigan based trio consisting of Nolan Potter (guitar/vocals/piano), Danny Gilmore (drums/back-up Vocals), and Matt Carey (bass). Much like Thoreau escaping "over-civilization...in search of the raw and savage delight of the wilderness," Walden(pond)'s sound avoids the over-produced world of mainstream rock and roll and chooses to exist on the outskirts where their sprightly guitar arrangements dance like water bugs; their bass croaks wildly like bullfrogs in heat; and vocals float and ripple like wind over water.

Earlier this year, the newly formed trio completed their debut album, Like a Jackknife Gleaming, featuring ten serene tracks full of earthy compositions, 90's alternative nostalgia, and hints of psychedelia. The album is now available to purchase and download via iTunes and ready to stream on BandSoup.com.

My personal favorite song, I Get Back, proves that Walden(pond) is a force to be reckoned with. Potter's crafty guitar work and infectious vocals is a perfect introduction to a band that sounds like self discovery, nature, and healthy isolation wrapped in one simplistic package.

Thoreau once said: "Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave ... One piece of good sense is more memorable than a monument as high as the moon." The members of Walden(pond) have left one good piece of sense with their latest album and it will be remembered.

Listen to Walden(pond) tracks on BandSoup.com!