Artist	Song	Buy
We All Have Hooks for Hands	Hold on, C'mon
Tilly and the Wall	Sad Sad Song
Mates of State	Punchlines
I'm from Barcelona	Barcelona Loves You
The Hidden Cameras	Animals of Prey
The Eels	Jungle Telegraph
The Crayon Fields	Impossible Things
Apples in Stereo	Rainfall
Neutral Milk Hotel	Ghost
Animal Collective	Did You See the Words
Adam Green	Dance with Me
The Incredible Moses Leroy	She Can't Get Any Sleep
The Unicorns	I Was Born (a Unicorn)
Irving	A Very Frivolous Distribution of Sundries
The Polyphonic Spree	Move Away and Shine
We All Have Hooks for Hands	On & On
Mates of State	Goods
Matt & Kim	Verbs Before Nouns
Neutral Milk Hotel	Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone
My Morning Jacket	Off the Record
Mercury Rev	Endlessly
The Flaming Lips	Do You Realize?
Iron & Wine and Calexico	A History of Lovers
Summer Hymns	Start Swimming
Tilly and the Wall	Ice Storm, Big Gust, and You
We All Have Hooks for Hands	The Man Trying to Outfox Us All

Comment:

I discovered a striking new band this morning thanks to FreeIndie.com, We All Have Hooks for Hands. I was full-on fixated on them instantly, which doesn't happen often, and it occurred to me halfway through the first song I heard that they reminded me of Neutral Milk Hotel crossed with Tilly and the Wall, two of my very favorite bands, and to top it off, their abrasive vocals sounded a lot like...Mates of State! Another group I worship. Then I started thinking, y'know, NMH and Tilly aren't all that different stylistically. Both trade in utterly beautiful, often heartbreaking, often cathartic ramshackle folk pop.

So naturally this meant that I had to make a theme mix right away. The final results are a tad underwhelming based on my initial purpose, to collect other music of a similar style. I know a wiser mixer could come up with many more appropriate choices, but maybe I just haven't explored this area enough, which provides me with a new challenge/inspiration. Or maybe I just overlooked the other ones I know. Anyway, I ended up with more just plain indie pop, but I think I captured a certain spirit, if not exact sound. Sorta like freak folk only more poppy, more accessible. Kind of an outdoors in the wilderness feel, although I didn't pursue that angle much. I mostly wanted to put Tilly, NMH, and these new We All Have Hooks songs together on a mix. I realize a lot of the bands I chose have many more interesting songs than the most familiar hits I stuck to here (like the songs by Flaming Lips, My Morning Jacket, the Unicorns/Islands people, Animal Collective, Hidden Cameras) but I listened to a lot of their music while trying to decide on songs to use for this mix, and these were the ones I just ended up feeling belonged the most. Sorry if it's too familiar in that regard, though.

In closing, I love major key indie folk!

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