El Tepual is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. Cliecheically regarded as the prodigy of Gilberto Gil, he is what you might call a modernist tropicalia musician. However, he is a little bit more than that, as his music does have more layer than the generic tropicalia beat and guitar plating.

This is very well portrayed in his debut, self-titles album, featured here. On top of the local music he uses layers of electronics and modernist production which reflects much of the modern way the music has took, especially in such genres such as dubstep, trip-hop and gazelling.

Picture by Randy P. Martin

Jonathan Boutin is an electronic music producer who usually is unknown to the listener. However, he is the raging spirit behind many famous and successful electro-pop artists, such as Puffy, Cold Electronic Circles and Fat Hipster who lives under the bridge.

In 2009 he finally went from the backstage to the front and released his first album, Desire, Desire, Desire - much to my rejoicing, because I really love this guy. This is a FUCKING AWESOME album. Really, you must get it. It sounds like the love child of a drinking night between Mark Ronson, James Murphy, Puffy and cocaine. Yes.

Picture by Éole

Kenneth III of Scotland is actually called Kenneth Dalhousie. Born and raised in Paisley, in the outskirts of Glasgow, he grew in a musical family. His father, Robert, is a classical pianist with Scottish Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother, Emilia, used to sing opera.

Kenneth plays many instruments but mainly on the piano, violin and guitar. He writes his own lyrics most of the time but is known to compose old scottish poems as well.

somewhat of a recluse is Kenneth’s most recent album, released on March 2010. It can be described as a voyage story in an album, as it follows Kenneth’s journey through Europe, all the way to the east of Russia. Prominent songs in this album include “The ways of Venice”, “Railroad tracks I used to walk”, and of course-“I drank with Elliot Smith last night”.

Picture by alemershad™

Vijayakala Maheswaran is an Indian string player who, as opposed to what you might think, specilized in blues guitar music, and especially uses the Dobro guitar. 

23 years old, he actually grew up in Jamaica where his parents were stationed for a diplomatic mission. His family returned to India when he was 20 and after a couple of year he went to Paris to study art.

His music is mostly instrumental (he once described his voice like “the sound of a peacock being chased down in a subway tunnel”) and move between different genres, the most prominant of those is ofcourse the blues and speedpicking playing.

sent to the legislature is his second album, issued in December 2009

Picture by Eve’sNatureMerryChristmas!

Bastian Clevé, born May 35th, 1977, is an Icelandic singer and harp player. Once a member of the band stórfenglegu strákur, he came to prominence when he wrote the musical score for the hlið vestan saga - an Icelandic production of The West Side Story. After that succesful recognition, he started recording as a solo artist, to much acclaim.

it smells like what it is, released on February 2010, is his second solo album, and the first one featuring English lyrics. It is very successful amongst the critics and is featured in many 2010 musical summary lists.

Picture by Philip Mack

Marissa O’selznick is a singer songwriter musician, as well as a pin-up model, from Kearney, Nebraska. She is greatly influenced by singers such as Fiona Apple, Feist, Regina Spektor and Billy Holiday. Her music is soft, enigmatic, almost dreamy.

This is her debut album, and the only one she issued so far.

She is the sister of Chester O’selznick who was already featured in this blog before under the stage name Oklahoma School for the Blind.

Picture by rHythm123

Lansing City Pulse is one of my most hated band E-V-E-R. However, this is a cool album cover, so here goes:

This band is a punk-hard-whatever-rock band whose members never learned how to play more than 3 chords. They have many songs about how they can’t deal with women and all they want to do is ride their bikes and have horrid sex in stinking bathrooms. Their only contribution to the music world is a negative one - ie, they took the music progress backwards.

Geez, I hate this band. But this is a nice album art.

Picture by Slightlynorth

Dynix is a indie-pop band from the town of Knoxville, TN. They were active between 2002-2007 when their lead singer Albert Johnson decided to break down the band due to artistic differences with the other members. He then pursued a solo career which has failed to gain much attention.

The album featured here is Dynix’s second album. It was released on October 2004 and won several award nominations, including the Juno Awards for the following year.

Picture by pattoncito

Quelques jours de la vie d’Oblomov is a French duo, based in the town of St. Malo on the northwestern part of France. The duo members are a married couple named Bertram and Joulie Fournier. They create popish, atmospheric music using untraditional instruments, some of which aren’t even musical instruments. For example, in this album, their third album, they used an industrial dough mixer as a beat instrument instead of drums.

And in case you wondered (and I bet you did) - the woman on the album cover is Joulie herself.

Picture by gagilas

Oklahoma School for the Blind is the stage name of the nice looking boy on the picture, who goes by the name Chester O’selznick. Living in Kearney, Nebraska, he is the son of a Jewish father (Jacob) and a Catholic mother (Helen) and the brother of Marissa (who is a pin-up model and an acclaimed musician herself).

He is a singer-songwriter known for his epic lyrics and his beautiful way of sifting through life’s most intimate and fragile moments and putting them down to words.

He’s the kind of a guy who lights up a room just by flicking a switch is his debut album, released independently (hence the not-so-good-graphic work which excluded the letter t from the word just). The album got some good reviews and sold nicely over the internet, enabling the guy to records his second and much more successful album - Pinning up the mode.

Picture by Brandon Christopher Warren