一九四九年十二月七日生於加州西南部的波姆那(Pomona)的汤姆‧威兹，在七○年代创作出结合关注分离状态、低收入生活人民的作品，并以他沙哑的嗓音娓娓道出这些边缘世界。八○年代起，他增加了在戏剧方面的活动，包括演出和作曲。在南加州长大的汤姆‧威兹引起贺伯‧柯恩﹝Herb Cohen，他同是时也是法兰克‧查帕(Frank Zappa)的经纪人﹞的注意，并在七○年代初签下了他。汤姆‧威兹正式首张专辑为一九七三年在Asylum唱片公司发行的的《Closing Time》，这张收录了单曲〈Ol' 55〉的作品在当时和老鹰合唱团(The Eagles)的《On the Border》专辑共同宣传，自此，汤姆‧威兹引起乐评和次文化听眾的注意，他接下来的作品包括了《The Heart of Saturday Night》(1974)、《Nighthawks at the Diner》(1975)、《Small Change》(1976)、《Foreign Affairs》(1977)、《Blue Valentine》(1978)及《Heart Attack and Vine》(1980)。
一九八三年，汤姆‧威兹转到Island唱片公司，发行了《Swordfishtrombones》，在这张专辑中，汤姆‧威兹尝试了管乐和打击乐器，并以不同的录音技术製作完成。八五年《Rain Dogs》发行；八七年，根据汤姆‧威兹去年的首部舞台剧製作的专辑发行；八八年，《Big Time》专辑发行，并同时推出了一部影片，是他的演唱会之一的纪录。九二年，《Bone Machine》发行，并获得葛莱美奖(Grammy Award)最佳另类音乐专辑。九三年，《The Black Rider》发行，这张音乐剧专辑是九○汤姆‧威兹和另类小说家威廉‧贝罗斯(William Burroughs)合著，是为歌剧导演劳勃‧威尔森(Robert Wilson)所写的。在一段长时间的音乐空白后，汤姆‧威兹於九八年推出了《Beautiful Maladies》，为他在Island唱片公司所发表过的作品的回顾，而至九九年才终於发行专辑《Mule Variations》。
七○ 年代晚期，汤姆‧威兹开始参与电影工作，首先是为《Paradise Alley》担纲作曲，并在戏中演奏钢琴；之后为《On the Nickel》(1980)编写主题曲。八○年代初，汤姆‧威兹开始与柯波拉(Francis Ford Coppola)合作，先是在《旧爱新欢》(One from the Heart, 1982)中担任配乐及幕后主唱，并获得奥斯卡提名。在这段工作期间，他和剧作家凯萨琳‧布雷南(Kathleen Brennan)相识，并结为连理，夫妇俩后来在工作上亦常搭挡。自《旧爱新欢》开始，汤姆‧威兹便成为柯波拉电影的常客，计有《小教父》(The Outsiders, 1983)中的一线角色(酒吧老闆)、《斗鱼》(Rumblefish, 1983)裏的班尼、《棉花俱乐部》裏的Irving Stark等。纵使常在大製作的电影中饰演疯子或精神病患者，汤姆‧威兹仍偏爱参与独立製片，贾木许的《法外之徒》就是他相当珍爱的一次演出经验。
八七年起，汤姆‧威兹开始参与一些主流电影，首先是《紫苑草》(Ironweed)，与杰克‧尼克逊(Jack Nicholson)和梅莉‧史翠普(Meryl Streep)同台；同年，又参与了《Candy Mountain》；八九年则是在《Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale》、《Cold Feet》、《Wait until Spring》中露脸；九○年参加了劳勃‧阿特曼(Robert Altman)的《银色、性、男女》(Short Cuts)。九一年参与的计有《Queens' Logic》、《奇幻城市》(The Fisher King)及《At Play in the Fields of the Lord》。九二年，他又分别在老朋友柯波拉的《吸血鬼》(Bram Stoker's Dracula)和贾木许的《地球之夜》中轧上一角。
多才多艺的汤姆‧威兹在镜头前后，都是个多姿多采、以冷幽默性格著称的独特之人，他的许多歌曲不论是大剌剌地宣告或在音乐风格上的暗示，也都在反映他自身对电影的喜好，甚至「身体力行」，此番作为著实是歌坛、影坛的一个异数。

乐队在1999年夏天组成，经过一年的磨合，推出处女同名专辑，没经过打磨的声音在独立唱片公司Kindercore发行，KOC的音乐触动了多间大型唱片公司敏感的听觉神经，为今后发展打开方便之门。

Mac DeMarco returns with his newest album, Here Comes the Cowboy, the first album to be released on his new independent label, Mac’s Record Label. The album features lead single “Nobody,” and is available on May 10.

Firmly a phenomenon in their home country of Iceland, the four-piece band Kaleo is set to descend upon foreign shores in 2015, bringing their gorgeous blend of folk, blues, country, and rock to a wider mainstream audience in America. Their isolated heritage inspires a unique take on familiar sonic elements, resulting in diversity and freedom on each and every breathtaking track.
Best friends since attending elementary school in the small town of Mosfellsbaer outside of Reykjavik, bandleader JJ Julius Son, drummer David Antonsson Crivello, and bassist Danny Jones began playing together at the age of 17. Honing their skills, they played countless shows around the nation’s capital for a few years before adding guitarist Rubin Pollock to the mix in 2012. They named the band Kaleo, which means “the sound” in Hawaiian, and started their career in earnest with a handful of well-received shows at the 2012 Iceland Airwaves music festival.
They recorded their first pair of original songs in early 2013, the fiery “Rock N Roller” and laid-back, bluesy “Pour Sugar On Me,” which earned Kaleo some radio airplay and press in Iceland. Then, that spring, their cover of the traditional Icelandic ballad “Vor í vaglaskógi” during a live radio show was videotaped and posted to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. The band recorded a studio version of the song in June, which went straight to Number One in virtually every radio station in the country. “It’s a different kind of cover, more dramatic and the tempo is taken down,” says JJ. The buzz for Kaleo had begun.
The band signed to Iceland’s largest record label, Sena, in the fall of 2013 and recorded their full-length debut, Kaleo, in just six short weeks. Five singles would reach Number One and the album would go Gold, receiving high praise and sending the band to shows and festivals in Europe over the next year, including an appearance on the biggest stage in their home country, Culture Night, where they played to 100,000 people and reached 90 percent of Iceland’s population in broadcast. Then, in the spring of 2014, Kaleo recorded the lush, introspective song “All the Pretty Girls” and in one night their destiny to outgrow their small, island nation was cemented.
“It’s a very delicate song. It seemed to speak to a lot of people,” says JJ. “From there everything started to happen. We got contacted from other places: managers, labels, publishers—they all went crazy over one night.” Drawn to Kaleo’s multi-layered dynamics, their ability to play different genres with equal skill, the vocals and mood reminiscent of everything from Bon Iver and Iron & Wine to Coldplay and David Gray, and wise-beyond-their-years songwriting, the world came calling.
Now, signed to Atlantic Records in the US, Kaleo has moved to Austin, Texas, and will begin recording new material with producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg) in London for an EP due this year. Get ready for the sound.

arms and legs五人阵容全新EP，颠覆了之前的民谣风格，值得聆听！

Tamas Wells (/ˈteɪməs/ TAY-məs) is an Australian singer-songwriter and academic based in Melbourne, Australia. Wells first came to attention in his home country in 2002 with airplay of a three-track demo, Cigarettes, a Tie and a Free Magazine, recorded with three friends.

When Melbourne singer songwriter Tamas Wells released his debut album ‘A Mark on the Pane’ Inpress Magazine described it as ‘one of the year’s most beautiful records’ and it reached number 16 in Australia’s AIR charts. It also received much praise internationally - with Savio Records in Italy declaring that it was ‘destined to become a cult record for many’.
Yet not long after the 2004 release, Wells left Australia - moving to the isolated country of Myanmar (Burma) to take up a long term position with an aid organization.
That could have been the end of the story.
But instead, he continued to write and record - and after three subsequent albums Wells has sold tens of thousands of records, signed label deals in Europe, Japan, China and Korea, headlined shows in Paris, Tokyo, Sydney and Shanghai and enjoyed a period in the international charts in Japan (HMV Shibuya) - all while remaining relatively unknown in his home city.
His songs have also been used in a number of films including Australian producer Marc Furmie’s award winning ‘Dark Horse’ and ‘The Houses there Wear Verandahs Out of Shyness’ from Italian film producer Fabrizio Polpettini. Polpettini also collaborated in making the stunning film clip for Wells' 2011 song ‘Thirty People Away’ - which was filmed in Paris and stars French actor Denis Lavant.
On the Volatility of the Mind
In 2012, Wells returned from Myanmar and in various homes around Melbourne began work on a new studio album. While previous recordings have drawn on Wells’ ‘beautifully broken’ use of acoustic guitar and piano (Daily Telegraph), the new album takes a different path. As Wells says, ‘I am a believer in using the instruments you have around you, and while I was writing these songs I found an old Casio synthesizer at my parent’s house and a friend had left his electric guitar at my house. So the songs started to focus on melodies, jangly guitar parts and dreamy synthesizer instrumentals’.
In the project, Wells also collaborated for the first time with Melbourne producer Nick Huggins (Kid Sam, Two Bright Lakes) and drew on the songwriting smarts of Mark Lang (Skipping Girl Vinegar). The result is ‘On the Volatility of the Mind’ - which will be released internationally in March 2014 (and in Australia through Popboomerang Records). Wells will tour internationally in May and June 2014.

Matthew Barber returns with Big Romance his 8th studio album, available May 27th on the Outside Music Label.
Barber, who self produced his last two albums, jumped at the opportunity to have Jayhawks frontman, and leader of the Americana movement, Gary Louris come on board “I’ve been a lifelong fan of Gary’s music with The Jayhawks and Golden Smog as well as his production work with (Outside Music label-mates) The Sadies,” says Barber, adding that “it was a thrill to get to make a record with one of my contemporary musical heroes.”
Big Romance was recorded in Toronto at Revolution Sound as well as Greg Keelor’s farmhouse studio in eastern Ontario. Drummer Dean Stone reunited with former Apostle of Hustle band-mate and long-time Barber bassist Julian Brown to make up the rhythm section, marking the first time the two have backed Barber on record since his breakout 2003 debut Means and Ends. Big Romance also features gorgeous piano and organ work from Jesse O’Brien and Steve O’Connor, exquisite backing vocals from Michelle McAdorey, guitar and vocals from Louris and a guest appearance by Barber’s sister Jill who appears on the lead track “Hold Me.” Big Romance has soul-searching ballads, foot-stomping rockers, some groovy mid-tempo tunes and hooks-a-plenty. Tragedy is explored in both personal loss with an ode to a departed friend in the song “Magic Greg,” and in the events that took place on the 505 streetcar line that runs along Toronto’s Dundas Street, steps away from Barber’s house on the evening of July 27, 2013.
“Big Romance is a wide-reaching idea on this record,” says Barber, a lyricist not shy to play a romantic card. “Some songs are about love, but others deal with death, despair and that which lurks in the shadows that are cast when the fires of passion burn bright. With this title I want to embrace the idea that while it can be artistically-liberating to give in to romance completely, one must also be able to step outside with a wink and recognize that sometimes romance goes no deeper than the stuff of a good song.”

Reuniting with Rick Rubin, the brothers explore the beauty of heartbreak. Gorgeous acoustic ballads like “I Wish I Was” and “Fisher Road to Hollywood” are wrought with emotion, while the crunchy distortion of “Satan Pulls the String” and stomping beat of “Ain’t No Man” are celebratory anthems of survival and rebellion. Yet, the most memorable moments on True Sadness—like “Mama, I Don’t Believe” and “No Hard Feelings”—are somewhere between the highs and lows, when the Avetts channel Tom Petty’s bittersweet, Wildflowers-era Americana.

Passenger’s upcoming album Whispers II will be released via his own label, Black Crow Records, on April 20, 2015 and 100% of all profits raised will go towards Unicef UK’s groundbreaking initiative in Liberia.
Every year ten thousand children die of malnutrition in Liberia. Over the next five years, Unicef UK aims to reach every child under the age of five in the country, and protect them from the danger of malnutrition.
Mike Rosenberg (aka Passenger):
“It's so exciting to be able to work with Unicef on such an important campaign. Money raised from these sales will go directly towards food and supplements to help bring severely malnourished kids back to health, facility upgrades and maintenance, education and training for health workers in the region."

Darling Arithmetic is the third album from Villagers, released on 13th April 2015. The follow-up to Conor O’Brien’s debut, Becoming a Jackal, and its successor, Awayland - both hugely acclaimed and Mercury-nominated - is a breathtakingly beautiful, intimate album entirely about love and relationships.
Darling Arithmetic was written, recorded, produced and mixed by O’Brien at home - the loft of a converted farmhouse that he shares in the coastal town of Malahide to the north of Dublin - revealing a single-minded artist at the peak of his already considerable songwriting powers. It encompasses the various shades of feeling – desire, obsession, lust, loneliness and confusion, and deeper into philosophical and existential territory, across a cast of lovers, friends, family and even strangers. Backing up his supple and emoting vocal and guitar is the subtlest palate of instrumentation – piano, Mellotron (which accounts for the album’s occasional horn and cello tones) and brushes. O’Brien plays every instrument on these exquisite, melodic songs in a sparse, spacious, acoustic-leaning fashion.

The Milk Carton Kids are an American indie folk duo from Eagle Rock, California, United States, consisting of singers and guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan, who began making music together in early 2011.

The Milk Carton Kids are an American indie folk duo from Eagle Rock, California, United States, consisting of singers and guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan, who began making music together in early 2011.

Andy tubman出生在美国费城；他爸爸是一名歌剧演唱家，受到他的影响，幼年的Andy就对音乐以及演奏有着很浓郁的兴趣。所以到后来，他在大学里专精音乐理疗并且得到了学位也就一点也不奇怪了。当时他在州立精神病院实习，专门照顾精神分裂症的病患；如你所知，精神病医生总有变成精神病之虞，所以Andy开始尝试创作歌曲来缓解日常工作上的紧张压力。为了精进这项技艺，他特别搬家到了纳什维尔呆了整整三年；在那里他和其他的音乐家譬如 Gary Burnett、Daniel Tashien还有Jill Sobule一起创作、演唱、录制歌曲。01年，Andy来到了洛杉矶，和更多的艺术家合作，其中也包括与他一同创作“Quiet Inside”的Keith Gattis。以Andy Tubman为主唱的乐队The Jane Doe’s也是在这个时期正式组建的，乐队其他四人包括鼓手兼合声Brad Colton，贝斯Daniel Thomas，键盘Ian Grom，钢琴伴奏Dennis Hamm。
基本上，Andy Tubman或者他的乐队The Jane Doe’s在国外的知名度和在中国差不了多少。可想而知，他们是有多默默无闻啊 。无论Wiki或是Google都无法找到一点相关信息。我打赌05年跟着电影The Jacket剧组（歌曲Quiet Inside是片尾Adrien重逢 Knightley时的配乐）走好莱坞红地毯的Andy Tubman肯定没有想到之后的音乐之路竟会如此不顺。要知道如今的乐坛，几乎天天有从Myspace红出来的二三流新乐队发唱片呐！Andy Tubman绝对是被大大低估了的歌手，很难想出来还有哪个男声能像他这样孱弱却又绵延不绝，直抵听者内心。