Test Post

This is a quick test post - trying out some new formatting. Sorry - it's mostly behind-the-scenes work here so far. We did change up the sidebar a bit - check out the new links.

Be Patient

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Just a brief heads-up - Unfound Bloom is currently dormant but should be back soon (perhaps even before 2007 is out). We will be relaunching with a new format that is focused around a blog that will be intermittently (but regularly!) updated.

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New Tess Wiley download

There's a new Tess Wiley mp3 up on Tapete's download page. You know the deal - it's free, legal, and Tess Wiley!

Belated Jenny Lewis Downloads

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Because we are terrible, terrible people here, we didn't post about Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins last year. Most of the album can be legally and freely downloaded from her record label at http://www.team-love.com/headphones/releases/tl08/ . Be warned though, they use an annoying Flash thing to serve up the mp3s. It's a fairly good album - nothing truly amazing or innovative, but a catchy set of songs sung with Jenny's intoxicating voice and some subtle harmonies from the Watson Twins. The music is a soft mix of folk and country, with acoustic guitars in various tunings, slide guitars, some keys, bass, and drums. The most unusual thing about it is that the album's lyrics are almost entirely about Jenny's musings on religion. Not that we're complaining. Jenny, of course, is the lead singer of critically-acclaimed indie rock darlings Rilo Kiley.

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Switchfoot fansite, Arcade Fire interpretation

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Lately, I've been enjoying a fairly new Switchfoot blog called Switchfeed. Thanks to their exceptional coverage and the prevalence of RSS readers today, there's no excuse for missing Switchfoot news again. For those of us who had a hard time keeping up with all those message boards, this is great news. Additionally, this blog has become semi-official and has been given permission to show exclusive rarities, downloads, videos, etc.

That blog has a regular feature called "MP3 Of The Week" (or MOTW). So far it's been a good assortment of music. This week's track is "Intervention" by The Arcade Fire. They've posted a decent interpretation of the lyrics as well.

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Incidentally, the blasphemous bible thumpers over at Plugged In decided that they agree, at least in theory, with the Neon Bible. I suppose you can only discuss religion so much on your trendy indie rock album before you start to attract the worst of the "Christian music" crowd.

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Steven Delopoulos - Work to Be Done EP

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For those of you who haven't gotten the Steven Delopoulos bug yet, and for those of you who are patiently awaiting his second solo album, there is good news. An EP entitled Work to Be Done and available free online has 6 tracks: two all new tracks, two highlights from the critically-acclaimed solo debut Me Died Blue, and two live performances from his old band, Burlap to Cashmere. It's a decent overview for those just getting into him, and it might help to tide us fans over while we wait for his next release.

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Awesome MuteMath music video

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Normally I don't bother with music videos, but this one is really unusual. It's choreographed with a bunch of bizarre stunts, and shot in reverse in on take (with no edits). In spite of all of that, the lip-synching in the video is better than that found at most Ashley Simpson concerts. How did they do it?

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Inappropriate Joke of the Year

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Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's come to my attention that the lead singer of Boston killed himself recently, upon deciding that that feeling of loneliness and despair was, in fact, More Than A Feeling.

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New Tess Wiley

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If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably already know who Tess Wiley is. She's a mid-90s indie rocker turned singer-songwriter who, after being in a number of bands in the 90s (Phantasmic, Sixpence None the Richer, etc), started releasing strong, pop-oriented solo efforts. 2004's Not Quite Me is currently not available in the states, but if you're in Europe you can probably still get your hands on it. It looks like we'll see a new album from Tess this year. The new album is called Super Fast Rock'n'Roll Played Slow and is expected to be out this April on Tapete Records.

Three songs from the new album are currently available to download (and a few other songs have been "leaked" legally through various promotions): "Halfway Thru", "Messed Up Everywhere Blues", "Raise Your Hand". Also, you can see the cover art over at Turn Off the Radio, and you can see the full tracklist on this German page.


So far, it looks like this will be good but not as good as Not Quite Me, which was really quite excellent for the amount of recognition it received. Seriously, if we could re-write our best of 2004 list, it'd be right behind Funeral. This is the part where we tell you to buy Tess's music, but since Not Quite Me isn't on Amazon and we can't vouch for Rainy Day Assembly, we'll just have to tell you where to buy Super Fast Rock 'N' Roll Played Slow when it becomes available. If you want to buy me a copy of Rainy Day Assembly though, the link's to the right.

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(Old) Arcade Fire

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Yeah, I know, everybody's talking about The Arcade Fire right now. We have something, however, that the other sites don't: a few early tracks only available through The Internet Archive. Some digging we did while we were not posting anything here turned up this link, which was listed on an older version of The Arcade Fire's website to promote their self-titled EP in 2003. Three tracks are available - one from the EP (Woodlands National Anthem), one interview clip, and an early version of Funeral's "In the Backseat". Enjoy! That ought to be enough to tide you over until Neon Bible comes out during the first week of March, or at least until the Arcade Fire appears on Saturday Night Live this weekend. We know you're too good to listen to the leaked version illegally, right?


...and for you cave dwellers who haven't bought Funeral yet...

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Internet archive

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Although the site remains in disarray, I was happy to find that most (if not all) of our articles are still available online. You can view a cached older version of our reviews page (with links to most of the other pages) here. I'd like to thank Archive.org again for all of the wonderful things they do. If we were able to get anyone writing regularly here, we'd be raving on and on about their Live Music Archive, their "Wayback Machine", and their many other amazing features.

Poke around a bit there. Feel free to let people know that articles, interviews, reviews and such that used to be at Unfound Bloom can now be found there.

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More Downtime and Another Server Change

The non-blog sections of Unfound Bloom are down. I know we never finished rebuilding the site after the last server change, so this isn't too much of a loss - but still, we're in the midst of another server change. It appears that we'll be staying with the same company as the incident that made the site go down is not their fault and we've been happy with their service. I'll continue to update this blog intermittently until we re-launch the site.