Here’s to good times and fiddles in old time folk. The two are synonymous by my way of thinking so it’s with a great degree of cordiality that I share with you the Deadly Gentlemen. We all know it’s not 1921 so there’s no need to be the dude who keeps breaking the illusion. Just run with it and make like we’re straight bootlegging some bathtub liquor.

The Deadly Gentlemen – ‘Moonshiner’

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The Deadly Gentlemen – ‘Bullet in my Shoulder’

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You can go to the effort of download every individual song for free if you’re a penny pinching cat like I am or you can be a good guy and spend ten dollars on the full record and download it all at once. I’ll get them some coin later on. For now they can make do with yours. Truly, it’s a cracking record and you can get it over here.

Jeremy Quentin aka Small Houses is all up on my radar like a thing that doesn’t utilise stealth technology. I downloaded ‘North’ from his bandcamp last month and it immediately found it’s way into a playlist titled ‘Song that sound like The Tallest Man on Earth’, previously populated only by Bob Dylan’s back catalogue (dude needs stop cutting TTMOE’s style).

Absent however is the lyrical ingenuity of TTMOE but that’s something that comes with time, I guess. It’s not like the lyrics are vapid rubbish but they don’t make your ears prick up like those of Kristian Matsson. It’s the combination of a smouldering voice and some cracking fingerpicking that drew me in.

Small Houses – ‘North’

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I’m keen to hear what else the Michigan native has in store. His first full length North is currently in the works but for the moment you can pick up the appropriately named Just Before The North EP for a few dollars over here.

Melbourne based* Oscar and Martin have been making some cutting edge tracks this last 6 months. They’re also signed to what was today voted (by me) the best record label in Australia so you can understand why the musical elite (me again) have embraced them with open arms. Formerly of FBi favourites Psuche, they’re now blowing up with national airtime and attention on a number of particularly reputable blogs. Their album For You was released April 15. Spend here.

 
Oscar + Martin – ‘Recognise’

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[FREE DOWNLOAD]

Introducing your new favourite band: Givers. There’s a mesh of influences from bands such as Vampire Weekend and Local Natives and guitar tones that sound like they’ve been sampled straight out of Paul Simon’s Graceland (At least in Up, Up, Up). The intesity of the electric guitar at the end of both tracks reminds me of the almighty Fang Island (who I really should have posted about sometime way back when). Despite all these references they’ve still managed to create their own niche in the global soundscape and it’s working for me.

This five piece formed in 2009 and they’ve since signed to Glassnote Records (the same folks who handle Mumford, Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club etc) so you know that they’ll be crazy huge, crazy soon. That gives you a one month window to enjoy their music before you decide that “you liked their earlier stuff better”. They’ll have a full-length titled In Lights out on June 7th 2011 (but we’ll all agree to hate them by then). In the meantime though, take this in. Unreal.

Givers – ‘In My Eyes’

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[FREE DOWNLOAD via StereoGum]

Givers – ‘Up, Up, Up’

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This post featured seven mentions of bands that aren’t Givers and four examples of parentheses. I did stats at uni so I know how to work this sort of thing out.

This week I’ve been buried under the collective wait of Bon Iver’s Bon Iver and Hooray For Earth’s True Loves and between the two there’s been almost no room for me to imbibe any other sonic sustenance. Here with very little commentary is a track from Toronto’s Wilderness of Manitoba that you should have put on your Mother’s Day mixtape. I don’t like to throw the hallowed name of Art Garfunkel around too lightly so it’s with a huge grain of salt that I draw comparison between the vocal lines in Mother Song and Art Garfunkel’s voice (his name be praised). Slowcoustic gave this track away as a free mp3 so I’m going to go right on ahead.

Wilderness Of Manitoba – ‘Mother Song’

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[FREE DOWNLOAD]

Here’s another from TWOM that Spinner gave away a few months ago.

Wilderness Of Manitoba – ‘Orono Park’

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This is EXACTLY your sort of thing. Buy an album (on Amazon? Really?)