On the 10th of every month my eMusic subscription refreshes.  75 new songs to download.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m insane.  I pay 20 bucks a month for 75 tracks and it’s now the 17th and I only have 7 left.  I have a problem.  At any rate, 2009 is shaping up to be a great year for music, so I thought I’d share what I’ve been spinning lately.

April 14th was a big day for two bands – The Silversun Pickups released Swoon, their follow-up album to 2006’s gem, Carnavas.  While missing the dominating sounds of “Lazy Eye” and “Rusted Wheel”, Swoon is certainly worth picking up.  I’d be listening to it right now except I stumbled upon Fantasies by Metric.   The first studio album by one of Toronto’s powerhouse groups in four years, Fantasies is fantastic!  Lead singer Emily Haines crafts catchy upbeat pop tunes with lyrics that make you go, “You’re so right!”

Other things I downloaded like mad on eMusic this week…

Amy Millan – Honey From the Tombs :: Favorite Tracks: Skinny Boy
Other Lives – Other Lives ::Favorite Tracks: Black Tables, Paper Cities
Telekinesis – Telekinesis! ::Favorite Tracks: Rust, Tokyo, I Saw Lightning
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Two Tongues - Two Tongues

Oh and by the way, I don’t get paid or anything to advertise eMusic.  I just think it’s a really great service so that’s why I like promoting it.  However, if you feel like joining, mention me and I get 50 free downloads.  Holla!!

Music

Welcome to the new ashleyrath.com.  Everyone has a blog/twitter/website of some sort these days, so hopefully I can make this interesting enough for people to come on back.  I’m still tweaking a few things, but this is the new layout of the site for now!  I have been using wordpress blogs for about three years now, and am excited about all the recent changes to the software.  It has evolved so much since my Japan journal, and I am confident it will serve as a great platform for both my blog and portfolio.

Hmmm, I’m going to keep the opening post short and sweet, so that’s all for now!  Have fun poking around the site, and as always, I am open to your thoughts and suggestions.

Thanks!

-a

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