[As we all know, the old music business models have pretty much gone out the window, and some amazingly talented artists are giving their stuff away for free. We’ll use these occasional (not actually daily) posts to highlight some of this bounty.]
Friends for Heroes – Year in a Costume (2003)
(Free download at Bandcamp)
I still like to pretend I’m kind of new here in Seattle, and then I stop and think something like “Hey, remember Friends for Heroes? They were pretty good, I wonder what happened to them?” and it turns out their album Year in a Costume came out over 7 years ago, and they haven’t been a band in years. I’m not a fan of saccharine pop music, but this mostly electronic duo, composed of Josh Ottum and Brendan Bosworth, managed to balance clean production and pop hooks with a certain wry intelligence – at times reminiscent of Arto Lindsay, a longstanding favorite artist of mine – resulting in compelling pop music that didn’t leave a weird aftertaste. But hey, don’t take my word for it – this one’s free, go download it now!