A few interesting albums were streamed in full this week. The star among them was Jonsi’s solo debut. The Sigur Rós singer follows his experimental record with boyfriend Alex with the beginning of a career on his own. ‘Go’ shares some of the epic beauty of the Icelandic band, but with a poppier, more accessible edge. The Usual destination for streaming premieres, NPR, was also offering the new Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings album ’I Learned The Hard Way’, which brings little change but plenty of refinement to their tried and tested retro soul formula. Plus ‘Here Lies Love’ The more anecdotical than substantial collaboration between David Byrne; Fatboy Slim and a diverse selection of some of Today’s most popular female vocalists for an album dedicated to shoe collector extraordinaire Imelda Marcos.
SXSW favorites Harlem anticipated their full-length ‘Hippies’ at myspace. So did German electropopsters Lali Puna @ xlr8r with their comeback record ‘Our Inventions’.
In freebie land, the curious album mash-up of Notorious B.I.G. and The XX – following former much talked-about projects like ‘The Grey Album’ or Jay-Z’s & Linkin Park official release- was given away for free. Mad Decent offered J-Wow’s new mixtape ‘Wowed’ and prestigious blog Raven Signs The Blues presented the volume 2 of their best new US bands compilation. Fact magazine readied their 126th mix, Sinden was responsible this time.