A little more bluegrass... and a switch

I was so hooked from last week I was listening to bluegrass all this week too. So I'm gonna go ahead and post a couple of songs and some comments before going into the new stuff.

This first video is of two of one of my all time favorite bluegrass players. Chris Thile (prnounced thee-lee) is the mandolin player/vocalist who looks like an un-bathed version of Robert Pattinson. Suffice to say, he's fantastic. Everything about the music just seems to flow with this guy, and I don't know how many of you guys have ever tried to play a mandolin, but it is freaking hard. There are 8 tiny little god damn strings and these little frets and I can't imagine this instrument was meant for adult fingers. But he rocks it.
I can't say I know very much about the guitarist/vocalist, but I sure do like his playing. He seems to have incorporated a banjo claw picking technique to his guitar picking which gives an interesting sound to the rhythm.

This next video is awesome. I am literally at a lack for words. And it's through surfing Chris Thile videos on youtube that I even found it. For some background, all of these players are considered to be top of the world at their instruments. Yo Yo Ma (cello) and Edgar Meyer (Double Bass) have been hailed as two of the best players to ever pick up their respective instruments. This classical bluegrass fusion is just, in my humble opinion, nothing less than perfection. Everything about it. That these artists are able to come together and make a sound like this is a fantastic thing.

Okay, new stuff and a picture.

This is Sigur Ros. The first time I heard them I was literally in awe of the shear sound that was coming out of my speakers. It's relaxing yet engaging.
To start, this band comes from Iceland, but it is not entirely Icelandic that they are singing, sometimes the lyrics are literal nonsense.

The ethereal, yet hype beat driven sound is very common of Sigur Ros (which by the way is prnounced See-gore, and rose with a soft "s"). In my opinion, this is the music of the imagination. If I'm just sitting around thinking about stuff, this is the kind of music I want running through my head.

This band is called, Godspeed! You Black Emporer. I have no idea why they call themselves that. I really don't. But they are incredible. A little more of a progressive sound than Sigur Ros. They not only have the same eerie, ethereal sound, but they utilize sound clips and "outside" (non musical) sounds. I guess you could consider this the "avante-garde" of whatever genre of music this is.

Anyway, this is the picture I drew this week:

Sorry about it being on its side, that was the only way to get a decent image. It looks much better in person in my opinion. It's supposed to represent imagination. It's two boys sitting in a sandbox together sailing through imagination.

But you can interpret it however you like.