Strange Rivals - Proxy Wars EP

There have been a lot of truly excellent albums released this year, and a nice growing trend has been how many of them have been absolutely free. Coin Under Tongue released "Reception" in physical form, then decided to give it away shortly afterward. Celebration has been releasing their "Electric Tarot" album track by track for a few months now, also for free. Not to mention Beck's Record Club. This is all something I've been waiting to see for a long time, and not just because I'm a cheap bastard.

I think that in the information age we inhabit, music in and of itself is pretty much free whether we like it or not, we just pay for the choice of medium (since pretty much everything can be found on youtube, rapidshare, or some other google-able resource). It's become something certain artists choose to admit, making their digital releases teasers, incomplete demos, or just package-less companions to simultaneously-released lush physical versions, while other artists complain bitterly about the state of the industry and the need for pension funds. True, it is sad that most artists have to struggle a lot harder to get off the ground these days, but when the means by which to do it are so accessible, it becomes harder to applaud those who have done it in the past and not kept up with the current modes.

Strange Rivals is a reverb-soaked garage-informed trio from Brooklyn, NY, my hometown. Lead singer/guitarist Jeff Klonoski and I went to school together for a dozen years, and maybe that's why their sense of space so appeals to me--endless hours spent in silent Quaker meetings, where there was nothing to do except trip out on the boredom of existence. This band sounds deceptively world-weary, and yet there is a subdued ecstasy that builds within a number of their songs.

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