Temporary Residence Limited brings us another great record from another post-rock band in Burning Off Impurities, by Portland, Oregon's Grails. The songs aren't quite as melody focused and bombastic as maybe some other Temporary Residence artists we're all familiar with, and I think the result is music that takes maybe a bit more listening to to get. The instrumentation and tempo of some of the tracks is even what a white guy like me might call a bit "Eastern." It's definitely a nice listen if you're looking for something a bit different than the blips and blurps and droning type stuff that I usually talk about around here.

As usual, have a listen to samples on eMusic, or check out the Grails official site for a few downloads.

Related Official Grails site Grails MySpace Profile Grails at Temporary Residence Limited

I've been enjoying Tripper from Danish post-rock outfit Efterklang quite a lot lately. It's got a bit more vocals on it than I usually care for, but as is the case with Sigur Ros, they're a bit whimsical and in a language that means nothing to me, so really the net result is they're a bit more like a another instrument than anything.

From what I can tell from their blog, it looks like they're recording a new record now. Definitely looking forward to that!

Related Efterklang official site Efterklang Wikipedia Entry Efterklang at Flickr!

I recently grabbed Tangled Wool from Xela, which is the project of Mancunian John Twells. The record is mostly guitar instrumentals, of the acoustic variety, with swirling and high-reverb background instrumentation. It played through a few times today while I was messing around with some web development work, and it really took the edge off things. I'm looking forward to finding more work from this artist.

I've been listening to Yolo by Tetsu Inoue for the last few days, and I've been kind of enjoying it quite a bit. It's long and quiet and stretched out, but it's got these little bits of glitchy, nearly techno-sounding elements added in that give it a nice texture.

Though I've had the record for quite a while, I'm really not sure why I haven't investigated this Japanese artist further. If you're new to ambient music and you're looking for a place to start, the first thing you should do is get Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports. The next thing you should do is get Tetsu Inoue's mid-90's classic Ambient Otaku. Then put these records on the stereo and take a nap. Wake up, and you're three-quarters of the way towards being an ambient music afficiando.

Related Tetsu Inoue Wikipedia entry Tetus Inoue, Hyperereal

I wasn't familair with Queens, New York based band The American Dollar until fairly recently, but after downloading their eponymous debut album, I recommend you check them out as well. It's mostly post-rock-ish type stuff with a nice, kind of quirky mix of keys and synth bits. Feels comfortable on a cool spring evening, even down here in Brooklyn.

I have not yet listened to their second release, The Technicolour Sleep, but I suspect it's worth grabbing as well.

Related myspace.com/americandollarband

I picked up New Zealand band Jakob's Cale:drew back in December, and liked most of it. So when I noticed a new Jakob record available on eMusic, I picked it up. Solace, by Jakob, is a post-rock-ish record, and a nice one at that.

Their record label, Midium Records, claims the new record won't be out until May 7, 2007, but I've got a copy playing right now that I downloaded from eMusic, with a release date of April 2, 2007. Perhaps their talking about hard copies. In any case, I've got it, it's good, and I think you should have a listen.

Further Reading Jakob Wikipedia Entry Jakob bio at Midiumrecords.com myspace.com/jakobmusic