The Sifting Pan

Helping you find those Indie Gems!

Tag Archives: Song of the Day


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Song of the Day! Cut Off Your Hands – You Should Do Better

Cut Off Your Hands, New Zealand based Indie Rock band, are back making music after a three year absence.

Cut Off Your Hands are still the amazing indie rockers I remember them being back in 2007. But now it’s 2011 and we’re on the brink of the bands newest LP Hollows which, so far, sounds very promising. The song You Should Do Better is the first single off of Hollows and I can tell just from this track the LP will be something big. You can just hear the artistic passion surging out from this wonderful new song. This song is leaving me with some very big exceptions for the upcoming album, but its not like i’d expect anything less then great from a band who has delivered so well in the past.

You can hear how the band has made some changes and strides from their 2008 debut album You & I. Just listen to the wonderful track Still Fond off their debut to hear what has happened in the course of three years and also just to know how amazing these guys were for their time. The song remains one of those great indie rock tracks from when I was still being influenced heavily in alternative music.

Cut Off Your Hands – Still Fond


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Song of the Day! Darwin Deez – Radar Detector

Darwin Deez is detected on my radar from New York City

Music Video: Darwin Deez – Radar Detector

The vibrent and lively indie pop of American indie band Darwin Deez has been a long time coming to The Sifting Pan. Well you see, Radar Detector was my summer jam of 2010 so I guess its only natural for me to revisit this amazing song to share with you all for the summer of 2011. Radar Detector is a track that just seems to have everything in the right place at the right time and I really couldn’t of gone any farther into the year with out sharing this personal favorite of mine. Pretty much perfect borderline spoken word lyrics, but still enough vocal variation to be considered singing, and that fast and never ceasing percussion put this song into a league of its own. This nothing short of amazing factor continues on into the band’s self titled debut LP Darwin Deez. I suggest you give Darwin Deez a chance and the band’s other singles a listen, like his cosmic hit Constellations or the surprisingly happy Bad Day. I’d also like to note that even though Darwin Deez is an American indie band they’ve found much of their success in the UK. They released their debut LP in the UK in May of 2010, but did not put it out in the US until February of 2011. This kind of boogles my brain because Darwin Deez have the perfect sound to blow up in the modern American indie world, yet somehow still remain hidden in plain sight.


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Song of the Day! This Year’s Model – We Walk Like Ghost

This Year's Model walk like ghost in Sweden

I have no choice but to be straight forward about the wonderfully haunting indie pop that is We Walk Like Ghost. Between those throw back guitar riffs and leader singer Niklas Gustafsson’s unique vocals, I can’t decide which appeals to me more. Perhaps it is the combination of everything that makes Swedish pop act This Year’s Model stand out from the normal bubbly and sunshine indie pop crowd we see far too often coming out of Sweden’s music scene these days. I can accept edgy and somewhat gloomy guitar based pop, because we don’t always need smiles and kisses to make us want to dance and sing along.

This Year’s Model are by no means a new band, having released an EP and two LPs since their formation in 2005. Their latest release We Walk Like Ghost, which came out February of 2011, not only contains the obviously awesome title track We Walk Like Ghost but also plethora of elegant and well crafted pop tunes that echos back to the more somber side of the genre. I suggest you head over to This Year’s Model website to check out more on these criminally underrated Swedes, they have loads of info about themselves and are even offering the song No Miracles off their latest album for free.


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Song of The Day! Floraline – Eighty One

You best believe the shock I received when I discovered the year Floraline released the track Eighty One. Apparently Floraline has released one album, and one album only, and that would be the band’s self-titled debut Floraline which was release waaaaay back in the year 1999. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that a tune like this could possibly be 12 years old. The pleasant electronic beat and laid back guitar seems like they’d fit in so well in today’s modern indie pop music, not the new wave movement of the late 90’s/early 00’s. They other interesting fact about Floraline is that they make seemingly euro-pop music from Atlanta, Georgia. I never would have been able to guess that a southern indie band in the year 1999 would’ve crept its way into my Itunes and into my heart. Everytime I had listened to Eighty One, up until this day, I had been lying to myself and convinced that this five-piece outfit was just another indie act on the verge of breaking out. I now find they existed in a magical time before before Myspace, Facebook, and all other forms of social media so information on Floraline is very limited. This is somewhat disheartening because I now find the sad truth that I will never get to see new material from this hidden gem of the nineties. I guess I have no choice now but to pick up Floraline on Amazon and see what other untold gems are in store for my listening pleasure.

This is the only image in existence on the internet of the Atlanta based Floraline


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Song of the Day! The Pass – Vultures

The Pass make elegant electronic enjoyables from Louisville, KY

Hop on this merry-go-round of indietronic sounds and let the groove of the beat envelop and surround you in Vultures. Heavy on the synth, but not over done and add that dance floor calling beat for the perfect combination and result. Songs with this youthful vigor are the norm on the band’s well crafted debut LP BURST, which saw a release back in September of 2010. I would attempt to describe what The Pass is all about but they’ve already done such a good job at describing themselves-

“We currently spend endless nights toying around with synthesizer loops, crafting haunting melodies, and writing deep passionate lyrics that recall long lost loves and hookups on the dance floor. With a basement sound lab that lends itself as much to electric ladyland as it does a preschool nursery there is a neverending quest for a balanced perfection of synthesizer pop and dancefloor psychedelia. Our live show is somewhere between the final act of a three ring circus and a rave in prague.”