Yellow Ostrich is the brainchild of Alex Schaaf, out of New York City. Most of the music he’s made over the last couple years is created entirely by himself. And did I mention that you can download it all for free? But slip him a few bucks for the effort — support good people making good music!

/via @loserboy

Chills. Those solos. My god.

merlin:

Dire Straits - “Sultans Of Swing” (OGWT; Recorded: Jan. 1978; Broadcast: May ‘78)

Gold. Taped two weeks before they started recording their first record—a full nine months before it was released.

Featuring variations on not one, but two, of my favorite guitar solos.

The man pulls-off like a mofo.

Trust me, this guy is amazing. John O, aka Diamond Rings, opened for Perfume Genius when I saw him play at the Crocodile recently, and he blew my mind. Read the review I wrote about the show to learn more about him, and keep your eyes/ears out for Diamond Rings’ debut album, out on Oct. 25. It‘s going to be HUGE.

/via @BrittneyBush

A rather long video that you don’t need to watch, but should bring yourself to put on in the background and listen to as you go about your day.

I just saw Frightened Rabbit for the second time last week, and the video above was recorded between those two sets. Neither time I saw them did they perform The National’s “Fake Empire” (47:40) or the Hold Steady’s “Southtown Girls” (1:06:23), but both of those covers make it well worth the price of admission to watch this awesome video.

Enjoy.

Mos Def, “Casa Bey”

An astute friend of mine took me to task for liking the Ceelo Green video I posted this morning, saying that the video was basically crap. So I feel the need to clarify that it was the song that I found great, not the video. That video is your typical, run-of-the-mill motion graphic, circa 2008. It appears that no thought was put into the creation of that video, other than to think “We want the words “FUCK YOU!” to be huge!”

Then that same astute friend shared the above video for the song “Casa Bey,” by Mos Def, most famous for his appearance in Stuff White People Like. Now this is a video I can get behind. Directed by Coodie & Chike.

Ceelo Green (from Gnarls Barkley), “F*$K YOU!” (NSFW — duh.)

I saw this a few days ago, and loved it then. But I quickly moved on. Now that it’s making a 2nd turn through my RSS reader, I’m giving it another listen. Released just last Friday, I’m betting on this song to be the anthem from 2010. Mark my words.

SO GOOD!

The Siouxsie Sioux resurgence continues with this somewhat disturbing video from Brighton’s Esben and the Witch. Directed by Peter King and David Procter at The Agenda Collective, we’re presented with the 3 members of the band, lip-syncing directly into the camera, as some unknown off-camera source slowly pummels them to oblivion.

/via MBV

The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel for the Onion’s A.V. Club.

They do a good job with “Two-Headed Boy.” No one can do the song justice, but I feel it’s probably quite difficult to screw up covering this song, too. “King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2” at the end of the video should have been avoided.

What’s more interesting to me is that out of the 25 songs available, “Two-Headed Boy” didn’t get picked until song #22? Why wouldn’t this song have been one of the first ones picked?

Sorry for all the Budweiser crap surrounding the video. Unavoidable.

/via Large Hearted Boy

Jónsi, “Go”

As the lead singer of Iceland’s Sigur Rós, Jónsi has a masterful grasp of how to combine ever-so-quiet lows with impossibly-high crescendos.

His solo album is more high than low, and he’s singing in English more than ever. This video is for the song Go: a fun, excitable, toddler-bouncing-off-the-walls ditty.

/via KEXP