once upon a time, i had a music blog. it was never anything over the top exciting, but id be lying if i said that i didnt spend nights agonizing over what to write about. most of peoples feelings on music are subjective. there are a few truths such as nickleback sucks. elvis costello is the only elvis in my book. type o negative was the best band to ever walk the earth. okay that last part might be a little biased.

but, none the less, i do enjoy talking about music, even if it sends me into heated tangents, one upping matches and hipster-esque rants of i heard of xyz before they were cool. alas i do pride myself in trying to learn about new bands all the time, and generally will give anything the ole college try as far as giving them an initial listen.

last night while tinkering around at around 4 in the morning, like any normal person does, i decided that i couldnt be bothered actually picking any sort of playlist for myself, so i resorted to my old friend pandora to do the picking. does anyone else ever feel like when you do this, its like caving in and letting your mom pick your school clothes for you? no? me either. ill admit, my pandora radio stations range from the raveonettes to delerium to johnny hates jazz to covenant to imogen heap to kenny loggins, one must have a radio station for every occasion, no? speaking of pandora, does anyone else hate the interface overhaul as much as i do? HATE IT. alas i digress, as i was putzing around on the internet at 4am this morning i figured it would be in my best interest to put on a mellow station to try and induce those feelings of needing to go to sleep. i chose one of my favorite stations based off the band delerium.

now if you havnt heard of delerium, you should probably check them out. infact im sure you have probably heard of one of their songs, silence ft. sarah mclaughlin (is that even spelled right?) as it has been used in quite a few movies and other promotional material. i originally discovered this band being a fan of front line assembly, and it progressed from there.

for the most part i usually have good luck with this station. it will throw a little enya, sarah brightman, depeche mode, and enigma my way, but will also toss in some new ones that i have yet to discover.

the first that i had heard for the first time (though im sure all three have played quite a bit, but sometimes its not always active listening going on) was sleepthief. much like delerium, the group has guest vocalists for tracks and what really drew me in was the track that had zoe joh on it – mostly knowing her from her work with delerium. they have released two studio albums, one of which contains a cover of the duran duran song ‘the chauffer’. i normally dont care for covers because so many artists botch them so badly, but i admit, i really do enjoy this one.

the second band that i was introduced to was over the rhine. composed mainly of a husband and wife duo from ohio, they are a piano heavy based group with overlaying female vocals. some songs have cocteau twins-esque guitar riffs to them, which gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside. 12 studio albums later, they are still going strong and have toured with the likes of bob dylan, ani difranco, and squeeze.

and finally, swinging back towards the delerium spectrum, the third band that i am newly addicted to is a group called mythos. based in canada (where im convinced they have some sort of secret factory that churns out amazing electronic groups) an ethereal mixture of acoustic guitars, pianos and synths, also with guest vocalist tracks – the album purity would make a great addition to anyones collection.

so thats it. take off your pants and relax a bit to these new gems for your ears. and stalk my pandora account (pyropixie) and grooveshark account (ladycorrin) just promise not to make fun of me – too much.