i hate the sound of guitars

last.fm recently played me Zsammy’s “Your Chest Is Not Moving,” and I liked it a lot. It’s about as creepy as the title suggests, but much prettier. It’s a little shoegazer-y and a little bit Britpop in a loved-The Bends way without being overly derivative; some of Zsammy’s other songs have a slowcore vibe. It stood out because of the pacing and dynamics of the arrangement — lots of lovely stacked guitar parts — and the strong vocal performance.

When something catches my ear that much on last.fm, I follow up to see if I want to hear more (my LaLa wishlist has been growing by leaps and bounds, I’ve spent some of my eMusic downloads, and I’ve even bought some round shiny pieces of plastic).

Zsammy, to my surprise, turns out to be one guy recording, he says, “in various basements throughout Pittsburgh.” He’s posting the songs that comprise Be Let Down on his website as he finishes them.

Listening to Be Here Now reminds me of the promise that the Internet held for independent musicians a dozen years ago or so. The prices of recording equipment (and the ease of using it) were plummeting, and the ‘net promised to level the playing field, to make it as easy for a guy in a Pittsburgh basement to get his music out to the world as for a guy signed to Sony.

I have the usual quibble — I’d love to hear these songs with live (and/or better recorded) drums. But if everybody’s home-recorded album on the Internet were this good, I’d never get anything done.