Dead Man's Bones

Ryan Gosling started a band.
The band—Gosling, best friend Ryan Shields, and a children’s choir—started when Shields and Gosling wanted to start a theatre show. The theatre idea dissipated, but the music remained, and that’s all I needed to become absolutely obsessed.
Their debut album, Never Let a Lack of Talent Get You Down, on their own label, Werewolf Heart, is coming out this summer. A brilliant and simple video of a performance of “In the Room Where You Sleep” is smeared across YouTube and MySpace, and another song, “Dead Man’s Bones,” can be found IMEEM Music.
Gosling and Shields went at the project not trying to create a perfect package deal. Their MySpace page claims their inspiration to be from the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, which is visible in their video and lyrics.
Except their obsession with death isn’t creepy, it’s down-right perfect. It’s not even of the indie-aesthetic that far too many have become engulfed in after seeing Juno; but that’s a social dialogue I won’t be getting into. However, the sound is frozen in time with Gosling’s dreary and uncompromising vocals. Absolute grit.
In fact, Gosling and Shields held to a set of rules when recording: no click tracks or electric guitars, no more than three takes, and playing all of the instruments themselves. Gosling played cello and piano for the first time; Shields took up the drums. The result is a stripped, accessible indie unit that I just can’t shake.
They hope to go on tour but instead of carting around the kiddies in a macabre Partridge Family bus, Gosling plans to work with different youth choirs in the cities that they tour. When it comes time to make a few bar gigs, the plan is to involve artist friends. Who knows, maybe Joaquin Phoenix will spit on a few tracks?

Japanese Cartoon and The Welcome Wagon

After reading an article about the rumour that Lupe Fiasco is leading a British indie-rock band aside from his 'Superstar' rap career, I had to check out the band's myspace and was very pleased. The band has repeatedly posted blogs denying the rumors, saying that Percival Fats is the band's real front man but that Lupe is financing and producing the project.
Either way, their sound is fresh and exciting, especially with Lupe attached to the production. I would hesitate to say that the band is an indie-rock band, but that is only because of the misconception that rap is not indie. Japanese Cartoon is a mix of rap and indie-rock sounds that come together to form the perfect hybrid.
Another band that has just come to my attention is The Welcome Wagon. The band is comprised of New York pastor Vito Aiuto and his wife (both dear friends of Sufjan Stevens). Their sound is indeed very 'Sufjan' but it's a new breed chalk full of religious imagery.
The 2008 album Welcome to the Welcome Wagon is an album of hope that doesn't try to hide the light of Christ. Aiuto has made faith more accessible to the 'hipster nation' but denies being a hipster himself:

" I read somewhere that the chief marker in knowing whether someone is a hipster
or not is to deny that you are. I deny that I am, so I guess that probably makes
me one. I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I don’t really know what a “hipster”
is. I probably fit some of the definitions. But I know that my church is in
Brooklyn where there’s a lot of young people who are involved in the arts and
have a certain aesthetic inclination. I’d be lying or naive to say that I’m not
aware of those things."

-Sam