Now Playing: Eliza and the Bear, Tel Aviv, and Pale

Over the past few days, I’ve been compiling songs for the next Tape Tuesday. Yesterday, I visited SoundCloud, which turned out to be both a good and bad idea–good, because there I discovered the three talents below, and bad, because it reminded me just how much music is out there. I mean, that’s the crux of what music blogging is: the attempt at finding diamonds in the rough and exposing them to people who tend to like your diamonds. Sometimes it’s just frustrating knowing that there are so many diamonds and so much rough. That probably sounds weird, but it’s true. As for the tunes below, I was honestly just way too excited to share them with you to wait until TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2013.

Hit the jump to listen…

Eliza and the Bear

Sounds like: The Head and the Heart, The Lighthouse and the Whaler, Mumford & Sons

Eliza and the Bear is a London-based band that does that really powerful, crushing folk-rock thing we’ve come to expect from the likes of Mumford & Sons. What separates them, from, let’s say, Mumford’s latest album, is less of a hoedown-every-song mentality and more of a patient, build to each of their songs. I mean, try to tell me you don’t feel something special at the end of “Upon the North” when (it seems) the entire bands pleas, “I spent summers away, hiding in rivers and lakes, yeah, I spent summers away, hiding.”

When it feels like love has passed you by, I won’t go and tell you how to live your life, ’cause you got a lion’s heart

Tel Aviv

Sounds like: The Drive Soundtrack, St. Lucia

The Drive soundtrack is one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time. On “Thriller,” it’s like Tel Aviv took one of the ’80s-inspired, electronic masterpieces from that soundtrack and incorporated some of the coolest, most interesting lyrics of the year so far. Well, it turns out there’s an interesting story behind that and this band and this awesome music.

According to Indie Shuffle, Tel Aviv is comprised of two friends, Tom Briggs and Jack King. The band was formed after being kicked off an international cruise for trying to sneak people on board and pretending to be an ’80s cover band. Well, they were left at the port of Tel Aviv and began playing music to earn enough money to get back to London. And as for the lyrics of “Thriller,” Tom, the group’s lead singer, says:

It’s loosely based around a girl I was living with in Bangkok. I kind of put myself in her tiny bedroom when I was writing it, [filled with] candles, smoke, show boxes stuffed with jewels. She was a dancer that sold pills in clubs and spent all the money on luxury items. I found it funny and strange… it’s kind of about that bedroom.

Crazy, right? Well, this experience resulted in a contender for song of the year, and another two jams in “Brakes” and an early demo.

[via Indie Shuffle]

Tonight, I’m a thriller / I am Prince in Purple Rain

Pale

Sounds like: Patrick Wolf, The xx, David Bowie

I don’t know anything about this Pale character, aside from the fact that the band (?) is from the UK. Pale’s music can be described as big vocals supported by big percussion and simple melodies. There’s definitely a retro Bowie feel to these three songs. Enjoy.