Want some pure music?

I decided I’d like to do a post of some absolutely awesome, pure instrument music. The below mentions do not use distortion/effects it’s pure music. Don’t get me wrong, I love hard guitars and some effects every now and then but I’m a huge fan of acoustic. You can’t hide flaws when you play acoustically, which is why most guitar teachers suggest starting off on acoustic so you don’t form bad habbits starting on an electric.

First man I’d like to mention I have deemed the “king of the acoustic guitar’. Anybody can learn to play a few chords but this man has truely created an unbelievable use of the guitar. He uses the entire neck and even uses the body of the guitar as some rythm throughout his songs.

Andy Mckee
This man has some absolutely amazing albums, none of them include any vocals and it’s all pure acoustic guitar. You can totally sense the emotion throughout the tracks it’s honestly like he’s transfering his heart through vibration of the strings. The below video is my favorite song he has, it almost always gives me goosebumps.

Iron & Wine
This man is a genius! His collection of acoustic music is truely brilliant. His very soothing voice and awesome acoustic guitar skills are really breath taking. If you want to have an experience, dim the lights play his collection of acoustic brilliance and sit back and enjoy the experience. The below song is ONE of my favorite songs of his, it never gets old for me.  Unfortuneatly, they used it on the Twilight soundtrack but I heard it before that. He does deserve recognition so I hope it brings him some more fans.

Kings of Convenience
This is a British band who reminds me a lot of Simon and Garfunkel’s sound. I’ve often refered to them as the modern Simon and Garfunkel. However, they do have a unique sound that is worth listening to. Most of their tracks are very calm and chill. For the most part, it’s pure vocal and acoustic guitar with very minimal distraction. Here is another example of one of my favorite tracks of this band for your listening pleasure.

Good Old War
A couple of these guys used to be in one of my favorite bands – Days Away. They now formed this band which is pretty folky and acoustic. I saw them live with Anthony Green and they are also featured on his album. I miss Days Away, but I’m happy to see that we get something good from their breakup. Also, just as a note, Days Away had to break up because of music pirating. Too many people were downloading the music and they couldn’t handle the debt anymore. If you do download music, remember bands make most of their money by merch sales so go buy a t-shirt to make up for it they will get more money from that then if you buy their CD. However, buying their CD will help reduce the debt some of them have to go in to release their albums.

As I said, I’m a huge fan of the acoustic sound. I have an “acoustic playlist” on my iPod and I often just lay in my bed with the lights dimmed and listen to all the acoustic tracks I have. I’m very strict on what I put on this playlist, if it has any electric instruments at all (maybe some synthesizer background) it’s not allowed in my playlist.

I love hardcore music, but it’s always great to listen to pure instruments. Don’t get caught up in labels, I remember in high school that was a huge deal. If I listened to Slipknot and some of my “friends” got wind that I had a Simon and Garfunkel CD in my disc man (haha remember those?) it would be a big deal. Listen to what you like, and support what you like, don’t let labels influence what you will or will not listen to. In the words of Brand New
“this isn’t high school… This isn’t high school… This isn’t high school…”

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