Adventures in Music

Recently I stumbled upon gnod. It's a... an artificial intelligence project? It looks at things people like and makes maps out of them. It's helped me find some cool music. I've also been just looking around for music (on Pandora, on blogs, etc.). So here are the best artists I've heard recently (you can look them up on imeem.com if you want to listen to them, even Rautavaara! If you have problems with imeem, just disable adblock on that site... sometimes there's a price to pay for free music):

• Rautavaara: for people who like the modern side of Shostakovich
• Radio Department: for people who like The Postal Service.
• The Foals: a music child of Of Montreal and Philip Glass? Dude, rad.
  
• Ladytron: think a modern Depeche Mode with a female vocalist. Also, more existential lyrics.
• Origa: Kind of along the Ladytron line, only more Russian and Japanese. She did the opening song for Ghost in Shell... so she's cool.
  
• Laura Veirs: way way cool, think The Decemberists but with a female vocalist (and not as gritty)
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw: Classical folk music? I'm excited to somehow get ahold of their albums. That guy from Beirut has sung with them.
• Devics: I have one of their albums. Great dream-pop (I still don't know what that genre means). It sounds kind of singer-songwriter, but cooler.
• Morcheeba: I found their album Antidote in the BYU library (not to be confused with the Foals's Antidotes). It's... it's got some nightclub-style vocals (not sure what the correct term is, wikipedia says they have blues, pop, rock, and trip hop influences. GREAT). I like their song "Everybody Loves a Loser."
• Gregory Page: He's written some nice ballads and came up on my Beirut Pandora station. His record sounds a little unpolished, but it's a charming sort of unpolished. I'm also amazed at how much of the production he did himself. Let me know if you want to borrow his album Love Made Me Drunk. The only thing I didn't like was the use of flute in one of the tracks. I'm a flutist myself, but I find that a lot of times flute just sounds lame in pop or folk music (sorry... it was a good thought?). Morcheeba used piccolo very effectively on one of their tracks though (it was more of a musical effect than a meldoic part).
  

Guys I am on the path of becoming a snobby music elitist, as we all know that making lists of recommendations is the first step on that primrose path. Yay? Also, feel free to comment with music recommendations. I know ThirdMango sent me a recommendation recently, but I can't remember their name... some European group I think it was. I have yet to check out that Iron and Wine group, and their description sounds cool (folk rock).