2 Week Hiatus

Hey guys. Starting tomorrow I'll be walking with my girlfriend and sister (for part of the way) from Leon, Spain to Fisterra along the famous old Camino de Santiago (along roughly this route). Though it should be full of beautiful scenery and lots of history, I don't think there will much internet along the way; 18th century hostels aren't usually outfitted with many amenities. So, I'll be taking a little two week break from the jampages, but will hopefully pick up lots of sweet tunes along the way.

In the mean time, here are some of my favorite sites for jams that I've found across the web. Will leave out some obvious ones (HypeMachine, Pitchfork, NPR First Listen, etc) and hope that you guys find at least one or two new favorites.

Shuffler.fm
Shuffler is a blog's best friend. On its site you click the type of music you want, and it takes you to a blog featuring a song from the genre. Rather than just listening to a random song you know nothing about, most of the time you get a little background info along with a download link. Along with that you give the blog a little love, and perhaps find yourself a new favorite in the blogosphere.

Stereomood.com
Stereomood tries to match your mood with a jam. Unlike the more famous Pandora, which links music up sonically, this matches up jams by their mood, across all type of genres. Featuring music for all types of sentiments, this is the equivalent of a personal life coach DJ, attempting to play the perfect song for whatever you need.

TheSixtyOne.com
TheSixtyOne is a great tool for finding out new music. Although a little too cutesy sometimes, it has all types of options for both listening to both popular jams (as popular as indie jams can admit themselves to be) or music from more obscure bands. You can win points and "hearts" for completing objectives (hence the cutesy), but overall it's a great way to discover new bands, many of who submit their own music on the site.

Metacritic Reviews
Metacritic acts like a RottenTomatoes for music, aggregating scores for albums from music websites to give an overall score to new albums. Both a great way to keep track of new music as well as finding hidden gems, Metacritic has been indispensable to me since I found out about it a few months back. Also, for rap specific albums, RapReviews.com has incredibly intelligent write ups every week for both mainstream and underground albums.

I hope these keep everyone busy until I get back. Much love to everyone for continuing to support the site.

Love,
Leks