Asthmatic Kitty Records Have a Muxtape for You, and It’s Loaded With New Music

I wrote about Muxtape, a new and extremely simple way to share music, about a month ago. Not surprisingly, people have taken to it like gangbusters, though the legality of many of the collections is sure to be questionable, at best.

And I’m definitely not surprised to see labels taking advantage of Muxtape to share music as well. For one thing, it’s free (and legal, for them), and it’s a whole lot less annoying than MySpace. Take, for example, Asthmatic Kitty’s muxtape, which spotlights the most recent additions to their roster:

• DM Stith’s gentle, piano-driven ballad and haunting voice recalls Antony & The Johnsons at their quietest;
• Ermasse has an exotic and jaunty quirkiness that would immediately sound at home on the soundtrack for that one Wes Anderson film set in the French Riviera;
• String quartet Osso offers up a driving, off-kilter orchestral rendition of Sufjan Stevens’ “Year Of The Boar”;
• Shannon Stephens — who previously fronted the band Marzuki, which featured a young Sufjan Stevens — brings to mind Amy Annelle with her hushed-yet-evocative vocals and subtle, understated song-writing;
• Welcome Wagon offers up a nice slice of skewed, Danielson-esque pop full of squiggly electric guitars, tinny banjos, and male/female harmonies courtesy of husband/wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto;
• I Heart Lung is a collaboration between Tom Steck and Chris Schlarb (owner of the Sounds Are Active label), and not surprisingly, is a meandering exploration of jazzy drumming and electric guitar noodling.

One other addition to the label roster is illustrator Laura Park, who has just released her first minicomic (which can be ordered here).

If streaming audio isn’t your thing, you can also download all six tracks featured on the muxtape, as well as some cover art by Park, right here.