So for this Friday, I have a discovery from a couple of years back.  We all know (or at least I know) that I am a fan of Last.fm.  Last.fm is a fantastic music community and basically lead to this very blog.  I have discovered many of the artists and musicians that I now hold dear to the fact that I joined Last.fm.  Whether it be from recommendations from Last.fm itself or from other members, it has led to many great discoveries for myself.

In this respect, I am sure many of my discoveries were also discoveries for many others, but some don’t always take off or shine as bright to unfamiliar ears.  Sometimes packaging of musicians doesn’t work or the commercial appeal isn’t always there and some great music is made and is simply…there.  Well despite that all sounding dramatic and quite possibly tragic, I wanted to put up a couple of tracks from a musician, who I would not have heard of without Last.fm being around.

Hilltop Manor, or Charles Villyard, is someone that I thought had a great sound, but might not appeal to a lot of listeners, never mind the masses.  It is too bad as there is definite lo-fi goodness here.  I am not sure if he is still recording or if it is now just a side project for him (or possibly it always was).  Either way, I liked some of the tracks and below is a couple of them.  Both are great, but highly recommend is “Empty Casket” as I have always considered it a favourite.  Think dark, haunting folk with just something there to hold onto – I can’t place it, but I have always loved this track whenever I hear it come up in a playlist.  Drop by his website (located here) as there are some more tracks for download along with some magnificent photography, paintings, sketches – talented all around I guess.  The photo at top of this post is from his site, I feel it also is the image equivalent to the songs below.

So enjoy your Friday (whether it be “Black” or not) and maybe think about listening to a little bit of Hilltop Manor.

~Smansmith