My machine won’t update my iPhone OS. Every time I try, my phone bricks. Something about the USB ports not having enough power to juice the phone back to life once the iOS install starts. Instead, I’m greeted with some weird screen where I get a picture of an Apple dock cord and the Apple logo. Nice, eh?

The option I exercise is to take my phone to the local Apple store and have them install it for me. Lame, I know, but it’s what I have. Most AT&T stores won’t do it because they don’t want to risk bricking the device. Not the best customer care, as far as I’m concerned, but whatever. Anway, each time I go in, it takes about 15 minutes, which gives me time to peruse the store.

On this particular upgrade last Thursday, I used the time to check out what music was installed on some of the demo devices. I threw on the headphones and listened to the first song that came on. I didn’t jot down the name of the song, but I did take note of the band: Sea of Bees. I was instantly struck by the singer. A blend of Karin Dreijer tuned up an entire octave and Harriet Wheeler. Musically, they’re semi-similar to Cranes, which is *always* a good thing in my book.

Speaking of Cranes and pretty tangential, I had an extra copy of their latest CD sitting around–a self-titled gem. My sister in law’s birthday is tomorrow, and we got together as a family for dinner in honor of her special day. We gave her the CD. She looked really happy to get it. I told her that if she likes it, I have a ton more of their stuff that I’d love to get her hooked on. 🙂 We’ll see.

ANYway, so that was Sea of Bees. Excellent music from a one-woman performance in Julie Ann Bee. Ambient, soulful, folksy, beautiful … it’s fantastic.I picked up a copy of Songs for the Ravens. I’m pretty sure the song I listened to isn’t on it, and I’m okay with that … just means that there’s more of their work to hunt down.

The other band I listened to was The Whitsundays, a Canadian band out of Manitoba. Some further digging around led me to the fact that some of the members are also in LCD Soundsystem, a high-energy electro-pop band with some pretty catchy tunes. Again, not sure what Whitsundays song I heard, but it’s not on the CD I got. More sleuthing and hunting. LOVE it!

A buddy of mine wrote to me the other day and suggested that I check out Lykke Li. This buddy … frick. His musical tastes are just to be accepted as gold. Not once has he ever let me down, this time being no exception. She has a kind of Scarlett Johannsen quality to her music and voice. It’s really soothing, mellow stuff. Check it out!