Weekly: Tibetan Indie Rock

I wish there was Tibetan indie rock. But as far as I know, there ain't. Damn it. It'd be sweet.
We'll start this one slow and easy for ya ... the Desks. Not a "band" as the tricky plural name would imply ... no -- the Desks is just one single solitary man with a voice, keyboard, guitar, and "etc." ... hmm. The thing about this guy, Jeff Edwards, is that he can't really play his guitar too well (he started in 2002), and he's sort of sloppy when it comes to writing lyrics, and just playing in general. But that makes him sweet, I think. Listen to Raft, When We're Through, Up, Last Bus, From Nothing, Be So Sad ... ah -- screw it ... too many songs up for free! Find them all here.
Padded Cell is way too cool. Slick, funk-inspired, dub dance stuff. Really sharp, rather varied, and never boring. You can stream stuff at their MySpace page or download Signal Failure to keep forever and ever.
Grumpy Bear is interesting ... like a rockier version of M83 done by Pavement or something. Bursting at the seams with lo-res synths and vocal loops, but with plenty of guitar and mellow, lush arrangements added into the mix to make the music very ... pleasing. Listen to Sleepynaut, Keepsake (pt. 1), Shit Untucked, Buckminster Fuller (and his singular relationship to everything), Red Weather Tigers, and Mona (edit) (unreleased).
An-d ... A Sunny Day In Glasgow. Another uber-neato group, these guys. (Unfortunately, they're not from Glasgow, but Philadelphia). They play indie pop sort of stuff (yeah, big surprise there), but it has a lot of shoe-gaze elements. Everything sounds like it's been muffled, and then "turned up," making the ordinarily depressing sound much brighter. Check out their MySpace page or download The Best Summer Ever.
I was going to write about the UK group Televise, but I've run out of steam. And I'm trying to watch The IT Crowd ... f^_^;