>There are no real hard and fast rules for bands appearing on A New Band A Day. We’re strong believers that there’s no merit in consistency. Some bands we feature on A New Band A Day are so new that they’ve still got the umbilical cord attached, look a bit jaundiced and have only received a hundred or so visitors on their MySpace page. The thought that our humble l’il webs(h)ite has poked a few more people their way makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And a little bit smug too, but that’s more of an ongoing personal issue that frankly needs to be resolved sharpish.

Other bands we feature are a little less “new” in terms of how long they’ve been making music, but are still unknown enough to warrant featuring. We still feel warm and fuzzy about this too. THUS: Today’s New(-ish) Band is Dawn Landes. Dawn’s already recorded her second album of lovely, folky songs and is about to embark on a world tour. Her Myspace page is brimming with these simple, breezy songs, like Straight Lines, though slightly thrillingly, songs like Kissing Song start to transcend folk simplicity approach buzzy acousto-noise as the track finishes. But for easy, sugar-hooked-up-to-the-artery excitement, just listen to her Bluegrass-style cover of the ubiquitous whistle-fest that is Peter, Bjorn and John’s Young Folks. If that isn’t an example of a cover surpassing the original, I’m a blinkered idiot.*

So how does an artist whose most fun-filled song is a cover and is releasing albums and touring the globe even warrant featuring on a website that is dedicated to new bands? Because of this: no-one knows how to pronounce her name. Go on, try it. Did you say “Dawn Land-es”, “Dawn Lands” or the Francais-style “Dawn Land-ay”? This was the deciding factor. If you produce great music, but the pronunciation of your name is a mystery, you’re new enough.

Listen to her music on her MySpace page here!

*this may be statement of fact, not hyperbole