Jason Webley is a Seattle-born singer-songwriter known for playing a mix of gypsy, folk, and punk. He has released five albums on his own label, Eleven Records. These feature Webley on the piano, guitar, accordion, and a number of other instruments, though when touring he only brings his guitar, accordion, and a vodka bottle containing coins from around the world, which he uses for percussion.

In high school Webley played in a punk band called Moral Minority. He picked up the accordion in 1996 in his last year in college at the University of Washington when he was part of a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and wrote a couple songs for the play on the accordion. He later recalled, “I was just a geeky kid; accordion came later. It’s since playing accordion that I’ve become cool. I used to be a geek with an electric guitar. I had a guitar and played in punky bands and I had a computer. I sequenced stuff. I was much geekier.”

Webley is the brains behind the Monsters of Accordion tour, an all-accordion extravaganza that takes place on the West Coast. The tour came together when Webley was invited to play at an accordion shop in Oakland, and met two Bay Area accordionists, Daniel Ari and Aaron Seeman. They decided to do a little accordion only tour, which was the first Monsters of Accordion. The tour has since featured such accordionist as Corn Mo, Geoff Berner, Amy Denio, Mark Growden, (former Gogol Bordello member) Stevhen Iancu, and Eric Stern (frontman of Vagabond Opera).

Icarus (with Amanda Palmer from Dresden Dolls):

Check also this amazing street performance of Icarus here.

Kitchen video clips:

MySpace, LastFM, Facebook, iLike, Internet Archive, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube channel, Official page.

Mira and Laurent -- a fashion model from Finland and soundtrack musician from France. Austere, minimal music made with voice and acoustic guitars and other very sparse orchestrations.

Mi and L’au met in Paris a few years back. Mi is Finnish and was working as a model to make ends meet and L’au (who’s French) was working in the music industry (soundtracks). They fell deeply and immediately in love, and after a short period of moving from apartment to apartment in Paris, they gave everything up and decided to move in a small cabin in woods in Finland, so they could be alone together in peace and spend their time discovering each other and their music. (last.fm).

Ten Kingdoms

Transparent

Dancing and smiling

MySpace

Airships

Four harts

Metal Berry

Snakes & Tea

Nighttime and morning with Anthony Hagerty

Desert Cathedral

Pale Dog

Disparu

Myspace

Pitchfork review for the Desert Doughnuts album

Mariuk also will be pleased due to Devendra’s duo with Gael Garcia Bernal

Carmensita -- With Natalie Portman in a 70s like Bollywood movie

Quedate luna -- My personal favorite

Spiralling (With Antony and the Johnosons)

Brazilian Sun (with Cocorosie)

A ribbon

Seahorse - A little bit of Doors and Stanglers

Summertime (this video shows why he is considered representative for the New Weird America genre)

Feel just like a child -- Domnux might resonate with this song

Heard somebody say with Antony (from Antony and the Johnsons) as the Mother of the World

Cristobal With Gael Garcia Bernal

Don’t look back in anger (This song is from the Guilt By Association album on which some of the top indie artists cover their favorite guilty pleasure pop songs in their own unique way. )

Website

MySpace

For the real enthusiast of this genre, please see the documentary Eternal Children about all the representants of freak folk.