Two new discs from three-word-named bands

* My Sister Ocean is going against the tide. Instead of feeding our needs for instant gratification, the local pop-rock duo is releasing its new album, one song per month, between now and November.

We Die Alone is the first track from The Month of Tuesday. The ditty is now available on iTunes or MSO's site. Each subsequent song will be released on the first Tuesday of each month. Burn The Truth is due Feb. 2, while Please Don’t Say It’s So follows March 2 ... and so on and so forth until November.

"I wanted to do something to promote this album that would give people something to look forward to all year. I also know that promoting the same album all year gets boring pretty quick, so I wanted to have an excuse to get the My Sister Ocean name out there more often," says frontman Holden Daniels.

"There are some other 'music business' type benefits such as getting more features on the stations that would never play us in rotation, but that regularly play us one time every time we release a single. I just got the chart numbers for the first week, and if we did these numbers every month instead of every 3-6 months like we used to, I think it will help us secure a decent summer tour, which was the real hope behind the whole concept.

"Who knows - music directors might hate the idea and they might stop playing anything we send them, but we're trying something different and I think the concept is fresh enough to stand out from the same old strategies that record labels have been using for years.

"What I really love about this idea is that none of our songs get picked as being 'better' or more 'radio friendly' than the other ones. They're all going to have their shot at radio, and we'll see at the end of the year which ones had more success.

"And even more exciting to me is the comfort in knowing that we did not write this album to be radio friendly. As a producer for other bands (Jezibelle, Parachute Penguin, Mockteerah, Cara Albo), I tend to have this notion of what makes a song radio friendly and I try to get songs to conform to those ideas. With all the new My Sister Ocean material, we threw out the radio rule book and just tried to write songs that would translate well in a live show; the irony is that a lot of them ended up being under 4 minutes and having hooky choruses (both great ingredients for radio).

"We have the ability to upload directly to iTunes through Edmonton label Oddball Productions, so since the process has been simplified, we figured we may as well try it."

My Sister Ocean will also be releasing three EPs, via Edmonton's new online shop, Music On Demand, throughout the year.

* Radio For Help’s second album, You Don’t Wanna Miss This, is in stores Tuesday, Jan. 19. The pop-rockers teamed up with R&B/pop singer Quanteisha Benjamin for their first single, Breathing, now available on iTunes.

The band will host its CD release party on Saturday, Jan. 30 at The Pawn Shop with The Flash Jam, Seventh Rain and Maryland. Tickets are $10 at the door.

Ocean pearls

The Edmonton duo behind My Sister Ocean is trying to make waves by offering their latest pop-rock effort, The Autograph EP, as a free digital download. You can get a copy by signing up for the group’s e-mail newsletter at My Sister Ocean's website. The EP features six tunes, including I Can’t Go On, a synth-pop affair, and a cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s hit, Young Folks. (Minus the whistle.)

“We’re trying to get the music out to more people so we’re wanting to eliminate any barriers to people hearing it,” says MSO's frontman Holden Daniels. “Once they hear it, we hope they like it and tell their friends, or hate it and tell their friends. We know our music has value, and we don’t feel like we’re giving it away per se. It’s in exchange for an email address — that information holds value to us as well. It lets us quantify things and we’re hoping we can translate that information into bigger shows and more merch sales.

“Besides, record companies aren’t making money selling music anymore, who are we to think we can? We’ve never made that much money of record sales (after expenses) anyway, so rather than dwelling on the lost income potential, we’re dwelling on the increased fan base potential and the potential that comes with that.”

Daniels and drummer Eugenio Pacileo are now writing and recording the full-length follow-up to 2007’s sharp (and overlooked) Nucularboy. Here's a video of the two working on the first track.

"We're excited to get to work because we're hyper-focused on making a record that's 'no holds barred.' I think what people have heard so far is MSO Light with Lime. We've reached a point where where, if I'm being honest, we're getting a little frustrated," says Daniels.

"We keep hearing from industry people about writing hits and touring and everything. We know we've written hits. We've also toured over the years in various bands. There's always some excuse from radio or labels or agents as to why we're not the right band for them. So this next record will honestly be the first one where we're doing it for us 100%. No more worries about catering the mixes or arrangements to radio or A&R; we're catering the record to us and we hope that by doing so, the people that gravitate towards our type of music will find it and enjoy it. We're more MSO than ever, and this next record will celebrate what we aren't as much as what we are."