He's a Billenaire

Sam Billen is a busy man. Between raising his baby daughter, working full time at the University of Kansas, and running his new business, BillenSounds, LLC, he somehow finds plenty of time to dedicate to his passion - making music that moves. Since joining The Record Machine last year, he's released a good amount of music: a digital EP entitled Tokyo Sessions, a full-length album called Headphones and Cellphones, a Christmas compilation (including songs by friends Half-Handed Cloud, The Paper Route, and Andrew Conner from Ghosty), a solo piano album called Death of a Saint, and his most recent project, Removers, a constantly growing collection of his remixes and covers of the music that influences him. The Removers project is one that may turn out to be more epic than he first envisioned. As time passes, Sam has been finding more and more songs to 're-move', which in turn is leading to a consistent release of about one new Remover every month.

This time tackling a song from Shugo Tokumaru. This time Sam goes back to his Japanese influences. The first Remover he did from Japan was the cover of Yellow Magic Orchestra. This time he goes after a more contemporary artist in Shugo Tokumaru and finds great results. The song crescendo's and crashes beauty all around you. There are only going to be a few more Removers left as Sam is going to draw the project to close soon to start work on his next full length.

Download: Rum Hee

Billen-aires Boys Club

A lot of things have changed for Sam Billen recently. He is about to release his first solo record in 5 years with indie label The Record Machine. It is his first since leaving Northern Records who also released his decade-long band, The Billions, that called it quits last year. After the break up of the Billions, Sam took some time to focus on making his own music and starting a family (Sam just recently became a father).

Produced and recorded and made entirely by Sam himself, Headphones and Cellphones sees him adapting rather nicely to being away from the band dynamic. He's still got the ability to write quirky pop songs but now they're purely his creation and come off sounding a bit like The Postal Service. Yeah, I know that's a bit cliche, but Sam does have a voice that would make Ben Gibbard blush and if the songs are this good, then who cares.

Headphones and Cellphones is music with a heart and soul and I guess that's bound to happen when you become a dad. Good stuff indeed.

Download: Different Lives
Download: Made Concrete (Republic of Tigers cover)
Download: Spritle (Deastro cover)