
As my colleague Renata noted in the post below, Esperanza Spalding is indeed young and talented, but she's by no means new to the music scene. She used to be in a Portland, Oregon-based indie rock band called Noise for Pretend and when she was 'round about 16 years old she sang on one of my favorite songs of all time. It's a joint called " Go Figure, Another Warm Day in Paradise ." Download it now and thank me later for making your weekend better. -- Jeff Reguilon [...]
[See post to listen to audio] Download: Go Figure.mp3 Buy: Happy You Near

Coming up Monday March 31st, Stereogum is releasing its latest exclusive tribute album. Following up on last year's Radiohead and REM tributes, they've assembled 11 artists covering Björk's 1995 album Post . While I had been peripherally aware of Björk as Icelandic and swan-clad , besides hearing Venus as a Boy in the film Léon it wasn't really until I got the Directors Label DVDs of the work of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry (brilliant DVD, by the way) , and Chris Cunningham that I was properly exposed [...]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I do so love it when the holidays are over and things go back to normal and I have some time to myself again. I love my family, don't get me wrong, but I need some peace and quiet and time to be alone or I start to go a little crazy. So here's to kids returning to school and husbands going back to work and having the house to myself, for a few hours, anyway. Noise for Pretend -- "It's Oh So [...]