There's been a pair of soundtrack covers for Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones this year, but now the tally of new National songs perhaps set for LP6 has increased by 3 this week, as Matt Berninger and crew unveiled numbers at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival they curated in England. "I Need My Girl" and "Rylan" arrived last winter in familiar forlorn territory, while "Prime" finds them fired-up and burning down the house - à la "About Today" almost, in its unhinged outro. Berninger's a bit tipsy, [...]
Cat Power and writer/director Alex Fernie shared this wonderfully self-deprecating skit today, in which Chan Marshall satirizes her own past live temperament by performing children's tunes before the educational set spirals into sensitive self-pity. In addition to just being a funny clip for anyone familiar with those notorious (pre-sobriety) meltdowns, it's a welcome surprise to watch Marshall's comedic side. She did, after all, once aspire to audition for the cast of Saturday Night Live . This might be an even better fit. Check it out above.
Ravi Shankar, the great Indian composer and sitar master, died today at 92, Associated Press reports . His influence will live on well beyond those years, of course, as it's thrived in western music since the '60s. Eulogies will be written on Shankar's close musical connection with George Harrison and many others in the decades following, but the Beatles' Revolver cut "Tomorrow Never Knows" - where his contribution comes so keenly to the eye and ear - brings some solace at the moment. Hear it above, lyrics below: Turn off your [...]
Director Xan Aranda's documentary Andrew Bird: Fever Year still isn't set for widespread distribution over a year since the project was announced, but in the meantime, more theater screenings are being booked for 2013 while today brings another glimpse at the 80-minute film. Fever Year culls live performances from a pair of 2009 concerts in Milwaukee, studio footage, and other behind-the-scenes moments to capture - according to Aranda - "a snapshot of a time during which [Bird] became perfectly adapted to the music hall." Above, watch Bird and St. Vincent's Annie Clark rehearse for the first [...]
Matthew Houck returns amid a lush orchestral backdrop and drum-machine rhythm section for our first taste of his new Phosphorescent record, Muchacho . "Song for Zula" is one of 10 cuts born "in the middle of a bit of a freak-out," he says, a "domestic crisis" that found him booking a same-day flight to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to finish new material last winter. It's fitting, then, that pushing on in the face of heartbreak is a lyrical theme in this tune, where "you will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand," Houck sings, adding in the refrain: "You [...]
Without releasing a record or touring in 2012, Fleetwood Mac got their due in spades this year with music supervisor Randall Poster's deservedly acclaimed tribute record . That set brought reverent takes on "Silver Springs," "Landslide," "Gold Dust Woman," "Dreams," and "Storms" to name a few standouts, with nobody taking on "Sara" - my favorite FM cut. Call it a "reunion tour" (as many have disingenuously done, in light of their last jaunt being just a few years ago), but perhaps the love has inspired these 2013 dates from the great group. [...]
Daniel Glass, the head of Phoenix's record label, revealed today that the band just completed nearly two years of work in a Paris studio recording the follow-up to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix . Their fifth album - possibly titled TPC - is aimed for release in April 2013, reports Rolling Stone from the Spotify event where Glass made the announcement. Although that rumored title (per a photo hint the band shared on their official site) is only speculative at this point, it would make sense given an interview Thomas Mars and Deck D’Arcy [...]
Aaron Embry's "No Go" broke hearts from the studio and live on tenor guitar , but we'd be remiss not giving this new barefoot piano rendition its due, as well. Here he is in a Tyler Manson-directed clip, doing it justice again. Brings chills - à la January's "Your Heart and Mine" - to see the way Embry performs a tune live as if he's writing it on the spot.
Following last month's solo acoustic set from Jason Lytle, here's a split 73 the Grandaddy frontman dropped under the radar over the Thanksgiving holiday. He's been a vocal Sea of Bees fan since championing their 2010 debut, Songs for the Ravens , and even went so far as to sketch out a cover of the LP's "Won't Be Long" with no initial plan for release. His recording almost made the cut for Twilight , by the way, but once the vampire love went cold he and Jules opted to let their covers live eternally on vinyl via Crossbill [...]
The opening song off Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' new LP, Push the Sky Away , is haunting in its restrained approach - a fitting vibe for a record described by Cave as "the ghost-baby in the incubator." Complete with flute and allusions to nature that recall 20042s Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus single "Breathless," this cut finds them looping back to before the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! /Grinderman era a bit. Who knows where they'll go from here, but until February 2013, "We No Who U R" (via [...]
Here is Angel Olsen performing Half Way Home 's "Miranda," alone on a Hoboken stage a few weeks back. This tune first reached us in March when it felt almost too timeless to not be a cover. Turns out the original would become a favorite off her new record, captured best perhaps in the live clip above.
Photo Credit: Bryan Sheffield As Local Natives approach the spectre of a "daunting sophomore album" next January, we now have two cuts to prove the triumph of their debut, Gorilla Manor, was far from a flash in the pan. Far from it, in fact, as "Breakers" off Hummingbird has been building on that promise upon repeated listens, complete with a new Jaffe Zinn-assisted official video arriving this week as a fine reminder. Last night the band broke out the album's also-rousing second track, "Heavy Feet," live for BBC Radio 6 . No [...]
Back in 2010, Radiohead and a group of savvy fans combined audience-shot videos with band-provided soundboard recordings to document their Haiti earthquake relief concert in Los Angeles. Nearly the same scenario (with perhaps even more impressive results) arrived this week, as Gothamist reports Radiohead's fall 2011 set at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City just got the bootleg/officia l audio mashup treatment for charity ( Haiti , Hurricane Sandy , and/or Doctors Without Borders ). Having just finished the 2-hour concert, I can confirm they chose a standout set to highlight. The audio [...]
Jason Lytle reunited with Grandaddy earlier this year, but - as indicated in recent interviews - the biggest change has been a melding between his production for the band and solo material that always drove that work. Lytle's excellent 2012 record, Dept. of Disappearance , is a prime example of that conjunction, where simple chord structures and memorable vocal melodies meet broader, expansive sonic palettes. Rest assured, fellow Grandaddy fans, a reunion record just might be in the works, but for now this clip from NPR's Tiny Desk series is a [...]
Details on the new album Nick Cave teased in September ("It's really very, very beautiful. It’s not a ballad record. It’s not like classic Bad Seed ballads.") surfaced this morning: Push the Sky Away , a 9-track set produced by Nick Launay ( Nocturama, Abattoir Blues, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!) at a 19th century French mansion "where the walls of the main studio are lined with an immense collection of classical vinyl" will be released on February 18th, as previously reported. The trailer video below provides perhaps the best preview at the moment with regard to sound, though this quote from [...]
Elliott Smith's recording of "Because" is one of the best Beatles covers ever put to tape - even more so considering this studio footage where he casually adjusts a track on the self-harmonized a cappella part with a banana. But there's another studio cover floating around (in a folder most likely mislabeled "Basement Tapes") of its kind. His unreleased take on A Hard Day's Nigh t single "I'll Be Back" - missing drum part and all - was likely inspired by the Anthology series, as he even recorded a parody outro for outtake clips of Beatles [...]
Will Oldham's reverence for the Everly Brothers is well-documented onstage and with one-off singles , but now he and Dawn McCarthy will pay homage in LP form on What the Brothers Sang , arriving in February 2013 via Drag City. First we have a seasonly appropriate glimpse at their approach to the covers set, which was recorded/mixed by David Ferguson (an engineer known most for his work on Johnny Cash's American series and more recently on Anna Ternheim's new record ) and features longtime Bonnie "Prince" Billy collaborators like Emmett Kelly , Matt Sweeney, and Pete Townsend (not [...]
"I was just really struck by it because it sounded so timeless. I was like, 'Is this from the ’60s?' [Because I’d] never heard it. I’m pretty good on the radar. I was like, 'It kind of sounds new?'" That's San Francisco songwriter Jessica Pratt telling Fader about the first time she heard the music of Tim Presley. It's no wonder that, in turn, Pratt's songs resonated with Presley - who dropped everything and started a label just to release her self-titled debut - as the quote echoes a common first impression of her [...]
Nick Cave isn't the only musician inspired by the Prohibition era this year, as the National just set the DeLorean back to the mid-'20s for their contribution to this season of Boardwalk Empire . "I'll See You in My Dreams" is a 1924 piece preserved by the Library of Congress , updated on Sunday night's episode, "A Man, a Plan...," with Matt Berninger's plaintive baritone upfront while retaining the original's backing instrumentation and charm. The National have always praised Bacchus on stage, but given the historical context, this tribute suits them even better. Hear it below ( [...]
Fiona Apple and Jon Brion, the partnership behind When the Pawn and most of Extraordinary Machine , are back with their first collaboration since 2010 charity single "So Sleepy." As previously reported , Judd Apatow recruited Brion to score his next feature, This Is 40 , featuring both original music and an OST that includes his own production work. Apple's "Dull Tool" - reportedly her first piece written specifically for film - is one of those tracks, and it's prime Fiona kiss-off material ("You don't kiss when you kiss / You don't fuck when you fuck / You [...]
TwentyFourBit
City Rain - "The Optimist"
Boards of Canada – Reach For The Dead
