Bowerbirds

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Northern Lights" Upper Air 2009 iTunes

When they're not touring or recording as Bowerbirds, Phil Moore and Beth Tacular live in an Airstream trailer parked deep in the North Carolina wilderness, where they live off the land and write songs about the landscape around them. Their debut, Hymns for a Dark Horse, was a back-to-nature manifesto of sorts, and Upper Air begins in the same vein.

On the spare, folksy opener "House of Diamonds," Moore equates their forest life with a certain kind of freedom: "You are free from the greed of your culture, you are free from the lust for the luster," he sings, not angrily but wistfully, as if removing oneself from society is a noble but impossible mission. But this is a much more personal album than its predecessor, full of subtly erotic love songs to each other and bittersweet odes to dead friends. The duo harmonize beautifully on "Teeth" and "Northern Lights," and multi-instrumentalist Tacular and third 'bird Mark Paulson add unexpected flourishes of dulcimer, autoharp, and accordion that tease out the contentment and tension in Moore's songwriting.

Upper Air may tout the simple life, but the complexity of these tunes make the album a trove of musical treasures.

~ Stephen M. Deusner, Paste

Badly Drawn Boy

"Once Around the Block"
from the album The Hour of Bewilderbeast
2000
iTunes



September 30, 2000:
At the Independent School for Emotionally Fragile Male Singer/Songwriters (mascot: the Fightin' Beatles) the headmasters award graduates tattered wool ski caps, uneven facial stubble, torn t-shirts and wristbands before nudging them into the real world. The degree doesn't get them very far, though, so the alumni typically find positions as dishwashers or heroin junkies. The pay is shit, but it's all songwriting fuel.

The whimpering Elliott Smith exploded as the school's first success. With that grizzled face and old hat, Elliott quickly wore himself thin, sounding dangerously close to Aimee Mann, a recent graduate of Smith's rival public school, Solo Careers for Failed Leadsingers State. Smith's dried leaves became plastic houseplants as his once delicate acoustic numbers bloated into George Harrison knock-offs with the maudlin emotional subtlety of a Bone Thugs 'N' Harmony video. Meanwhile, gifted foreign exchange student Badly Drawn Boy's Damon Gough was bored doodling in ISEFMS classes and huffing whiteout in his shed with R.E.M's "Hairshirt" blaring on repeat. Now, as Elliott Smith slips dangerously close to Bryan Adams' "(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear" territory, Gough hits the real world with his debut full-length, The Hour of Bewilderbeast.

The loose, scatterbrain album operates much like the early solo endeavors of Paul McCartney, with 80% developed gems flowing effortlessly from the damp, rustic English countryside. Yet, (fortunately?) Gough still seeks his Linda. "It's killing me/ I'm dying," he sighs over Sunday morning horns, cleverly pausing before finishing: "To put a little sunshine in your life." In less modest mouths and over colder sounds, the song could only fail. Here, it fires up the enzymes before the shimmering guitar of "Everybody Stalking" suddenly echoes with verve. Just as quickly, the number dissolves into the multitracked organs of "Bewilder."

Inconceivably, the British press heralded Badly Drawn Boy as the next Beck and Beta Band, due mostly to his lazy, absurd live performances. Clever rouse, for Gough pulled his act together brilliantly at Glastonbury 2000, securing the coveted Mercury Prize in the same critics' hearts moments before The Hour of Bewilderbeast even hit streets. After the hype, the result sounds baffling; there's not a pinch of irony to be found in the shifting, meticulous mix.

"Stone on the Water" pummels Belle & Sebastian in the race to approximate Nick Drake's brilliance with jazz drum brushings and spider-fingered acoustic fluttering. But, not content to merely skip stones on a Scottish pond, Gough stomps harder on "Once Around the Block," which similarly surpasses Elliott Smith in the crown for reaching George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord."

Piano, strings, harps, and Wurlitzer attach insect wings to the lovely songs. They'll swarm and pester your head for days. With this concise tour through the gentler side of British songwriting history-- from understated psychedelia to sylvan protest folk-- Badly Drawn Boy proves what shallow saps American liberal arts majors can be behind a guitar. At 18 songs, just over an hour, Bewilderbeast initially overwhelms, but the fictitious creature seems like the perfect mascot for England's new school.

~ Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork

Holly Miranda

"Waves"
from the album The Magician's Private Library
2010
iTunes



In a recent magazine interview Holly Miranda, ex-frontwoman of hipster rock band The Jealous Girlfriends and recent signing to XL, was asked about the production on this, her debut solo album. Produced by Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio, she had this to say about its sound: "At one point, Dave said to me, 'I'm putting my finger prints all over this record', and I said, 'I know, I love it'." It's a pertinent point, not least for those that may have heard her recent EP Sleep on Fire, which housed her Cat Power-esque vocals in a decidedly more stripped back musical setting.

As with Cat Power, it's in this setting that you may feel Miranda's fragile, feather light songs work best, and a cursory search on youtube will bring up a handful of engaging solo performances, not least a heart-wrenching version of "Waves" filmed in a bar. But, what's special about The Magician's Private Library is that, yes, Dave Sitek's fingerprints are all over it — there are rumbling basslines, minimal beats, treated guitar sounds, horn blasts courtesy of Antibalas — but at its heart are ten deftly arranged and lovingly created tales of dealing with physical pain ("Joints" deals with Miranda's battle with fibromyalgia) and emotional pain (the beautiful "Slow Burn Treason").

Sitek's production also adds a fantastic sense of having to uncover different layers to the songs, such as opener "Forest Green Oh Forest Green." Starting with a childlike, fairground melody the song unravels almost as a round, with lines repeated over top of parping horns, acoustic guitar and some lovely harmonies. On first listen, it almost passes you by, giving you no real sense of what Miranda's voice sounds like, but slowly the melody wriggles to the surface and its repetitiveness becomes its brilliance.

"Joints" and "Waves" are similar in tone, both songs gliding along like glaciers, with big, doom-laden guitars lightened by twinkling percussion and soft organ sounds. The latter is particularly emotional, Miranda sighing, "where do the waves go my love?" like a grieving widow gazing out to sea. "No One Just Is" picks up the pace slightly, Sitek introducing a weird, tremulous keyboard sound that zigzags through the chorus, Miranda sounding aggressive as opposed to aggrieved.

Other highlights are the breezy "Sweet Dreams," which utilizes some ghostly backing vocals and a lovely rumble of bells that dance across the melody and the deceptively maudlin, "Everytime I Go to Sleep," which sounds playful and childlike but houses this lyric: "Everytime I go to sleep / I kick and scream and dream a little bit / Violently awakening to what's real is really bullshit." In many ways, that's the album's trump card, as the more you listen the more the songs shift and change shape, new sounds revealing themselves as it goes on.

The Magician's Private Library is a startling debut from a singer who was confident her songs could survive being handed over to one of music's most in-demand producers. Her instincts were correct and though Sitek does stamp his sound over much of the album, it's only to augment what was already there as opposed to reframing entire songs. This dreamy, warm and otherworldly concoction is the perfect antidote to the grey and chilly beginnings of the impending new year.

~ Michael Cragg, musicOMH

Antony and the Johnsons

A FAVORITE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO

"Hope There's Someone"
from the album I Am a Bird Now
Original release date: February 1, 2005
iTunes



February 2005:
Antony and the Johnsons' second full-length recording, the haunting and affecting I Am a Bird Now, is a far more intimate affair than their debut. Antony's bluesy parlor room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience that's both exhilarating and disquieting. "Hope There's Someone" is a somber opener, and its plea for companionship, augmented by a sparse piano/vocal arrangement that rises into the air by song's end in a swirl of multi-tracked harmonies, is ultimately uplifting. This formula is applied to much of the record and never ceases to elicit honest emotion from either Antony or his numerous guests. Rufus Wainwright takes the lead on "What Can I Do?," a languid meditation on death that conjures up images of rainy streets, lonely lampposts, and cigar smoke — it's brief (under two minutes) but alluring like the cover of a Raymond Chandler novel. Boy George joins Antony for a duet on the soulful and empowering "You Are My Sister," Devendra Banhart lends his warbly tenor to the lush "Spiraling," and Lou Reed plays noodly guitar and recites an anonymous poem on the mischievous "Fistful of Love." It's a testament to Antony's skill as a writer and arranger that these guest appearances are completely devoid of pretense, and while each artist is reverent to the source material, it's still Antony's show, as the most powerful moments on I Am a Bird Now are his.

~ James Christopher Monger, allmusic

The Soft Pack

"Answer to Yourself"
from the album The Soft Pack
2010
iTunes



Formerly known as The Muslims, The Soft Pack brings a lot of swagger to its garage-rock sound. There's a load of gimmick-free confidence in the band's hooks, as its distorted guitars and driving drums demonstrate that less can be more. The Soft Pack's self-titled full-length debut is straighter than black coffee, and twice as bitter: Frontman Matt Lamkin isn't afraid to fly his philosophical flag and face hard realities. It's a tough job, and he does it well in "Answer to Yourself."

The song is an impassioned call to self-sufficiency: "You've got talent, don't you know / You're more talented than you know," Lamkin sings. But he shoves this positive attitude up against an ugly guitar solo — and an even uglier thought: "But I think I'm gonna die before I see my time." Lamkin's observations may be simple, but his voice has the well-traveled but youthful assurance of a Minor Threat-era Ian MacKaye. It's the sound of a man who's thought long and hard about life's wins and losses, not to mention a welcome escape from escapism.

~ Anthony Fantano, NPR

Vampire Weekend

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Giving Up the Gun" Contra 2010 iTunes

Fans can now add "ace tennis player" to the list of Jake Gyllenhaal's many talents. The actor is part of a superstar cast for Vampire Weekend's new video for "Giving Up the Gun," which also brings together another fine tennis player, Joe Jonas, as well as Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and Lil Jon. The clip is a stylish but decidedly weird dreamlike sequence where Vampire Weekend video muse Jenny plays the tennis game of her life.

The surreal quality stems from Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig's original inspiration. "I was stressed out one night worrying about the video and an image popped into my head of our friend Jenny (who's also in the "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" video) playing tennis against a samurai. It grew from there," Koenig tells Spinner.

Sound-wise, the song is one of Vampire Weekend's more straight-ahead pop tunes, but with driving, delicious percussion. "Our goal has always been to give the songs what they need," Koenig says. "Sometime our songs need marimbas or AutoTune, and sometimes they just need a big beat."

Koenig and Co. worked with the video's directors, the Malloy Brothers (Sheryl Crow, Oasis, the White Stripes, Jonas Brothers) on the casting, but they already had some good ideas of who should appear in this vignette. "I was pretty surprised it all worked out," admits Koenig. "We always thought RZA would be perfect. We'd been in touch with Lil Jon since the first album. He heard the reference on 'Oxford Comma' and sent us some cases of Crunk Juice. Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal were both excellent — lot of improvisation and some surprisingly powerful serves."

Despite that, it's Jenny who eventually wins the day. "'Giving Up the Gun' just means turning your back on aggression and selfishness," Koenig explains of the song's concept. "The heroine of the video isn't an amazing tennis player, but she has heart. She stays calm despite the unfairness of it all."

~ Linda Laban, Spinner

Low

WEEKEND VIDEO / A FAVORITE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO

"Monkey" The Great Destoyer 01/25/2005 iTunes

January 25, 2005:
Much, perhaps too much, has been written about The Great Destroyer being Low's "aggressive" album, as if they're taking advantage of their move to Sub Pop to turn themselves into a garage band. If that's what you're worried about, calm down. The music is louder, the tempos faster and the song structures more overtly conventional, but Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker sound the same. Low is still Low.

Low may have brought the loudness to The Great Destroyer, but they haven't necessarily embraced it. Alan and Mimi's delivery remains calm, and sometimes almost trancelike; like anger management zealots, they rarely if ever raise their voices, even in the midst of a maelstrom of feedback and distortion. Forget screaming or howling or anything remotely associated with "rocking out" — they are unnervingly focused, following the melody as if they're on rails, and in the process they deliver the aural equivalent of a world-class stare-down.

We're all familiar with the effectiveness of the quiet/loud dynamic, but most bands do one or the other rather than both at once. It takes a special sort of unaffected confidence to know that the audience will listen if you sing slowly and gently while the guitars and drums go crazy around you, and it helps, self-assuredness-wise, to have six previous albums under your belt. The Great Destroyer's collision of storm and solemnity yields some impressive results, especially early in the disc. Opener "Monkey" leaves no doubt that things have changed: a thundering, ominous bass-drum rhythm and droning, distorted synth hold ground against Alan and Mimi's calmly determined vocals, creating a powerful tension. The chorus's lyrical hook is chillingly effective — "Tonight you will be mine," they sing, solemn but determined. "Tonight the monkey dies." The guitars that come in between choruses add the song's aggression — frenzy, blurry, fritzed-out riffing that spreads across the song like molten lava.

"California" takes an entirely different, but equally pleasing approach. Imagine seventies/eighties radio pop filtered through Low's aesthetic — grand but economical, earnest but confessional, melodic but restrained — and you'll have a good idea of what to expect. Sparhawk sings in earnest here, an everymannish edge to his performance, and the refrain's chugging build is pure bliss despite its bittersweet lyrics: "And though it breaks your heart / you had to sell the farm / back to California where it's warm."

There's more variety as The Great Destroyer rolls onward. "Everybody's Song" bristles with overdriven autumnal angst, while "Silver Rider," comparatively slow and spiritual, could have been the rockingest song on 2003's Trust, but slips into the background here despite the looming menace of its inexorable percussion. "Cue The Strings" pours synthy syrup over Mimi and Alan's perfectly-matched vocals for a dreamy post-millennial slowdance effect, and producer Dave Fridmann brings his penchant for multi-layered grandeur and crystal clarity to bear on the warm, hummable "Step." For sheer lyrical poignancy, though, nothing beats "Death of a Salesman," a simple vocal-and-guitar piece on which Sparhawk explores a road not taken — a music career curtailed in favor of adult responsibilities. There's economic safety, but also a sense of loss and anger, and an upbeat ending. "But the fire came to rest / in your white velvet breast / so somehow I just know that it's safe," he concludes.

Fans may balk at the group's newly amped approach, suggesting that they've abandoned all that made them special, but that isn't the case. Ongoing exploration is key to any band's long-term survival, and the noise you're hearing here is Low stretching and growing and pushing their way into the future. The Great Destroyer is a brave assertion that Low have never been special because of their approach to volume or tempo or instrumentation or lyrical content; Low have endured because the Mimi Parker/Alan Sparhawk/Zak Sally creative dynamic produces unique and special music regardless of context or packaging. It also doesn't hurt that The Great Destroyer is a marvel of layered beauty — the sort of album that makes you call in sick to work so you can spend a day with headphones clamped to your head, charting its every elegant nuance. There's a lot to explore here.

If it hasn't happened already, it will soon — some wag will give The Great Destroyer a five-word review: Loud is the new quiet. And you know what? It is.

~ George Zahora, Splendid Magazine

Bear Hands

"What a Drag"
from the EP What a Drag
2010
iTunes



When singles clubs get it right they are a delight, introducing new and unusual bands to a listening public starved of new ideas and sounds. Of course, when they get it wrong they can disappear so far up their own fundaments that they sell six copies to a rabid fan base and lose all touch with reality. Bear Hands are signed to Beggars Banquet subsidiary Too Pure, so at least there's a modicum of commercial sense in the signing decisions.

Debuting with two slices of New York folk/rock shuffle, Bear Hands display all the individuality and style of bands formed in isolation. A weird fetish with tambourines and cymbals dominates the splashing sound of "What a Drag" in the way a sort-of ethnic folk Talking Heads meeting an unusually relaxed Velvet Underground might sound. The voice is defiantly American, the backing defiantly invigorating.

"Can't Stick 'Em" swirls into view with backwards guitars and then breaks into Bear Hands' already patented shuffling gait with more New Yorican New Wave credentials and a smattering of that jerky rhythm that seems to define current urban US bands. Oh, and there's that tambourine again...

The band — much like the cover art for "What a Drag" — appears endearingly home-made. It's always difficult to judge from one or two songs, but on this evidence Bear Hands have an interesting future ahead of them.

~ Duncan Harris, The Dreaded Press

Japandroids

"Art Czars"
from the single Art Czars
2010
iTunes



When discussing the myriad charms of Japandroids, you inevitably get around to irresponsible drinking, unattainable girls, and wind machines. Everything they do cuts against the idea of restraint. Funny, then, that one of the most enduring qualities of Post-Nothing is judicious self-editing. Perhaps it would've been every bit as much of an end-to-end burner had it housed a more traditional ten tracks, but as is, you figure they stopped at eight because that's all they deemed necessary to get their point across.

Inevitably, this casts songs like "Art Czars" — written in the Post-Nothing sessions and the first of a planned five 7" singles from Japandroids in 2010 — as second-class from the jump. And in a way, those fears are justified, as it's considerably less fuzzy and urgent than anything that made the cut, even sounding like it came out of a significantly pricier studio. But it's as much an issue of quality as it is of fit. Though every bit as sloganeering as a Post-Nothing track, lines like "Here's your money back / Here's your punk rock back" are informed by an emotion that was mostly absent: anger. But directed at whom? Could it prove to be foreshadowing of a more cynical follow-up to Post-Nothing?

Here, though, it hardly matters. While it's somewhat disconcerting to hear Japandroids in such a relatively adult guise, it's heartening to hear something from them where a relatively subtle and cyclical melody generates its maximum impact long after the first listen.

~ Ian Cohen, Pitchfork

Broken Bells

"The High Road"
from the album Broken Bells
2010
iTunes



Observed over Stellas in the lounge at the Soho Grand, Danger Mouse and James Mercer make an unlikely pair.

Mister Mouse — whose birth name is Brian Burton — has a neatly trimmed Afro and goatee; he could be the founder of some startup that combines social networking, crowd-sourcing, and, say, cats. Mercer, best known for fronting the indie rock act The Shins, looks like Kevin Spacey. Burton represents his home base of Los Angeles — he's a multiracial genre-crossing musician whose iPhone screensaver is a picture of ferrets dressed as characters from "The Wizard of Oz." Mercer lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, who owns an organic bedding company, and two kids. He worries about public schools and his backyard compost pile.

But when one half of Gnarls Barkley and the man behind Natalie Portman's favorite band met at a festival in 2004, things clicked. They kept in touch, hung out at other fests, and finally tied the knot in 2008 and formed Broken Bells. Now, almost two years later, the pair is about to release a self-titled album, due March 9 on Columbia.

"It was good timing for both of us," Mercer says. "I was trying to figure stuff out and I wanted to do something different. I tossed around the idea of a solo record, but in the end, I'm glad Brian was looking for someone to work with, because it would have been crazy for me to do it on my own."

The album the pair created is multilayered and almost psychedelic, tethered by Mercer's steady vocals — and it manages to sound almost nothing like the Shins or Gnarls Barkley.

Mercer is quick to add that the new project doesn't mean that the Shins are defunct. Burton says that Gnarls Barkley is on hiatus while he works on Broken Bells and Cee-Lo records a solo album, but notes that the future is unpredictable. "I never feel like I have to do anything," he says. From his pioneering Beatles/Jay-Z mash-up The Grey Album to his production work on Beck records, Burton's career has been built on anything but predictability.

The pair established a schedule, with Mercer spending two weeks at Burton's L.A. studio and two weeks in Portland while they recorded. At the end of the process, the pair had twenty "ideas," as Burton puts it.

"I don't know if I could call them songs per se," he says. "We pared everything down and grouped everything that fit together. There were things on there that we loved, but they didn't fit in."

The project wrapped last spring. At the time, Mercer was a free agent — the Shins had fulfilled their recording contract with Sub Pop and hadn't signed any other deals. But Burton's situation was a little more complicated.

While living in the United Kingdom in the early part of the decade, Burton had signed to an indie label called Lex Records, which then struck a deal with EMI, which assumed his contract. In 2009, Burton tried releasing a collaboration with indie oddball Sparklehorse, Dark Night of the Soul, but EMI blocked the album's release. (The album quickly leaked online, and Burton ended up issuing a collection of David Lynch photographs and a blank CD under the title.) According to sources, EMI and Burton have resolved their differences, and there are plans for an official debut Danger Mouse CD.

Meanwhile, Burton and Mercer met with various labels about the new project. "We kept it really under wraps and paid for it ourselves," Burton says. "There were a few people who wanted it, but ultimately, we decided to go with Columbia."

"Supergroups" like Broken Bells face a unique set of challenges, and sales can be mixed at best. For every dream team like Monsters of Folk, which debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, there's a band like Tinted Windows, which failed to catch fire.

When it came time to premiere the video for the first Broken Bells single, "The High Road," Columbia partnered with MySpace and showed teaser clips of the video in the days before release. As soon as the video went live, it spread throughout the blogosphere, picked up by indie and hip-hop sites, as well as mtvU. MTV2 and VH1 plan to add the video to their programing rotation as well.

The track is also having success on multiple radio formats. In Seattle, for example, it has been played on nonprofit alternative KEXP, modern rock KNDD, adult alternative albumKMTT the Mountain, and hip-hop KUBE.

The stations aren't the only Seattleites responding to Broken Bells. Starbucks will stock the album, along with the usual chains and indie retailers.

In addition, Broken Bells created a 7-inch exclusive for indie retail; the band will also sell a deluxe version of the album for $39.99 that is designed to be a music box — a darker, more modern and ballerina-less version of the little-girl classic. When opened, it plays a track called "The Overture," which is not on the album. Burton adds that the box can be hacked and the music can be pulled off to be remixed. In addition to the album, the box will contain stickers, posters, lobby cards, and a leather book.

Although a version of the album has already leaked, Burton and Mercer say they aren't worried. "The songs on the version floating around the Web now are mislabeled. There are songs on there that aren't on the final album — it's an old version," Burton says.

The pair adds that it has no idea how the album ultimately will be received. "I didn't think (the Gnarls Barkley hit) 'Crazy' would ever do well," Burton says. "We got turned down by all the majors before signing to Downtown. A U.K. DJ got the track and started using it as a promo for a show, and then it grew there, and then KROQ (Los Angeles) started playing it, and that was it. It was funny, though, because urban stations wouldn't touch it."

Burton says he's experiencing some of the same resistance with Broken Bells. "When I travel, people ask me what I do, and when I say I'm a musician, the next question they ask is, 'What kind?'" he says. "Is this rock? Is it soul? Is it something else? I don't know, but I do know we did something great."

~ Cortney Harding, Billboard

Local Natives

"Sun Hands"
from the album Gorilla Manor
2010 (U.S.)
iTunes



In an age where music is as accessible as an "I'm feeling lucky" Google search and a quick click of the "download" button, it's easy to get bogged down by the swarms of artists who claim to be worthy of your ears. Sometimes, though, a band comes along that simply cannot be ignored. Such is the case for Local Natives, whose debut album, Gorilla Manor is as balanced as it is catchy.

From the opening guitar refrain of "Wide Eyes" to the rolling drums on "Sun Hands," Local Natives demand attention and evoke the kind of grooves that gave Vampire Weekend their reputation. Just as notable as the upbeat elements present in Gorilla Manor, however, are the soft refrains and harmonies that offset them.

Oftentimes, growing bands suffer from trying to do too many things in a single song; but on Gorilla Manor, the contrast between the pulsing ascents and harmonious breakdowns sounds natural. On "Sun Hands," Local Natives seem to speak of their own dynamic ability to move forward, reflecting on this ability as they sing, "I climbed to the top of a hill / But I had just missed the sun / And although the descending arc was gone / Left behind were the traces that always follow along."

The album itself moves progressively away from the raucous and dynamic territory of the opening songs to the pleasant and serene mood of the closing ones. On "Stranger Things," the lingering piano chords and birdlike guitar trills expose Local Natives' lighter side.

One of the most intriguing songs on Gorilla Manor is "Warning Sign," a barely recognizable cover of the Talking Heads' song. This track — in which three-part harmonies replace the original primal screams — speaks to Local Natives' ability to take a simple idea and create something composed, layered and organic out of it.

Local Natives don't break down any musical boundaries on their debut album (nearly all the songs are pretty straightforward four- to five-minute rock pieces) but as the California-based band explores African-style drumming and English-accented vocals, it's clear they do not limit themselves, as their name may suggest.

After a year in which Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, and even Lady Gaga dominated the airwaves, it may seem that music has gone the way of the extremely inventive and experimental. But on Gorilla Manor, Local Natives don't reinvent the wheel, they just send it on an awesome ride.

~ Jon Mitchell, The Daily Cardinal

Citay

"Mirror Kisses"
from the album Dream Get Together
2010
iTunes



Ezra Feinberg and his pals in Citay tread a dangerous road with their expansive tunes. Their guitar heroics and soaring keys are the stuff of proggy excess, or those bands your black sheep uncle out west follows on tour all summer. In short, these guys like to jam.

But Dream Get Together shows once again that Citay may like to jam, but they're damned good at it. As big and toppling as their music can be — and its size can be overwhelming — these guys are dynamic players, and all the experiments and expansion never slips into self-indulgent wanking. In fact, these guys have grown daring over three records, using every inch of studio space on Dream Get Together to make a massive sound that doesn't lose any of the charm or pastoral shimmer of the band's earlier work.

Things don't get any bigger than "Hunter," the instrumental space shot that channels the crunchy, near-metal guitar riffs of J Mascis, but buries their impressive growl under a downright planetary synth solo. The synths don't yield until lead guitarist Josh Pollock burns the song down with a seething guitar solo, and leaves the tatters swaying in a big sweep of strings. The song encompasses all the strengths of the record, all the honeyed sonic charge that goes into every track.

It does all that without the album's other strength: the vocals. Each song here would be solid as an instrumental, but adding vocals only further expands these tunes. Citay never reigns it in to make room for voice, instead the singers have to rise to the occasion, and they do. The sunburst groove of "Careful With That Hat" is braced by the group vocals that float, carefree and joyful, over the stringy guitars and shimmering atmospherics. Beach Boys-style harmonies brighten the rocking shuffle of the title track. And "Mirror Kisses," sung by band members Tahlia Harbour and Meryl Press with Merrill Garbus from the Tune-Yards, is maybe the best song of the lot. It's a soaring acoustic number coated with thick layers of hazy guitar, and together the three singers make a sound as shining and huge as any synth on the record.

You've got to hand it to Feinberg and his crew. They flat-out go for it on this record, even more so than their high-flying earlier records, and they hit every mark they take aim at. There might not be much restraint on this record, but its exploration always feels under control. Citay can see where it is they want to go, they just prefer to take the scenic route there and, believe me, you'll have no problem following them.

~ Matthew Fiander, PopMatters

Tony! Toni! Toné!

JONK MUSIC TURNS 5: FEBRUARY 14, 2005 / FEBRUARY 14, 2010

"Anniversary"
from the album Sons of Soul
1993
iTunes



♫ Do you know what today is?
It's our anniversary. ♫

Cars & Trains

"Intimidated By Silence"
from the album The Roots, the Leaves
2010
iTunes



With the digital age well under way, electronica has found its niche in the world of musical culture and has won most of our hearts. Vast majorities of albums released now have electronic elements, such as processed sounds, programmed beats, and electronic backgrounds that make the songs that we hear just a little more palatable than they would be otherwise. When it comes to records like The Roots, the Leaves by Portland, OR-based Cars & Trains, the addition of electronic elements is not only required but expected, and pairs itself perfectly with the rambling lyrics and instrumental accompaniment.

Solo artist Tom Filepp is a multi-instrumentalist who mixes traditional elements such as glockenspiel, banjo, acoustic guitar with electronic elements such as synth, some mild feedback, and a great deal of preprogrammed thunderous drum beats. This yields a delightfully melancholy mix of organic and inorganic sounds that are perfectly morose and straightforward. With folk vibes, these urban lullabies provide dark landscapes for the almost brooding handpicked lyrics that are precise and exact, and paired together, make one heck of an album.

The ten-track album is a perfect winter release, reminiscent of rainy Pacific Northwest mornings, complete with the subtle reminders of our own mortality and the effect we will have, or absence thereof, on our planet during our short stay here. Filepp does focus on our eventual expiration, but also touches base with our humanity, our mortality, the very essence of being alive, mixed with a carefully orchestrated sense of belonging to something bigger than us, even if we are nothing. Also, a track about how a desk job can lead to our eventual demise- something all of us with a typical day job can relate to (see "Drop Ceilings and Day Planners"), means there is a little something for everyone on The Roots, the Leaves. Favorite tracks include "Intimidated By Silence," “Dead Telephone," and "Asleep on a Train."

~ Annastasia Gallaher, Popwreckoning

Yeasayer

"O.N.E."
from the album Odd Blood
2010
iTunes



An unfamiliar listener coming in cold to Yeasayer's second full-length album probably wouldn't make it too much further than the opener, "The Children." It's a choppy, dirge-like downer, the soundtrack to a spooky submarine's descent into the abyss in cinematic slow motion. But it would be a tragic mistake to abandon ship on this avant-pop Brooklyn trio just before the fun starts. First single "Ambling Alp" is an exuberant charge of bliss slowed down to a world-beat rhythm replete with echoing drum triggers, fluorescent synth-riffs, African percussion, and an uplifting lyric: "Stick up for yourself, son / Never mind what anyone else done." It's good advice, even if the band doesn't seem to have taken it; the record is rotten with referents, from kraut rock to '80s shoulder-pad-and-hairspray pop. "Madder Red" is all stuttering reverb and otherworldly tribal gospel vocals pulled straight from the Peter Gabriel wheelhouse. "O.N.E." shares a lyrical hook with the like-minded Peter Bjorn and John's "It Don't Move Me" but manages to one-up the quirky party-pop Swedes — and pretty much everything else coming out lately in terms of sheer fun.

~ Luke O'Neil, The Boston Globe

Basia Bulat

"Go On"
from the album Heart of My Own
2010
iTunes



This 25-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter has one of those powerful, lilting, "Who is that?" voices that immediately grabs your attention both with its technique and its unbridled emotion. Her new album, Heart of My Own, is a worthy follow-up to her 2007 debut, Oh, My Darling, showcasing both that amazing voice and her open-hearted songwriting.

Although Bulat's music falls in the folk-pop genre, this is no spare, snoozy album. She favors plenty of instrumentation in her arrangements (piano, fiddle, horns) and an invigorating pace that heralds a strong Celtic influence. The opening track "Go On" is propelled by a rat-a-tat martial drum beat, while "Gold Rush" marches along on a stormy beat and gorgeous fiddle playing. Much of Heart of My Own was reportedly written while Bulat was out touring, and you can feel the rumble of the road under these songs.

When the pace does slow down, as on the lovely "I'm Forgetting Everyone," Bulat excels at building a hushed and intimate space in her songs. The momentum within (and behind) Bulat's songs just seems to keep building and building.

~ Rob Thomas, The Capital Times

Belle & Sebastian

"If She Wants Me"
from the album Dear Catastrophe Waitress
2003
iTunes



October 25, 2003:
Pop rarely is as funny, sad, clever, and flighty as Belle & Sebastian at their best and, heavenly choirs rejoice, for the first time in some years we have Belle & Sebastian at their best. For consistency of songs and performance, for sheer wittiness of lyric and poignancy of small tragedies, for utter irresistibility of melodies this is the best thing the Glaswegians have done since their second album, If You're Feeling Sinister.

However, this time the songs come with more muscle than you might expect from a band that once redefined fey. Sure there is the familiar skeleton of softly spoken baroque pop with arrangements that can be precise and idiosyncratic — muted trumpet where you might expect guitar; timpani one minute, weeping strings the next and melodies that surely must snap at the first breath.

But now a song like "Wrapped Up in Books" (a title that is pure B&S) forgoes acoustic guitars and tippity-tap drums for rippling Rickenbacker guitar lines and bouncy rhythm. And "Roy Walker" all but tap dances up a wall Donald O'Connor-style it's so cheery, with little glissandos on vibraphones, rising brass notes, a flash of guitar and loads of sneaky grinning percussion.

(Meanwhile, under the bright clothing you can still find those smarting bruises in stories such as the bullied schoolboy of Lord Anthony and the complex reactions of "Wrapped Up in Books.")

You can't swat these songs away with a cardigan pop dismissal. Not when "If She Wants Me" arrives as sexy, shimmering early-'70s smooth funk, as good as anything sharp-dancing, afro-sporting chaps in wide lapels would turn out. Not when it's spiced with lines that verge on insouciant but actually just finish up feeling real, such as "If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be happy / They'd write it on my grave or when they scattered my ashes / On second thoughts I'd rather hang about and be there with my best friend / If she wants me."

Having already drawn from Bacharach, the Smiths, and Arran sweater-wearing folkies, on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, B&S glide into the '70s and seem pretty comfortable, thank you.

~ Bernard Zuel, The Sydney Morning Herald

Midlake

"Acts of Man"
from the album The Courage of Others
2010
iTunes



Last we heard of Midlake, the band was yearning for simpler times. The lead track "Roscoe" from their 2006 breakthrough, The Trials of Van Occupanther, daydreamed of being born at the tail end of 19th century America, closer to the earth, at at time when they would have built their houses of stone and cedar and welcomed the April showers for tilling fresh gardens.

Whatever romantic impulses may have frosted their view of returning to pre-industrial living, though, seems to have frayed a bit on their latest effort, The Courage of Others. Musically, the band is still immersed in the pastoral nostalgia they dreamt of years ago, still employing the same self-described "fair maiden" aesthetic that made their last effort such a welcome departure. All the placid coats of plucked acoustics, soft orchestral touches and Tim Smith's listless croon are still here. But where Occupanther saw the band celebrating an oncoming spring of newfound creativity, the mood driving Courage of Others seems to be wrought of the dreary winters afterward.

The opening lines of "Acts of Man" act almost as a preface for the entire album as Smith sadly pleads, "Before the growth starts to fade, starts to falter / Oh, let me inside / Let me inside, not to wait." Follow-up track "Winter Dies" may look ahead to the gradual thaw to come, inviting "one more year for a man to change his ways," but the hopefulness belies itself as Smith adds, "I used to feel all things around me stir, grateful for all I received / taking in the sounds and ways of creatures upon the earth / great were the rivers I swam waning out the sun."

In a way, Midlake still carry the promise of warmer days, but here they're tempered with vague regret, which translates into the songs themselves. At first listen, such a stolid tone can be rather drowsy back to back, but strains of seething electric guitars lend these otherwise cold-natured ballads a soft burn, while well-placed vocal harmonies, bright synths and tempo shifts both invite and pay off repeated listens. It’s a good thing, too, as each one of these 11 tracks rivals most anything on Occupanther. Ultimately, The Courage of Others will likely be passed over by most as the sullen counterpart of its predecessor, but it’s in every way its equal.

~ Dustin Allen, American Songwriter

The Album Leaf

"Falling From the Sun"
from the album A Chorus of Storytellers
2010
iTunes



"If it ain't broke don't fix it" doesn't really work in the business of making records. Music consumers expect musicians to improve and take their music to the next level in a forward progression. So bands strive hard to find a balance between the familiar sounds that attracted fans in the first place and the evolution to a new and hopefully better sound. Achieving this delicate balance is what has allowed The Album Leaf to survive for ten years, five albums, and a string of EPs.

A Chorus of Storytellers has everything a fan wants in a new album, the familiar and the evolution. The familiar comes in the bright, contemplative tones and the gorgeously sublime and meditative orchestrations comparable to those found on previous releases. The evolution comes with more prominent vocals and a new approach to the recording process. In a shift from previous records, where leader and multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle played and recorded everything, A Chorus of Storytellers was recorded live with the other band members. This new strategy provides an added richness and a more human quality that helps shape the cinematic soundscapes into distinctive songs.

Most of the tracks are instrumentals that start with a soft-spoken, sauntering beat and an atmospheric dream-pop sound courtesy of crystal clear and ringing keyboard tones. They slowly evolve with added layers and delicate swells of lush, orchestrated melodies until the listener is engulfed in a soothing and shimmering swirl of sound. Sweetly melancholic strings and Icelandic horn arrangements adorn the resonating rhythms. The vocal tracks are similar but start with a more pronounced beat, occasionally even a scratchy, trip-hop loop, and are colored with gorgeously layered and dreamy textures as the galloping beats and cymbal crashes transform these atmospheric pieces into hauntingly beautiful rock songs.

There's always a danger that this type of music be construed as New-Age (not that there's anything wrong with that), but the Album Leaf avoid the tag by taking both a classical and experimental approach to shaping compositions into emotional and colorful, yet engaging music, while skillfully blurring the boundaries between new-age, ambient and indie-rock.

~ Delusions of Adequacy

PJ Harvey

"This Mess We're In" (featuring Thom Yorke)
from the album Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
2000
iTunes



October 2000:
Though her critical reputation hasn't lost momentum, Polly Jean Harvey hasn't made an especially compelling album since 1995's gutsy, bluesy breakthrough, To Bring You My Love. A virtually forgotten collaboration with John Parish (Dance Hall At Louse Point) doesn't have to count, but 1998's Is This Desire? does: Tinged with electronics, it's forgettable bordering on dispiriting. The fact that it seems to follow a five-year hiatus makes her new Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea seem especially revelatory, but it'd be remarkable even if it didn't benefit from compromised expectations. The album drags a bit near the end, but there's not a bad song on it, bursting out of the gate with the instant classic "Big Exit" before stringing together a bevy of strong material. But Stories From the City doesn't fully reveal itself as a classic until its astonishing midsection, particularly the rip-roaring "Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore" and the breathtaking "This Mess We're In." The former is one of the most bracing, thrilling songs of Harvey's career, and it's followed immediately by the latter, a gorgeous duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who in a span of three weeks can boast appearances on two of the year's best albums. To Bring You My Love may have been Harvey's mainstream breakthrough after the sleeper success of Dry and the caustic Rid of Me, but Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea is her most accessible. Time will tell for sure, but it may even be her best, and that's saying a lot.

~ Stephen Thompson, The A.V. Club

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

"40 Day Dream"
from the album Up From Below
2009
iTunes



Alex Ebert could easily double as some kind of indie-rock messiah. Fronting his new band, the 11- or 12-member strong Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Ebert appears onstage shirtless and barefoot, strands of shoulder-length hair tied back in a faux crown as he conducts his smiling, face-painted ensemble like a giddy choir director.

At those moments, he is no longer Alex Ebert, hard-partying lead singer of the dance-rock band Ima Robot; he becomes Edward Sharpe, his boyhood alter ego, and his band is his family. His agenda, as 1960s as it sounds, is little more than love and honesty.

"I'm a naked dude," says Ebert. "I've been humbled to the floor."

What he's built is one of the more unusual musical acts to emerge from Los Angeles in some time. From their start as an unwieldy recording project for Ebert's songs, the Zeros have become standard-bearers for the folk-rock revival.

Their big, open-hearted anthems evoke a different (but perhaps no less turbulent) era when cynicism and irony didn't course through pop music like countermelodies. And the band's aesthetic, no matter how organic its evolution, screams throwback — right down to touring in a converted school bus with the band's name in script on the side and a driver named Cornfed.

"That bus is like stepping into a hippie wet dream," drummer Josh Collazo jokes.

Last year a Flaunt magazine story coined a catchall for revivalists such as the Zeros: "hippie-sters." Ebert cringes at that. "Categories ... that's insular stuff. It's not real."

What is, he says, is sharing the music that came out of his personal rebirth.

Ima Robot, which emerged as a reliable L.A. party band early in the decade and made two albums for Virgin Records, fit the younger Ebert's live-fast mantra. "I used to say my primary motivation was getting things done before I die. I was getting a lot of things done, but I was a mess," he says. "I ended up on a lot of drugs; I basically lost myself. The last two years we were on the major label, I became an automaton — I became a robot.

"It wasn't anything about the music. With Ima Robot, life was all an exorcism. With this, it's all an infusion."

For a time, Ebert was living in a place with no phone. He met Jade Castrinos, who now sings in the band. He read Kerouac, attended AA meetings, and started working on songs in the Laurel Canyon house shared by now-bandmates Nico Aglietti and Aaron Older.

With the help of some seed money from the late Heath Ledger — who intended to start a music label out of the directors, artists and other creatives he funded, called The Masses — recording began. Friends of friends came to play and ended up joining the band.

"We decided to go back in time," says Aglietti, who co-produced the album. "We got an old 24-track tape machine from 1979 and found a deal on used reels of 2-inch tape. Twelve people playing on 24 tracks, all recorded in live fashion. ... I'm really proud of the dogma we kept; [the album] has a natural resonance to it."

"It never felt like a grueling task," says guitarist Christian Letts, who's known Ebert since childhood. "This is a case of a group of people coming together at the right time. I don't even think of it as a band, I think of it as a family."

Ebert treats crowds like family. "The night [in April] I went into the crowd at the Echo and everybody was singing, you could almost feel their hearts," he says.

"When you're playing in this band, it's not like there's a glass partition between you and the audience," Aglietti says. "There's nothing about this band that's 'band-y.' We're kind of an art troupe that plays music."

~ Kevin Bronson, Los Angeles Times

The Cave Singers

"Beach House"
from the album Welcome Joy
2009
iTunes



It was something of a disappointment when Pretty Girls Make Graves split up. Not only were they a bright hope musically but they had such a great name, too. Still, without their demise, we'd have never had the pleasure of what Derek Fudesco did next, and what he did next has come up with a fantastic record.

The Cave Singers stated their intent with their debut album Invitation Songs, a collection of rustic American folk songs that grabbed the attention with simplistic production and an almost campfire sing-a-long quality to proceedings.

Welcome Joy sees the band expanding upon the promise displayed on their debut offering, and whilst for many there is often a case to be made for the "tricky second album" syndrome, we instead find The Cave Singers taking confident strides forward.

Although the folk feel of their first album can still be found on Welcome Joy, there is a distinctly more rock tinged flavor to many of these songs. There's still something undeniably pastoral about The Cave Singers, though. You can practically see the band set up on the back porch overlooking a swamp, guitar amp crackling quietly, a single snare drum with brushes nestled on a weathered skin, with an array of simplistic percussion instruments piled alongside it.

In the shadows, seated in an old battered chair, sits Pete Quirk. He's got his eyes closed, deep crow's feet run out towards his ears like trenches of emotion, his fists are clenched in his lap and he's singing as if these songs just have to be released into the ether.

Fudesco might lend some pulling power The Cave Singers due to his past exploits, but it's Quirk's voice that seals the deal. Despite having a voice several registers higher than Mark Lanegan, his delivery is incredibly similar. It's as if these songs mean everything to him, and that makes each of these tracks all the more intriguing. It almost doesn't matter what he's singing about because you simply get lost in the atmosphere that he and the band create.

Equally, it's almost impossible not to hear influences seeping into the band's music. At times Welcome Joy sounds as if it's a long lost Fleetwood Mac album — possibly shelved somewhere between Rumours and Tusk. Quirk's voice recalls Lindsey Buckingham's frequently throughout on Welcome Joy, and second track "Leap" would fit easily into Rumours' tales of recriminations and lost love. And hey, there's a neat skiffle beat that echoes that of "Second Hand News," too. Similarities to the good old country rockin' of Creedence Clearwater Revival can be found scattered liberally over the album too, while "At the Cut" (amongst others) revels in the teachings bestowed upon the band by numerous spirituals and the writings of the good book "The Gospel of Gospel."

Shrine mimics the slightly eastern influenced guitar runs you'd find on The Doors' "The End." To begin with, there's so much space in this song it's positively scary — it's if you're alone with Quirk in a wooden shack, and he's starting to lose the plot. Thankfully, just before he reaches for the woad and his copy of Deliverance the drums turn up and a glorious duelling female vocal gets him back on track again.

Almost as vital as the band's more filled-out, more considered sound this time around is the production of Colin Stewart. He doesn't let the band ever sound too clean and manages to retain an air of authenticity, allowing for the occasional buzz of amps to bleed through and ensuring that Quirk sounds as if he's singing these songs with his head laid on your shoulder.

Welcome Joy is an album that has its roots embedded as equally in history as in histrionics. As such it is a fascinating listen, frequently pushing the listener between the outer limits of joy, sorrow, and something approaching religious epiphany. This is a remarkable album in every sense.

~ Sam Shepherd, musicOMH

Lissie

"Everywhere I Go"
from the EP Why You Runnin'
2009
iTunes



The five songs on this impressive debut EP cover a good swath of modern folk. "Little Lovin'" is a lively foot-stomper; the gospel piano ballad "Oh Mississippi" conjures goose bumps; and Lissie wraps Hank Williams' "Wedding Bells" in warm reverb and changes the lyrics to reflect a female perspective and the results are outstanding. The four original songs are all well written, particularly the highly emotional "Everywhere I Go" and "Here Before," but what truly stands out is her remarkable voice. Aching and evocative, vulnerable yet self-assured, Lissie Maurus' pipes can be powerful like Neko Case's one moment and eerie and affecting like Chan Marshall's (Cat Power) the next. Joined by Bill Reynolds, who also produced, and Tyler Ramsey of Band of Horses, the overall sound is spacious, ethereal, and gorgeous. Why You Runnin' signals big things to come from Lissie Maurus.

~ iTunes Review