Lost in my excitement about new material from The National is the first preview of the forthcoming album from Band of Horses, Infinite Arms (out May 18 on Brown/Fat Possum/Columbia).
The band released this video for Compliments last week, and my guess is the kaleidoscope-like visuals seemed way cooler after the first few hits, duuuudes. You can download the video (but not an mp3 … weird) at the Band of Horses site and pre-order the album at Fat Possum.
Is there a better band to feature on Opening Day than one that calls itself The Baseball Project?
Just in time for the new season, the side group that features Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3) and Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M.) has teamed up with ESPN’s The Life to chronicle the 2010 season by writing/recording a song each month until November, making them available as part of a package called Broadside Ballads – songs about specific events that happen during the season.
I loved The Baseball Project’s 2008 debut, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, an album steeped in baseball’s rich history and quirky characters. And this new idea of a rolling soundtrack for the season has amazing potential.
The first track, released in March, is called All Future and No Past, a song that captures the misguided hope and delusions of grandeur that spring can bring. (As a Cubs fan, I know a little something about this.) “At this point, everybody has a chance,” sings McCaughey, inspired by a quote from Indians Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau, who once said, “On Opening Day, the world is all future and no past.”
ESPN says a new song will be ready for release around Opening Day, so we can expect the second installment very soon. Until then, I’m renewing my dreams of a Cubs victory in the World Series.
The 45th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from Sarah Barthel, keyboardist and singer of electronic-pop duo Phantogram, whose debut LP, Eyelid Movies, was released in February on Barsuk.
Barthel and bandmate Josh Carter just this week released a video for the great track, Mouthful of Diamonds.
I recently became aware of Barthel’s interest in hip-hop, and here she tells us what drew her to the genre and then dishes on one of her favorite hip-hop albums.
In college was where I discovered my love for Hip-Hop. I spent a lot of my time downloading it off of the internet. It was fascinating to me how easy it was to find new music and I had to get as much of it as I could. When I wasn’t working, I spent a lot of my time searching for old underground hip-hop music. Since I was unable to get full albums, I would download any song I could find. My library was filled with crappy versions of songs with confusing titles like {_.mp3_track03*~~Fl4yp}}>. In translation, this one track I found was a golden egg of delightfulness. It was A Tribe Called Quest song. Specifically, Electric Relaxation off of Midnight Marauders. I didn’t know this at the time because of the squirrelly title, but the one thing I knew was that it was the coolest song I had ever heard. I can’t say I lived under a rock before this moment, but it seemed like it at the time. After all, Greenwich, NY, didn’t have the most diverse music scene going on. After discovering this song, I had a mission – collect Q-Tip’s and A Tribe Called Quest’s entire discography. I managed to get my hands on a few – Midnight Marauders, The Anthology and Q-Tip’s Amplified. The tracks on these records changed the way I looked at music and to this day they instantly excite me. I was unaware at the time, but one of our favorite beat makers (J Dilla) produced a lot of the tracks.
Elzhi, The Preface (prod. by Black Milk)
(Fat Beats, 2008)
This album blows my mind! I love the raw, lo-fi, dirty Detroit-influenced swagger and production on this record. It’s extremely captivating and inspiring. It’s hard to be able to combine all of these elements together without it sounding messy and confusing, but The Preface pulls it off perfectly. Although the record incorporates a lot of chopped-up old soul samples, the beats and arrangements also sound fresh and futuristic. The juxtaposition between the two elements is what I love most about this record. Tracks like Guessing Game, The Leak and Colors will definitely go down as being my favorite tracks from the past decade.
Prepping for the June 1 release of Say It, the follow-up to 2008’s Red, Yellow & Blue, Born Ruffians will put out a 7-inch/digital single on May 4 for the track called What to Say, which you can stream in that embedded widget thingy above (via Warp). The single’s b-side will feature the previously unreleased Plinky Plonky.
What to Say is musically restrained – at least by Born Ruffians’ time signature-twisting standards – and instead highlights singer Luke LaLonde’s struggle to translate his thoughts into words, presumably to a love interest: “When I wake up I’m speaking slow / When I get drunk I’m speaking more / Get too drunk and I don’t speak at all / Get too close to you and I don’t know / What to say .”
As he tells spin.com: “‘What to Say’ is about how much and how little sense we make when we speak. It’s about the multitude of wrong words and the never-ending search for the right ones. May you choose wisely.”
Well said.
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I have a friend who somehow has mustered the discipline to intentionally not listen to Bloodbuzz Ohio, the newly released song by The National from the band’s highly anticipated album High Violet (is it May 11 yet?). Something about preserving the moment to absorb the album in its entirety.
Forget that.
I’ve had the song on repeat since its release, only validating my assumptions it will be my favorite album of the year – after all, the band has a streak to uphold following 2005 and 2007.
The song structure of Bloodbuzz Ohio reminds me a lot of Boxer favorite Apartment Story – drummer Bryan Devendorf setting a workmanlike tempo with Matt Berninger singing ever-so-slightly behind the beat, an odd contrast that somehow always pulls together perfectly.
There were hints of a Far reunion last year, and now — at long last — we have tangible evidence in the form of cover art for the forthcoming album, At Night We Live.
According to the band’s site, the album is due out May 25 (on Vagrant) and it would serve as the never-thought-this-was-coming-out follow-up to 1998’s amazing Water & Solutions.
A cover of Ginuwine’s Pony notwithstanding, I’m eagerly awaiting new material. The closest we’ve got is an acoustic/live version of a track below (along with the Pony cover).
UPDATE: If you sign up for the band’s mailing list at its Web site, you’ll be directed to a page to stream the new single, Deafening.
The Besnard Lakes made their television debut Tuesday night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, performing And This is What We Call Progress, one of the more rocking tracks on the new album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night.
Fear not: They brought the fog machine. This has me pumped for the band’s May 14 show at Sail Inn in Tempe. Just don’t expect me to be flailing my arms and pumping my fists like the doofus behind drummer Kevin Laing’s right shoulder. Trust me, you can’t miss him.
Manchester SceneWipe puts the camera to Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison for a nighttime/canal-side acoustic version of the new track Swim Until You Can’t See Land from the excellent new album The Winter of Mixed Drinks.
The band will be fully plugged in for its April 19 show at the Clubhouse in Tempe. Buy tickets. Speaking of, The Middle East is now listed as the opener, dashing my dreams of a combined Japandroids/FR bill on a busy night in the Valley.
As a member of the Living Legends collective and a longtime solo artist, Murs is as prolific as any rapper out there – sometimes to a fault (I’m afraid he’s showing some Ryan Adams-like tendencies). But for my money, some of his best work has come in the company of producer 9th Wonder, who played just a small part on Murs’ major-label debut Murs for President in 2008.
Now the duo is back with Fornever, their third collaborative proper album (due out March 30), following up the 2006 favorite Murray’s Revenge and 2004’s Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition. (Hopefully, you also grabbed the free Sweet Lord mixtape when you had the chance two years ago.)
Check out the first single, The Problem Is, and a making-of look at the soon-to-be-released video.
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Thanks to NPR Music, I can have a beer and a taco at home and at least pretend I’m at SXSW, an event I’ve never been to and one I’m afraid my job will keep me from forever.
But don’t cry for me. NPR put on a wonderful showcase in Austin on Wednesday and already had audio downloads of sets by The Walkmen, Broken Bells and others available via its Web site by night’s end. (Spoon was playing as I was writing this, but I’m guessing a stream and/or download will be available here later.) You can also subscribe to the NPR Live Concerts podcast and get all this.
I’m quite appreciative of the downloadable set from The Walkmen, who were accompanied by a horn section and played a tight nine-song set that included new songs; a few choice cuts from You & Me; All Hands and the Cook; and, of course, The Rat – a song that probably gets old only to them.