If you are somewhere that you can wrap something warm around you and drink something hot from a mug, you should probably do that for this gorgeous, translucent song. Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes recorded three acoustic demo songs a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, one with Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear, and he released them into the world last night via twitter.
Their voices blend together more perfectly than almost any two I can think of. Haunting and beautiful.
Also released from this session are Robin’s new solo song “Derwentwater Stones” and a cover of Chris Thompson’s “Where Is My Wild Rose.” Download all three songs here.
This weekend was a complete derailment of all intended rock-and-roll-lifestyle plans of official musical merriment, but what is late Spring all about if not sitting on patios for hours, sipping some sort of cherry juice concoction and getting sunburned? Or standing under gorgeous old trees in a backyard, barbequeing hot dogs and …bison (!). All in all, a fabulous weekend — ‘cuz summer’s almost here.
Here’s the new songs I am listening to, as we welcome June with the windows down.
Song Away
Hockey
Here’s my full dork disclosure. When I hear a new song I really like, I’ve been known to burn it onto a CD and listen to it on repeat all the way on the drive up to Denver on a Friday night. That’s an hour, kids — an hour of completely unrestrained overindulgence. I don’t know any other way. This is my new favorite song of the moment, from Portland’s Hockey, which boasts a little bit of Talking Heads, some classic solid pop riffs, all in a jittery danceable blast. It promises (and delivers) a truthful song over an eighties groove, with lines like “This is believe me music, this is forget me music / This is who can love me you know, this ain’t no roxy music…” — SOLD. Mind Chaos is out August 25th on Capitol.
Two Weeks of Hip Hop (Dead Prez vs. Grizzly Bear) The Hood Internet
Since we’re on the subject of flawless summer party songs, I’m also just gonna admit that this song makes me dance around in a ridiculously white-girl, totally inappropriate manner in my kitchen, bedroom, what have you — the kind of moves that make people who can actually dance uncomfortable. The Hood Internet from Chicago takes on Grizzly Bear and Dead Prez together in one mashup, and make something completely irresistible. It’s the only time you’ll hear those sublime oceanside harmonies of “Two Weeks” with musings about who shot Biggie Smalls. Enjoy it. [img via]
Bodies
Savoir Adore
My trusted friend Eryc forwarded me this press release, with heady words: “Holy crap! Have you heard this little EP? You’re gonna love it! You’re gonna blog about it! You’re gonna dry hump it!” He’s right on many of those assertions — Brooklyn’s Savoir Adorehas put together a punchy, potent EP that rambles and clatters right across my speakers. Just the exuberant opening percussion parade on this song is enough to make me fall in love, even before those immense guitar riffs start drilling and the male/female vocals start enchanting. Their Machines EP is available now for free download, and their debut full-length In The Wooded Forest is due August 25th on Cantora Records (who brought us MGMT and Violens, who I love). Woot!
College Town Boy Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele Dainon waxed on and on about seeing this Dent Mayfella and his instrument of wonder at Sasquatch over Memorial Day Weekend, and anyone with coke bottle glasses and wryly ironic ditties (accompanied by most humble of idyllic stringed instruments) can earn a listen from me. This song is a note-perfect caricature of a slacker with aspirations between hanging out at the local townie bar and regretting that he never studied abroad. The Good Feeling Music Of Dent May And His Magnificent Ukulele is out now on Paw Tracks Records, and this tune was first on his charming EP A Brush With Velvet. Also – for more of Dent, check his Daytrotter session.
Rattle, Room
Porlolo
One of Colorado’s most stirring female musicians, Porlolo‘s Erin Roberts has an earthy, elegant current to her music. The latest release Meadows presents eleven orchestral folk-Americana songs that run the gamut from the bluesy “I Don’t Know” to the playfully earnest “Animals Should Live Forever.” But here over gorgeously elegiac strings and trumpets, Roberts sounds like she would be more at home in an Irish castle in a city ending with “-derry,” perhaps late at night by a flickering fire.
Today I am trying to focus on work in the waning hours of my week, before heading off to play dice, four-square and double dutch tonight in a Denver warehouse, if’n my body remembers how.
Meanwhile, I am listening to The Dead Weather, the latest scathing musical side project of Jack White, along with Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), and Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs). I haven’t figured out why this song suggests I treat anyone like my mother, but I like the way it sounds:
And, I am also thoroughly entertained with Drowned In Sound’s feature on the indie-rock reconnaissance notes of Grizzly Bear guitarist Daniel Rossen’s mother:
7/19/07
While trolling for GB reviews, I somehow came across Deerhunter at the Bowery Ballroom on Pitchfork or somewhere and was shocked at poor Bradford Cox’s appearance. He just looked positively terminal and that gold dress didn’t help either….
I like to picture that I’ve hired a small man with dark hair and a preternaturally deep voice to stand in my kitchen and read that post title back to me using his Movie Preview Announcer Voice. (I say the gesundheit part. He eyes me warily).
Proving his commitment to the rock and the roll, Philly’s music machine (and good friend) Bruce Warren has created a new blog devoted solely to aggregating and covering news related to the upcoming Grizzly Bear album event: grizzlybearalbum.blogspot.com. Bookmark it for all your information needs. The anticipation is like waiting for Christmas.
I am looking forward to trying to weasel my way in to seeing these guys at SXSW (along with everybody else). Here are live versions of two shiny gorgeous songs that will be on the new album, at once golden echoey and retro happy. They get under my skin:
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
The Hood Internet
Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele
Rattle, Room
Name: Heather Browne
