The ever-winning War On Drugs had a comparatively quiet year this year compared to last and its superb album Slave Ambient.  The Philly band’s performance verve, however, continued unabated.   Check them out last night in Philly lighting up Bruce Springsteen’s telling The Ties That Bind.  Fitting and superb.  Can’t wait to catch their next tour through Cali.  After, check out their compelling wall of sound on Come To The City in April on Letterman (nice high-five between Paul Shaffer and keys-guy Robbie at end).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqq5SgaV-pQ&feature=em-uploademail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVuDKOClGA&feature=player_embedded

Low has historically played placidly and has been tranquil for quite some time (though they’ve been busy elsewhere).  Frank Ocean on the other hand is the au currant tsunami, dominating the year-end Best Albums and Best Songs lists.   From two ends of the musical spectrum (in most, but not all ways), check out new songs from the two artists.

Low will release a new, Jeff Tweedy-produced album in March.  Check out the album’s first-released song Plastic Cup.  Once again, Tweedy certainly hasn’t gotten in the way here.  As with Mavis Staples, he’s got the Midas touch. You can check out the song over at NPR.

Frank Ocean’s song is an unused outtake from the Django Unchained soundtrack. You can stream the track right HERE at Ocean’s Tumblr.  Yet another great ballad from the young man.

Eels are evidently going to be slithering back into our lives shortly with a new album (Wonderful, Glorious) and tour.  They have released new song Calling For Your Love.  The song is featured in new James Cameron (ewww!)-produced Cirque de Soleil documentary Worlds Away.  Check it out.  Starts off sashaying-slow and then shimmers on.  Good to have e (Mark Oliver Everett) back.  The band’s tour dates follow the song.

Tour Dates:
02/14 Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
02/15 Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre
02/16 San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
02/18 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
02/19 Seattle, WA @ Showbox Theater
02/22 Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
02/23 Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
02/24 Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
02/25 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
02/26 Montreal, QC @ Theatre Corona
02/27 Boston, MA @ Paradise
03/01 New York, NY @ Webster Hall
03/02 Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
03/03 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
03/04 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
03/05 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
03/07 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
03/08 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live Ballroom
03/14 Belfast, IE @ Limelight
03/15 Dublin, IE @ Olympia
03/17 Manchester, UK @ Academy
03/18 Glasgow, UK @ O2 Academy
03/19 Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy
03/21 London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
03/23 Bournemouth, UK @ O2 Academy
03/25 Brighton, UK @ Dome
03/26 Norwich, UK @ UEA
03/27 Nottingham, UK @ Rock City
03/29 Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy
03/30 Birmingham, UK @ O2 Academy
04/01 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
04/06 Copenhagen, DK @ Grey Hall
04/07 Hamburg, DE @ Grosse Freiheit
04/08 Berlin, DE @ Astra
04/10 Belgium, NL @ Cirque Royal
04/12 Caen, FR @ Le Cargo
04/14 Salzburg, AT @ Republic
04/15 Fribourg, CH @ Frison
04/16 Zurich, CH @ Volkshaus
04/18 Milan, IT @ Alcatraz
04/19 Graz, AT @ Orpheum
04/20 Linz, AT @ Posthof
04/21 Vienna, AT @ Gasometer
04/22 Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
04/24 Paris, FR @ Trianon

Check out below The Kansas Bible Company performing their song The Desert She Screams (via American Songwriter).  We love anything Kansas (though the band isn’t).  Keep your eyes on these midwest (mideast?) boys.

It’s Christmas Eve.  So.  Watch/ listen to Sufjan Stevens singing two of the more appropriate songs (repeated as necessary, for emphasis) for the next 24 hours (and forever).  And to all a goodnight.  Peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZoKWoCxNXg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V94ISXp0rUI&feature=em-uploademail

Gomez is one of those bands whose live performances always transcend their recordings.  By a country mile.  Or two.  They need to get that fixed.  Their 2011 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival set was surprisingly one of the absolute highlights of HSBF that year (and amongst superb sets from Elbow, Broken Social Scene, Bright Eyes and others).  Check out below band members Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball performing Equalize off of their most recent (2011) album Whatever’s On Your Mind for Sideshow Alley in Australia.  G’Day!

In all (and repeated) candor, we think the lad dubbed The Tallest Man on Earth has received too much unjustified raving from critics.  It has seemed wrongly un-critical and hypocritical, if you will.  Based on his most recent release below, it turns out TTMOE might just want to skip the pretense of thinly-veiled songwriting, cut out the middle-man and only perform cover songs.  Because it’s hard to mess up beauties like Damien Jurado’s Working Titles, one of our Best Songs of 2012 (still to come).  Check out TTMOE below with his wife Idiot Wind’s Amanda Hollingby Matsson.  Working Titles is a song from Jurado’s 2012 album, Maraqopa (also one of our Best Albums of 2012).  After the cover, check out Jurado’s fine take.  The lyrics are at bottom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8gwPVsS1TE&feature=em-uploademail

Working Titles:

“You could mess up my life in a poem
Have me divorced by the time of the chorus
There’s no need to change any sentence
When you always decide where I go next

Many nights you would hide from the audience
When they were not in tune with your progress
In the end you’re a fool like the journalist
Who turns what you sing into business

You could use to be more like a hero
A darker shade of damage distortion
Wearing death like a cape or a costume
Cut your ties and leave town when you want to

Killing time ’til I pass through the chamber
Or the room you keep my replacement
so fed up, still you’re starving on paper
You’re no him, but he’s you, only better

Leave me an exit to damage
I could use a ledge to jump off of
I wasn’t lying when I said this was over
I have questions that lead to more questions

Running time that will cut off my fingers
You wrote about me on every new record
And I’ll show up in a title of your song
I only hope somebody requests it

What’s it like for you in Washington
I’ve only seen photos of Washington
I’ll never know

Leave me Manhattan, I want the evergreens
Write me a song I can sing in my sleep
As sure as the rain that will fall where you stand
I want you and the skyline, these are my demands

What’s it like for you in Washington
I’ve only seen photos of Washington
I’ll never know, know”

Joe Strummer passed away exactly ten years ago to the day today.  What better tribute than the video below of The Clash on the Tom Snyder Show from 1981, which was featured in one of our earliest posts on The Lefort Report and which you can read HERE.  He was one of the best of all time, with a heart of gold.  We miss ye Joe, and can’t wait to see that left leg jammin’ in the bye and bye.

We just can’t shut up about Sufjan Stevens and his recent Christmess Sing-A-Long.  Stevens is closing out his tour with a two-night stand at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC, which ends tonight.  Check out below a few stellar songs from last night’s first show at the Bowery.  Thanks to LysWantTwo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tui1xMOZmTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNT2u9enD2E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf_49h-Ls_k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owk0b9Y1I9c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z_waENi9d8

Mayan, shmayan.  Check out (and download) below Giant Giant Sand and the gifted Howe Gelb’s tangential take on this end-of-the-world nonsense in their song, Not The End of The World.  The piano-based track is an alternate take (featuring both Gelb and Lonna Kelley) from the band’s great recent album Tucson (Deluxe Edition), which Edition includes 27 (!) songs  including different versions of eight songs from the album.  One of the biggest and best surprises of the concert year was the phenomenal set put on by Gelb and Giant Giant Sand at this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  Gelb and band are masters of manifold music genres, varying from Latino sounds, to blistering rock, to piano jazz at the drop of a sombrero.  It was a tour de force.  Superb.  Check out the sublime Not the End of the World (and listen to some of their other songs), and then go buy Tucson HERE.