In 2008 Vampire Weekend came on the scene like a supernova with their eponymous debut album.   Their mix of upbeat, literate indie rock with Afro-Caribbean sounds and rhythms was an inspired rip-of-a-page by the Colombia-kids from the Paul Simon/Talking Heads songbook.  And the album was a huge hit amongst the cognoscenti and beyond, with songs A-Punk, Oxford Comma, Bryn, Walcott and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (in particular) lighting up dorms across the lands.

The band’s second album Contra followed in early 2010. Despite an arguable increase in quality, Contra was predictably panned by some of the same critics who had slobbered all over the debut album.  Thankfully, other critics and the band’s fan legion recognized the merit of the album and the ongoing value of the band. And their popularity continued unabated.  On Diplomat’s Son and elsewhere on that album, the band made more clear that reggae was a specific influence. Album finisher I Think Ur a Contra was the particular track that grabbed our attention.  With its Afro-guitar shimmer, Jamaican Nyabhingi-esque drumming and added strings, the song painted a more complex (albeit sparser) musical picture than we had heard on the first album.  And lyricist Ezra Koenig let down his lyrical guard more on the song and confessed a failed relationship (amongst other things).  The song was a clear highlight and a harbinger of things to come.

Fast forward to May 14th when Vampire Weekend will release its third album of (what the band has dubbed) a trilogy of albums, Modern Vampires of the City.  You can go over to iTunes and stream the new album now.  We’ve only had a quick couple of listens (and will have a full review soon-come), but you immediately grasp the evolution, complexity and concision embedded in the album’s tracks.  Just like they ended Contra, the album kicks off with that always-reliable Nyabhingi drumming on Unknown Bicycle.  But what’s new here and elsewhere on the album (Young Lion) are previously unheard vocal flourishes and harmonies to go with more-dynamic production values that allow the songs to better breath and impress.  Other early track favorites are Step (with its harpsichord and spareness), Hannah Hunt (with its melancholy mien and piano and lyric references to our own Santa Barbara and Hannah), Finger Back (with it punk rock gestalt), Everlasting Arms and Ya Hey (its somewhat-naive lyric trumped by this closing couplet:  “My soul swooned as I faintly heard the sound, of you spinning “Israelites” into “19th Nervous Breakdown””).

As we said, go on over to iTunes and stream/pre-order the new album now.  You can also go below to catch the Ya Hey and Step lyric videos.

It was a great night last night for music on late-night television. Let’s start at the very top of the mountain of music.  Iron & Wine performed new songs Low Light Buddy of Mine and then (in a web-exclusive) Caught in the Briars/Sundown medley, all off their brilliant new album Ghost on Ghost on Conan.  Check out Sam Beam’s big band (Sam + 12) first playing spare and spirited on Low Light Buddy of Mine, resolved with horns and background vocals meshing perfectly on the refrain.  On Caught in the Briars/Sundown all three trios (strings, horns and vocals) were put to superb effect.  Soul and all that jazz combined.  Oh how far Beam has come from the nylon-stringed whisper-and-hush of The Creek Drank the Cradle.

We can’t say enough about Sam Beam’s scintillating songwriting and the band’s live show (see our review of their January 2011 Wiltern show HERE).  In this era of slimmed-down band offerings (see: over the duos) and expense limitations it is heartwarming to see Beam casting cost issues aside and laying out full-stop.  Do what you have to do to catch them live on their tour (dates can be found HERE).  They open up their tour at the Bottle Rocket Festival in Napa this Saturday and, as of now, not scheduled to return to Cali.  A crying shame.

We’ll have a full review of Ghost on Ghost soon.  In the meantime, do yourselves a favor or two and watch these clips from Conan.

Thanks for asking. Yes, we’re feeling better.  It’s Tuesday and with that patch of blue up there the world seems a whole lot better today. And with that, check out one of our favorite singer-songwriters, Bahamas (Afie Jurvanen), perform a perfect reading of Bobby Charles’ I Must Be In a Good Place Now for Canada’s QTV.  The song is part of a special new Bahamas iTunes EP, and you can buy it HERE.

It’s rainy.  It’s Monday.  The double.  There are two dominant responses.  One is the upbeat-to-overcome.  We’re not feeling that one right now.  The other is redemptive reflection.  That’s the one right now.

The perfect soundtrack to any mood can always be found in jazz, including today’s indigo. And one of our favorites is Santa Barbara resident Charles Lloyd, who has been subtly supplying some of the best jazz recordings and performances in the genre on-and-off for nearly 60 years (Lloyd just turned 75 in March).  Recently he has collaborated with insightful young pianist Jason Moran.  Today Lloyd and Moran’s collaborations on “covers” of a couple of Brian Wilson’s songs are meshing perfectly with the day’s surroundings.  (The covers are a natural since Lloyd played on some of The Beach Boys studio recordings and was a member of their touring band in the late ’60s and ’70s).  Check out two examples of the Lloyd/Moran/Quartet collaboration below: the gorgeous God Only Knows off the recent Lloyd/Moran album Hagar’s Song and a live recording of Caroline No.   Lloyd explained the cover of the latter to Charles Donelan of The Independent:  “The Beach Boys have been friends and allies for me since the beginning. I love Brian Wilson and what he can do with harmony. ‘Caroline, No’ has a lot of yearning in it, and a kind of wistfulness. Caroline’s a sad girl, but I made her mine. I feel like I just kind of took her up here on the hill and held her hand for a while. So that’s how that one came about.”

Check both covers below, and then go buy the fantastic Hagar’s Song HERE.

If you need more, check out at bottom the revered concert video of the Lloyd/Zakir Hussain/Eric Harland “Sangam Trio” collaboration.

Thom Yorke (Radiohead/Atoms For Peace) does get around.  Last night Yorke appeared on Britain’s The Jonathan Ross Show to be briefly interviewed and perform Karma Police.   Yorke stuck along to deliver a decidedly analog performance of new song Ingenue off of Atoms For Peace’s mesmerizing new album Amok.  Check ’em out below.  Crooners for Peace.

Here on the Central Coast, we’re having James Taylor days. Fire. And now rain.

Perfect weather then to watch the phenomenal Phosphorescent perform Jessi Colter’s Storms Never Last.  As we’ve said before,  Phosphorescent’s new album Muchacho will end up at the top of most best albums of 2013 lists, including ours.  They recently performed a set for KEXP that’s just been released.  One of the surprises of the session is the cover below, on which leader Matthew Houck and keyboardist Jo Schornikow performed a duet of this Colter song (which Colter originally sang with husband Waylon Jennings).  After, watch Jennings and Colter’s version performed live.  At bottom, watch Phosphorescent’s superb full session on KEXP.

You begin to comprehend the immensity of a band’s influence when 30+ years after they originally formed, the band’s fans (yours truly included) still reminisce about the band’s best records and upstart bands still can’t avoid emulating that band’s sound.  Such is the case with the seminal band R.E.M. Their fans still debate the merits of Fables of the Reconstruction vs. Life’s Rich Pageant vs. Automatic For The People vs. Reckoning vs. Green vs. Murmur.  And bands across the land still break out their Rickenbackers and jangle-on as if they were the audible progeny of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe and Bill Berry (or the Byrds or the Hollies if you wanna go way back).

One such band is Athen’s (where else?) Futurebirds.  You can hear Fables of the Reconstruction-era jangle on their new song (and video below) Serial Bowls off of their bountiful second album Baba Yaga on Fat Possum.  Futurebirds are not, however, mere R.E.M. emulators.  Their sound is a masterful mix of real country (aided and abetted by the pedal steel of Dennis Love–listen to him on album-closer St. Summercamp—and the discernible twang of their vocals), harder rock elements and four-part harmonies. You might also hear the sonorities of Band of Horses (especially), Drive-By Truckers, Crazy Horse, My Morning Jacket, a bit of The National, and yes even the Beach Boys (listen to Heavy Weights) at moments.  Add to all of this some serious and seriously well-wrought lyrics, and you have a band well worth your attention and adulation.  While there’s nothing new under the sun here, every single song resonates.  We also hear that live they take their songs to even higher heights, and can’t wait to catch them (they are currently on tour with Band of Horses–check the tour dates HERE).  We’ll have more on their album Baba Yaga later.  In the meantime, check out Serial Bowls below.  And go stream the entire new album HERE.

After stumbling upon Seattle’s Pickwick in 2011, we were reinvigorated by them via their fortunate song Lady Luck performed with Sharon Van Etten.  Now comes another winning vignette (from Yours Truly) of the band performing Window Sill off their new album Can’t Talk Medicine. Check out Galen’s soul-laden vocal.  Add a muscular sound, with handclaps all around.

Pickwick “Window Sill” from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

We’ll admit it. We have a thing for female singers from Canada. Feist, Emily Haines, Régine Chassagne, Amy Millan…the list goes on and on.  And right at the top of that list is Kathleen Edwards.   We have repeatedly praised her as both a songwriter and singer.  Now comes yet another performance by Edwards to further our/your opinion of her.  Watch below as Edwards performs her song Away accompanied only by the soulful pedal-steel guitar playing of Joe Savage.  That right there?  That’s beauty.

The multitalented Janelle Monae is back with the fantastic official video for her first single, Q.U.E.E.N., from her impending new album The Electric Lady.  Check out Monae and Badu (and her alter ego Badoula Oblongata) vamping below, with Monae givin’ the earned what-for in the last minute of the video. The jazz interlude is a touch of sophistication that we’ve come to expect from the ever-intelligent Monae. The worthy lyrics (in particular the valiantly venomous last stanza) follow the video. The poet (and the booty) don’t lie.  She’s one of the greats people, as we’ve said before. Get ready for The Electric Lady.

“I can’t believe I love the things they say about me
Walk in the room they throwing shade left to right
They be like ooh, she’s serving face
And I just tell em, cut me up, and get down
They call us dirty ‘cuz we break all your rules down
And we just came to act a fool, is that all right (Girl, that’s alright)
They be like Ooh, let them eat cake
But we eat wings and throw them bones on the ground
Am I a freak for dancing around? (queen)
Am I a freak for getting down? (queen)
I’m cutting up, don’t cut me down
Yeah I wanna be, wanna be
Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?
And am I weird to dance alone late at night?
And is it true we’re all insane?
And I just tell ’em ‘No we ain’t’ and get down
I heard this life is just a play with no rehearsal
I wonder will this be my final act tonight
And tell me what’s the price of fame?
Am I a sinner with my skirt on the ground?
Am I a freak for dancing around?
Am I a freak for getting down?
I’m coming up, don’t cut me down
Yeah I wanna be
Hey brother can you save my soul from the devil?
Say is it weird to like the way she wear her tights?
And is it rude to wear my shades?
Am I a freak because I love watching Mary? (Maybe)
Hey sister am I good enough for your heaven?
Say will your God accept me in my black and white?
Will he approve the way I’m made?
Or should I reprogram the programming and get down?
Even if it makes others uncomfortable
I wanna love who I am
Even if it makes others uncomfortable
I will love who I am
Dance ’til the break of dawn
Don’t mean a thing, so duh
I can’t take it no more
Baby, we in tuxedo groove
Monae and E. Badu
Crazy in the black and white
We got the drums so tight
Baby, here comes the freedom song
Too strong we moving on
Baby there’s melody
Show you another way
This joints for fight unknown
Come home and sing your song
But you gotta testify
Because the booty don’t lie
No, no, the booty don’t lie
Oh no, the booty don’t lie
Yeah
Yeah, let’s flip it
I don’t think they understand what I’m trying to say

I asked a question like this
“Are we a lost generation of our people?
Add us to equations but they’ll never make us equal.
She who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel.
So why ain’t the stealing of my rights made illegal?
They keep us underground working hard for the greedy,
But when it’s time pay they turn around and call us needy.
My crown too heavy like the Queen Nefertiti
Gimme back my pyramid, I’m trying to free Kansas City.
Mixing masterminds like your name Bernie Grundman.
Well I’m gonna keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman
You can take my wings but I’m still goin’ fly
And even when you edit me the booty don’t lie
Yeah, keep singing and I’mma keep writing songs
I’m tired of Marvin asking me, “What’s Going On?
March to the streets ‘cuz I’m willing and I’m able
Categorize me, I defy every label
And while you’re selling dope, we’re gonna keep selling hope
We rising up now, you gotta deal you gotta cope
Will you be electric sheep?
Electric ladies, will you sleep?
Or will you preach?”