As oft-mentioned on these pages, we love everything about Canadian “band” Bahamas.  They consistently evince great songwriting, vocals and guitar-playing.  And now we can add humor to that arsenal of accolades. Check out the marvelous Stax-with-crunch sounds in the video below for their iTunes Session song Please Forgive My Heart.  According to the band (or their publicist), the analog recording process “incorporates everything from Motown style 8-track tape recording process to the use of an incredibly rare 1967 Germanium Neve recording console.”  The captions provide the hilarity, which takes nothing away from the perfectly rendered song (and especially the marvelette vocals by Felicity Williams and Carleigh Aikins).  If you can find any song more captivating than Please Forgive My Heart, please let us know.  Long live Bahamas!

Black Motorcycle Rebel Club have given us great music over the years (Howl is one of our favorite albums of this millennium). Tragedy struck the band while out on tour in 2010 when Michael Been, band-member Robert Levon Been’s father and BRMC’s longtime sound engineer, passed away suddenly. You oldsters will recall that the elder Been was a member of the popular ’80s rock group The Call. Watch below as they pay homage on KEXP (filmed in apropos black-and-white) to Michael Been by performing The Call’s powerful song Let The Day Begin. And then watch them perform the lullingly-sweet song Lullaby, in all its beauty and Edge-guitarness (the song’s lyrics are at bottom).  Both songs can be found on their most recent album Specter at the Feast.

Lullaby:

“You are the sun to the earth
You are the light of this world
Won’t you see
Why won’t you see
You are an arm I cant reach
You are the words I can’t speak
Won’t you say
Why wont you say

I will walk till I’ve no shadow
I will walk till I’ve no shadow

You twist the light in your hands
Losing thoughts so you move you can’t give
Reasons fall from every storm that you lived
We move through the dark, helpless

You are the quiet in my soul
You are the pieces of gold
Won’t you shine
Why won’t you shine

I will walk till I’ve no shadow
I will walk till I’ve no shadow
I will walk till I’ve no shadow”

One of our favorite jangle-bands, Rogue Wave, will release its new album Nightingale Floors, tomorrow.  And on June 12th the band will begin its tour in support of the new album, eventually making their way back to their California home in July.  As an intro to the new album, check out the band’s unplugged performance of College (“not about college,” according to the band) during a South Park Session for Rhapsody.  Sweet stuff.  And then go over to Pitchfork to stream Nightingale Floors HERE.  Clearly the band has evolved to its next epoch:  B.J. (Beyond Jangle).  It’s time to ride that Rogue Wave again.

There has been a lot of video-tease coming out of the Atoms For Peace camp in advance of their impending world tour that will bring them to the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 17th.  Various 12-second vignettes from AFP have littered the interweb.  Comes now a full song from said camp, and a beauty at that.  Watch below as Thom Yorke performs solo Rabbit In Your Headlight, a 1998 collaboration between Yorke, DJ Shadow and James Lavelle (UNKLE).   The song was evidently inspired by Adrian Lyne’s 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder, inclusive of Biblical allusions.  Check Yorke’s elegiac performance below, and get ye to the SB Bowl on October 17th.  UNKLE’s official video for the song is at bottom.

Word has come out (via his wife Laurie Anderson) that Lou Reed recently underwent a liver transplant and is alive and well.  In honor of Reed and the day, watch Reed and a huge band perform Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come at a benefit a couple years back.  Love the impassioned lead guitar playing towards the end (from 5:37 on).

We ventured down to LaLaLand last Saturday night for our third Brit-band in seven days, Oxford’s stentorian Stornoway.  Turns out Stornoway might have been the pick of the Brit-litter.  Competition wasn’t too tough though–merely The Rolling Stones and Arctic Monkeys.  What’s that you ask:  Stornoway held their own against two of this year’s Glastonbury headliners?  In their own chamber-soul way, absolutely.  The Stornoway quartet (augmented by rapturous violinist Rahul Satija and trumpeter/percussionist Adam Briggs) endowed the intimate Bootleg Theater with their sophisticated pop melodies and complex arrangements, all delivered with good humor, charm and aplomb.  That, folks, is (musical) entertainment.

We had waited to catch Stornoway since their international break-out song Zorbing and their first album (Beachcomber’s Windowsill) took over our musical jukebox in 2010.  At long last last Saturday we caught the last night of Stornoway’s North American tour at the music-lovers dream-venue, The Bootleg Theater.  Despite an ambitious and exhausting schedule, lead-singer/guitarist Brian Briggs, multi-instrumentalist Jon Ouin, nimble bass player Oli Steadman, and adroit drummer Rob Steadman brought good energy and a full array of musical goods to the Bootleg, and all was right with the world.  Mixing songs from Beachcomber’s Window and their epic new album, Tales from Terra Firma, the band repeatedly floored us with their astonishing ensemble playing and harmonious vocalese.

Following an impressive set by openers Horse Thief (from Oklahoma), Stornoway was coaxed to the Bootleg stage by Satija’s lone violin, which opened into their fantastic farfisa-embellished single Knock Me on the Head.   The band went on to then play a couple of standouts from Beachcomber’s Window (The Coldharbour Road and Fuel Up) before landing back on Terra Firma with (A Belated) Invite to Eternity, You Take Me As I Am, November Song (sung beautifully by Brian Briggs solo and un-miked, as seen below), The Bigger Picture, and the pastoral, creation-affirming Farewell Appalachia.  Brian Briggs’ droll between-song patter helped to keep matters buoyant during the set (subjects included LA’s holiday-evoking weather vs. England’s; his first In-n-Out double-double pre-concert vs. the 250 tacos per-year consumed by the average Californian; and the inappropriateness of a sad song for Saturday night).

The band then moved onto the raving crowd-favorite Zorbing, which is even more fantastic live, as fueled by Adam Briggs’ trumpet, Satija’s violin and Ouin’s pounding on the upright piano, along with the other lads’ obvious instrumental joy.  Stornoway then closed out their main set with one of the best songs of 2013, the heart-rending ode to a departed, The Ones We Hurt The Most (done in phenomenal four-part harmony and spare guitar, as seen below).

For their encore, the group came back for a raucous delivery of the ’60s-esque pop song I Saw You Blink, followed by the jazz-inflected The Great Procrastinator (seen below).  Opener Horse Thief then returned to join Stornoway to fittingly close out the evening and tour with a celebratory and shambolic Watching Birds.

It was a fantastic end to a great night of music delivered by a band that has just started to make a mark for themselves.  We can’t wait to see their continued evolution and catch them again.  If you get the opportunity, don’t miss it.  And for heaven’s sake, go buy Tales From Terra Firma immediately.  It’s one of the best albums of 2013.

To get a good feel for the acoustic portions of Stornoway’s set, check them out on Sounds from a Room (on a boat moored on the Thames) HERE.