Band of Horses has been all over California and the airwaves recently and during its visit was captured performing two of their (arguably California-centric) songs, No One’s Gonna Love You and Heartbreak On the 101, at the historic Hollywood sign.   Sponsored by Visit California, we particularly liked the string section addition on Heartbreak On the 101.   Check it out below.

These have been the best of times and the worst of times for our long-time favorite, Joseph Arthur. On the plus side, his most recent album, The Ballad of Boogie Christ, has received deserved critical-acclaim and his shows (including in-concert paintings) in support have received raves.  On the downside, Arthur’s friend (and yours) Lou Reed passed away in October.  After proper mourning (and mourning again), and appearing at tribute shows in honor of Reed, Arthur picked himself up and will soon release (on Vanguard) a well-conceived tribute album entitled, Lou.  The album features twelve of Reed’s best songs (including, naturally, Coney Island Baby).  Arthur produced and played all the instruments (with no drums or electricity) on the album.  You can take a listen to the first such cover below of Arthur’s beautifully elegiac, piano-framed take on the classic Walk on The Wild Side.  About the album and subject, Arthur advised Rolling Stone and writes in the album’s liner notes:  “The only way I know to give new life to something as rich with life as Lou’s songs and recordings is to go about them in a completely different way.”  “It’s odd dancing around death, odder still if the death you are dancing around is that of a legend.  You just never know what’s appropriate and what’s not, what to share and what to keep inside. There is no blueprint. I loved Lou and we were friends. The last thing I would want to do is turn his life into an opportunity, but at the same time, what better way to honor the man and his music than to celebrate it and sing it and record it?”

Based on Walk On the Wild Side alone, we can’t wait for the album, which will be released on Vanguard on May 13th.  Once again Joseph Arthur has shown his weighty worth and, in so doing, has honored the spirit of the great Lou Reed.

We have a long history with singer-songwriter, Damien Jurado.  Every time Jurado releases a new album, it makes our Best Albums of the Year list (see HERE and HERE).  Further, his 1999 Rehearsals For Departure album has established itself as one of the best albums ever made.

Following those hallowed heights, Jurado has recently released a critically-acclaimed new album on Secretly Canadian entitled Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son.  To get a feel for the affecting new songs, check out two songs from the album that Jurado recorded solo recently at The Strongroom.   First up is Magic Number followed by Jericho Road.  After, listen to another new song, Silver Malcolm, performed recently on WPFK.  We love the unadorned deliveries of this fine storyteller’s songs.

You can pick up a deluxe version of Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son HERE, or the regular version of the album HERE, HERE, or (preferably) at your local record store.

After you’ve seen why you should attend, seek out Jurado’s European and US tour dates at bottom, and get ye to a show.

TOUR DATES:

02/27 | Rome, IT – Lanifico 159
02/28 | Milan, IT – Bellezza
03/01 | Zurich, CH – El Lokal – (SOLD OUT)
03/02 | Paris, FR – Cafe de la Danse
03/03 | London, UK – Village Underground
03/05 | Dublin, IE – Whelan’s
03/07 | Vigo, ES – Auditorio Municipal de Vigo
03/08 | Valladolid, ES – Teatro Cervantes
03/09 | Zargoza, ES – Centro Civico Delicias
03/10 | Barcelona, ES – Sala Apolo
03/11 | Valencia, ES – Teatro la Rambleta
03/12 | Algeciras, ES – La Gramola

03/28 | Denver, CO – Marquis Theater
03/30 | Boulder, CO – E-Town
04/21 | Denton, TX – Dan’s Silverleaf
04/22 | Austin, TX – Red 7
04/23 | Baton Rouge, LA – Mudwater
04/24 | Birmingham, AL – Bottletree
04/25 | Memphis, TN – 688 Cox
04/26 | Nashville, TN – Mercy Louge
04/27 | Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
04/28 | Atlanta, GA – Eddie’s Attic
05/12 | Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge (TIX)
05/14 | Boise, ID – Neurolux
05/15 | Provo, UT – Velour
05/17 | Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
05/18 | Los Angeles, CA – Bootleg Theater
05/19 | San Diego, CA – The Casbah
05/20 | San Francisco, CA – The Independent
05/23 | George, WA – Sasquatch! Festival

05/28 | Aarhus, DK – Atlas (TIX)
05/29 | Malmo, SE – Babel
05/30 | Stockholm, SE – Sodra Teaterns Kagelbanan
05/31 | Goteborg, SE – Pustervik
06/01 | Oslo, NO – John Dee
06/03 | Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
06/05 | Marina Di Ravenna, IT – Beaches Brew Festival
06/07 | Athens, EL – Plissken Festival
06/08 | Belgrad, RS – KC Rex
06/09 | Zagreb, HR – Mocvara Club
06/10 | Vienna, AT – Chelsea
06/11 | Graz, AT – Postgarage
07/17 | Suffolk, UK – Latitude Festival

07/23 | Seattle, WA – Timber! Outdoor Music Festival

09/09 | Amsterdam, AN – Paradiso

St. Vincent returned to The Colbert Report last night in support of her new eponymous album.  In the process Annie (“Vinnie”) Clark and crew performed the Prince-meets-Talking Heads song Digital Witness and the kraut-rocking Birth in Reverse (as a web exclusive).  After check out the usual hilarity from Colbert in the interview with Ms. Clark.

Digital Witness:

Birth in Reverse:

Interview:

We recently discovered Aussie musician Courtney Barnett and have been enamored by her music since.  Coincident to our discovery, Barnett embarked on a short US tour (we unfortunately missed her LA show last Sunday).  Barnett and band showed up last week at WNYC and performed her fantastic song Avant Gardener, along with History Eraser and the not-my-stepping-stone-ish Lance, Jr.   The songs translate well live (replete with fine harmony vocals), and we look forward to catching her next time around.  Check ’em out below and go over to WNYC to hear the remainder of the session.

Barnett’s The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas will be reissued in the U.S. in April.

Photo–Michael Katzif/WNYC

The sultry-noir songbook of Ohio’s Jessica Lea Mayfield will soon be augmented with the release of her new album, Make My Head Sing, on April 15th on ATO Records.  We have loved Mayfield’s music from the moment we encountered it and have been anxiously awaiting the follow-up to her outstanding 2011 album, Tell Me.  The new album was co-produced by Mayfield and Jesse Newport (her husband, bassist and cohort) and consists primarily of Mayfield, Newport and drummer Matt Martin in a stripped-down, but full sound.  About the album, Mayfield says:  “I think a lot of my favorite bands are guitar, bass, and drums. I wanted to simplify things. Bands are so big these days, I wanted to get in the studio and make a rock record and hear real guitar tones and something heavy.”

You can hear the menacing heaviness below on the crunchy-fuzz found on album-opener Oblivious, which provides a fitting setting to Mayfield’s mesmerizing vocals.  Afterwards, listen to I Wanna Love You, with its psych-jangle mien and simmeringly-sinister lyrics (we previously featured stripped-down versions of this song HERE and another song off the new album, Do I Have The Time?, HERE).

These new songs from Mayfield bode incredibly well for Make My Head Sing, which you can pre-order HERE.  The album’s tracklist is at bottom.  We can’t wait.

Make My Head Sing:

1. Oblivious
2. I Wanna Love You
3. Standing In The Sun
4. Pure Stuff
5. Do I Have The Time?
6. Party Drugs
7. Unknown Big Secret
8. Anything You Want
9. No Fun
10. Seein’ Starz

We know Dan Bejar has recently been singing five or more songs in Spanish on a solo “Destroyer” tour, which is all bueno, but we are hoping for a return soon to the mode found on Destroyer’s Best of 2011 album Kaputt.  Kaputt remains a masterpiece from head to toe.  Perhaps Bejar feels he can reach no higher.  Perhaps the risk/reward calculus reads kaput.   Regardless, our Destroyer desire was rekindled recently by two live performances in 2011 of Kaputt’s masterful Song For America.  First, check out below the performance captured on video by iCat fm.  Whatever you do, hang in until 3:37 when the band truly takes flight.  Afterwards, listen to the song performed and recorded superbly on KEXP.  When ya comin’ back in full Bejar?  Destroy us softly and soon.

In all honesty, this is our first awareness of the singer-songwriter JBM—AKA Jesse B. Marchant.  Shame on us.  Regardless, there can be no better intro to the classically-trained artist’s music than via director Houmam Abdallah’s official video (via Nowness) for JBM’s song Only Now.  The song is off of his 2012 Stray Ashes album, which was written and recorded in a Bon Iver-esque studio that Marchant set up in a rented house in upstate NY.  We love everything about the song and video, not least of which are the  Northern Scotland environs.  And who doesn’t like a good steam train?

If you like what you hear (and we do, and especially the well-wrought lyrics), watch JBM perform another song, Moonwatcher, off of Stray Ashes for BreakThruRadio, followed by the official video for On Fire On A Tightrope, also off of the album, which you can buy HERE.  JBM is currently at work on his follow-up to Stray Ashes.  We won’t miss this one.

Jimmy Fallon continued his world-takeover of late night TV last night (due respect to our long-time fave Dave Letterman) on The Tonight Show.  Fallon brought Arcade Fire into his Tonight Show-revival tent for a performance of Afterlife, one of the highlights from their recent album Reflektor.  Check it out below.  We give the songwriters aplomb for asking:  where do we go?  Disco ball and all.   A wake for marital love in the wake of child-birth, or a quest for the air? Who knows?  Gratuitous audience-visit by Win Butler included.

The song’s worthy lyrics and inquiry are at bottom.

Afterlife:

“Afterlife, oh my God, what an awful word
After all the breath and the dirt
And the fires that burn
And after all this time
And after all the ambulances go
And after all the hangers-on are done
Hanging on to the dead lights
Of the afterglow

I’ve gotta know
Can we work it out?
We scream and shout ’till we work it out
Can we just work it out?
Scream and shout ’till we work it out?
‘Till we work it out, ’till we work it out
‘Till we work it out, ’till we work it out

Afterlife, I think I saw what happens next
It was just a glimpse of you
Like looking through a window
Or a shallow sea
Could you see me?
And after all this time
It’s like nothing else we used to know
After all the hangers-on are done
Hanging on to the dead lights
Of the afterglow

I’ve gotta know

Can we work it out?
Let’s scream and shout ’till we work it out
Can we just work it out?
If you scream and shout ’till we work it out?

But you say
Oh, when love is gone
Where does it go?
And you say
Oh, when love is gone
Where does it go?
And where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?

And after this
Can it last another night?
After all the bad advice
Had nothing at all to do with life

I’ve gotta know

Can we work it out?
Scream and shout ’till we work it out?
Can we just work it out?
Scream and shout ’till we work it out?

But you say
Oh, when love is gone
Where does it go?
And you say
Oh, when love is gone
Where does it go?
Oh, when love is gone
Where did it go?
Oh, when love is gone
Where did it go?
And where do we go?

Is this the afterlife?
It’s just an afterlife, with you
It’s just an afterlife
It’s just an afterlife, with you
It’s just an afterlife.”

“I don’t care if you’ve been to Tibet.”  So rappeth Serengeti on the new song from Sufjan Stevens’ project known as Sisyphus.  Sisyphus combines the talents of Son Lux, Stevens and Serengeti (in that order from left above), and will release their self-titled debut album in March.  Yesterday the group released the video for the track Alcohol, one of the more disturbing videos we’ve witnessed (seriously, average fans of Stevens are warned to avoid the video and its disturbing montages).  Today, however, the group released a new track, the six-minutes of enthrall known as Rhythm Of Devotion.  Son Lux leads off with a massive mix, Serengeti raps vigilant (if a bit vigilante), and Stevens steps in at the 2:00 minute mark to add contrast, adorning the track in R&B electro-pop motifs to soften the edges.   And then all are combined, and the rock it does roll.  On up that hill.  We’ve had it on repeat all day.  Mesmerizing.  We can’t wait for the full album.