Last week the incomparable Jenny Lewis gave us the superb second sample (Just One of the Guys–our Song of the Week) off her impending new album, The Voyager.  The Voyager is her first solo album since 2008’s stupendous Acid Tongue.  Despite a stellar discography, The Voyager may well be one of her best albums to date, with outstanding, personal songwriting that is riddled with miraculously-memorable melodies.  Lewis brought in Ryan Adams and Mike Viola to produce the album, together with a host of talented musical help.  Do yourselves a favor and go listen to the whole album streaming over at NPR HERE.

And in case you missed it, listen to the telling title track below.  The Voyager will be released next week on Warner Bros. and you can pre-order it HERE.

Simply put, Jenny Lewis is an indie-pop genius of significant substance.  As a part of the justly-revered Rilo Kiley, and Jenny & Johnny and in other get-ups, she’s crafted one of the best discographies in modern rock ‘n roll.   Lewis has been away for awhile in the Postal Service and elsewhere, but is finally returning with a new album entitled The Voyager.  After hearing/watching the video below for new song Just One of the Guys, we can’t wait for the new album’s release.  Listen and watch below as Lewis performs yet another deceptively bright-sounding, melodic-gem while being “air-backed” by the likes of nobodies Anne Hathaway, Kristen Stewart, and Brie Larson.   Cute video, even better song.  It’s our Song of the Week and bodes incredibly well for The Voyager, which will be released on July 29th on Warner Bros.  The song’s worthwhile, heavy lyrics follow the video.

Just One Of The Guys:

“All our friends, they’re gettin’ on
But the girls are still staying young.
If I get caught being rude in a conversation
With a child bride on her summer vacation.
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little voice inside that prevents me.
how I live. it got me here
Locked in this bathroom full of tears.
And I have begged for you and I have borrowed
But I’ve been the only sister to my own sorrow
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little clock inside that keeps ticking
There’s only one difference between you and me
When I look at myself, all I can see
I’m just another lady without a baby
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little cop inside that prevents
I’m not gonna break for you
I’m not gonna pray for you
I’m not gonna pay for you
that’s not what ladies do
oh when you break
when you break
oh when you break
oh when you break.”

We were thrilled in June when the New Pornographers released our Song-of-the-Week, the title track from their soon-come album Brill Bruisers.   Now comes our second taste from the album, Dan Bejar’s driving War On The East Coast, along with a video directed by Thom Glunt.  About the video, the band’s A.C. Newman said, “We were going for some mid-nineties second-tier Britpop attitude. In the past, I’ve never really wanted to be in the video. But with this, we wanted to have fun and fully be IN the video.” Check it out below and get ready for Brill Bruisers.  We can’t wait.

Avi Buffalo was covered in one of the first concert reviews to appear on The Lefort Report back in 2010.  So, in addition to the band being phenomenally talented, we have a soft spot for these Long Beach denizens.  Leader Avi Zahner-Isenberg has been off honing and exhibiting his enfant-terrible instrumental skills these past few years, but the band will soon (finally) release their sophomore album, At Best Cuckold.   In advance of the album, the band has released the new video for the first single off of the album, So What.  Watch it below in which Avi dreams/wanders across varied terrains (including the Oceano dunes?) in the thrall of a ravishing brunette.  Check it out below.  Another jangle-gem from Avi Buffalo that bodes well for the new album on Sub Pop.

Two of our favorite singer-songwriters, Sharon Van Etten and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, collaborated last night when Vernon joined Van Etten and her band in Minneapolis to perform Love More and Every Time The Sun Comes Up.  Check out the heavenly harmonies and Vernon’s infallible falsetto in particular on Love More.  That’s beauty.  Right there.

While we were away, Glastonbury happened.  Regrets, we’ve had a few more (though we’ll take Pietrasanta this time ’round).  Amongst other things, Glastonbury means: Elbow at its best.  The Manchester band has made its mark via and on Glastonbury (headlining spectacularly on several occasions).  From this year’s Elbow set at Glasto (which was saved by their stage crew after a lightning storm), watch below as Elbow performs New York City Morning, one of the many highlights from their show at the Wiltern in LA in May.  Check it out, and get ye to Glastonbury next year.  For another great glimpse of Elbow at festival, check out at bottom their performance of Flyboy/Blue Lunette at the Radio1/BBC Three stage at T in the Park 2014.  Summertime in England.

Speaking of Sharon Van Etten…. On our recent hiatus, we realized we had let ten music-less days slip by.  Unimaginable.  And we hadn’t missed it at all.  But with the omnipresent Kanye, Iggy, bla, bla, bla, of the music blogosphere, it’s not hard to grasp the cumulative effect on the ears and the need for a music fast.  At the end of that 10-day period, however, we hopped a TGV north and, to help pass the kilometers, we threw on the headphones.  Sharon Van Etten randomly came on, and we were immediately transported by the songs on her phenomenal recent album, Are We There (easily one of the Best Albums of 2014).

Only then did we again recall the import of great music in our lives, especially where soundtrack and life coalesce and enhance each other.  Sitting with the ones we love (sur la vitesse), as the sunflowers, lavender and white-cow clusters blurred by, Van Etten sang (on Our Love) “I’m a sinner and I have sinned…it’s our love, it’s our love, it’s our love, it’s our love,” all to a warped melodic slant on The Lion Sleeps Tonight “weem-o-way” chorus (to our ears anyway).  Somehow our TGV mise-en-scène was enhanced greatly by the SVE soundtrack.  Each takes his own.

Coincidentally, Van Etten has today released the official video for Our Love, which you can watch below.  As conducted by Karen Collins, the video is…well…lovely.  Though we regretfully missed her recent California shows, Van Etten remains on tour and the remaining dates (through December) can be found HERE.

We left Paris last Monday.  Amongst the many regrets that day was the fact that two days later the fantastic Damon Albarn was set to perform at the Parisian festival Days Off.  So we were enchanted to find that the great French music blog La Blogotheque (together with Arte Concert) would capture and broadcast the concert.   Do yourselves a favor and watch the scintillating entirety of the show below while you can (setlist at bottom).  Oh to have been there and to still be in Paris.  Biensur.  Allez!

Setlist:

Lonely Press Play
Everyday Robots
Tomorrow Comes Today (Gorillaz)
Slow Country (Gorillaz)
Kids With Guns (Gorillaz)
Three Changes (The Good, the Bad & the Queen)
Hostiles
Photographs (You Are Taking Now)
You and Me
Dam(n) (Rocket Juice & the Moon) (with M.anifest)
Kingdom of Doom (The Good, the Bad & the Queen)
Hollow Ponds
El Mañana (Gorillaz)
The History of a Cheating Heart
Out of Time (Blur)
All Your Life (Blur)

Encore:
Strange News from Another Star (Blur; solo; first time played on tour)
Clint Eastwood (Gorillaz) (with M.anifest)
Mr. Tembo
Don’t Get Lost In Heaven (Gorillaz)
Heavy Seas of Love

Regrets, we’ve had a few more.  Tonight and tomorrow night one of our favorite bands of the 21st century, Brooklyn’s The Antlers, plays sold out shows at the Troubadour in LA (with Yellow Ostrich).  Regretfully, we won’t be in attendance.  Not many bands (save The National and Bon Iver, amongst a few others) can stir our souls like The Antlers.  Their heavy new album Familiars will undoubtedly end high-up on our Best Albums of 2014 tabulations.  On Familiars and now live, in addition to Peter Silberman’s superb falsetto, lyricism and playing, the band has thankfully added atmospheric horns (via the killing Kelly Pratt of Beirut and the band’s multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist, arranger Darby Cicci) to superb, jazz-infused effect.  Watch below as this fine ensemble pierced the veil on KEXP this past week.

Do yourselves a favor and pick up Familiars immediately HERE.   And then get ye to one of the dates of their tour, which continues per the dates HERE.

While we were away, one of our favorite finds of 2014, Hurray For The Riff Raff, performed The Body Electric on the Letterman Show.   As mentioned before we left, the song (from their spellbinding Small Town Heroes album) is leader Alynda Lee Segarra’s rending response to the murder ballad.  In the album’s notes, the song is dedicated to the Indian woman gang-raped in 2012, Damini, making a recent link between violence and women, and the murder ballads’ crimes-of-passion themes.  Check it out below.  If you like what you see, you can catch a repeat of the episode on Letterman tonight. Watch the official lyric video for the song below.