It’s been a little too quiet on the Moby front in the aftermath of his release of our No. 7 Best Album of 2013, Innocents.  Innocents was a tour de force et de coeur that took us up and away.  The album features several superb cameos, not least of which is Damien Jurado’s vocal on the uplifting gem Almost Home.  Now comes a remix by DJ Sebastien (Leger) that  adds to the uplift. We love everything about the remix and video, including the footage of Joshua Tree and the three-night run last year at the Fonda Theater.  The Sebastien Remix:  a great way to kick off the week.

You can buy the Sebastien Remix HERE.  You can buy the Live From the Fonda package HERE.

Afterwards below, you can watch the Live From the Fonda capture of the song followed by the touching original official video for Almost Home.

It was a Spoon Summer here at Lefort.  Like many indie-rock lovers, Spoon wowed us with their fantastic album, They Want My Soul, and then took television and live audiences by storm throughout the season.

This week in Milwaukee the band added to their live laurels by paying homage to the gone-to-soon Jay Reatard.  We had forgotten that Milwaukee was the site of Reatard’s last concert on New Year’s Eve in 2009 as opener for Spoon (two weeks before Reatard was found dead in his house in Memphis).  Watch below as Britt Daniel and the boys perform a riveting cover of Reatard’s song No Time (an extra cut released on Reatard’s collected Matador Singles ’08.  Reatard’s original audio and song’s lyrics (harrowing harbingers of his demise) can be checked out after.

Excuse us while we slip out to listen to Reatard’s album Watch Me Fall, one of our all-time faves and highly recommended listening.

No Time:

“I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
I’m getting lost and tossed around this mess of pains
I think I’m tremblin’ and frownin’ and tired o’your stupid game
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine

I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine”

We were caught off guard and wowed by Mariachi El Bronx’s last album (II) and several ensuing and vividly-captured live performances on Letterman, Kimmel and NPR.

At long last the band has announced the November 4th release of their next album, surprisingly entitled III on ATO Records.   The band will follow with a West Coast tour that will bring them to Santa Barbara at Velvet Jones on November 7th.  Check out below the first sample off the new album, the ferocious track New Beat.  We first hear the trademark percussion and horns, and the valiant vocals of Matt Caughthran, but a bit later (starting at 1:55) some added Specials-esque ska-inflections and Ghost Town hectorings.  Bravo Bronx!

See the new album’s tracklist and the upcoming tour dates at bottom.

MARIACHI EL BRONX (III) – TRACK LISTING

1. New Beat
2. Wildfires
3. Sticks And Stones
4. High Tide
5. Nothing’s Changed
6. Eternal
7. Raise The Dead
8. Everything Twice
9. Right Between The Eyes
10. Valya

MARIACHI EL BRONX – 2014 TOUR DATES
West Coast Headline Tour
11/5 – Los Angeles, CA @ The El Rey Theatre
11/6 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brewing Co
11/7 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Velvet Jones
11/8 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
11/10 – Bellingham, WA @ The Wild Buffalo
11/11 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
11/12 – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
11/14 – Sacramento, CA @ Assembly Music Hall
11/15 – Fresno, CA @ Strummers

One month from now will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Johnny Cash’s release of Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.  At the height of the Civil Rights era in 1964, the album was released by Cash to add to the human rights spotlight the injustices done to Native Americans.

Earlier this year, producer/artist Joe Henry gathered together a cast of superb Americana artists (Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Steve Earle, and Norman and Nancy Blake, amongst others) to pay tribute to the album and the anniversary by recording a new album entitled Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited on SonyMasterworks.  The album is out now.

To get a feel for the depth and quality on the tribute album, check out below (via Rolling Stone) Welch’s and Rawlings’ melodic modulation of (a la Bragg/Wilco to Guthrie’s poetry) Cash’s originally spoken-word cut As Long As the Grass Grows.  Cash’s winning way with words (“Cornplanter can you swim?”) is on display in the telling of the Seneca tribe’s broken treaty and the dam that broke their hearts.  Lake Perfidy indeed.

After listening to Welch and Rawlings, you can watch the Man in Black perform the original live with June Cash and Pete Seeger in , and the song’s lyrics are at bottom.

You can pick up this worthy album HERE and HERE.

As Long As The Grass Shall Grow

West coast twin-brothers The Mattson 2 (Jared and Jonathon) cavort in an evolving soundscape that melds surf-guitar, jazz, rock and Raga elements.  They have a brand new album Agar, on Um Yeah Arts, a label run by surf/skate film director Thomas Campbell.  The album title evidently came from the gelatinous substance that binds and connects items in a petri dish (to simplify, it’s “Raga” backwards).  The guitar and drum duo are on an extensive US tour that will bring them to the Mercury Lounge in Goleta on October 18th.  Be there.

To get a feel for this dynamic duo, check out below the outstanding new track Dif Juz off their new album, which begins Interpol-ated, then Hosannas for a while, but with the Mattson’s own distinctive signature.  Afterwards, check out some of their older recordings (but especially the very impressive live recording of Man From Anamnesis).  Finally, at bottom is their video for Black Rain, a standout track off of their last album, Feeling Hands.

And then get ye to the Mercury Lounge on October 18th to check out this up and coming combo.

The Mattson 2 – Black Rain from matti kakkori on Vimeo.

As mentioned recently here, The Staves have been recording with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) at the production helm.  At long last we now have a taste of the musical magic arising from their collaboration.  Check out below the fantastic new track Blood I Bled.  The song begins cabin-slow and then takes off via layers of hectoring horns before planing to a sultry finish on shimmering strings.  Like a seaplane.  We hear in the track shades of the fantastic Feist and Joni Mitchell (no higher praise-by-comparisons in our book).  Superb!  Will be difficult now to stave off (apologies) our anticipation for the impending EP of the same name and their long-promised, Vernon-produced second album.  Bring ’em on!

The last year-plus has been incredibly fortuitous for The National, with the band gaining massive popularity following the release of their Best Album of 2013, Trouble Will Find Me, and receiving rapturous crowds on their everlasting tour in support of that album (including at our Best Concert of 2013).  Unfortunately, The National news has recently dwindled down to intermittent glimpses and semaphores from afar.

So we were very happy today to hear Strand of Oaks (and its leader, singer-songwriter Timothy Showalter), had smartly covered The National’s Pink Rabbits, one of our favorite songs off of Trouble Will Find Me.  Strand of Oaks recently released the heavy new album HEAL to critical acclaim, and we’re just beginning to catch up with the group. We’ll have more about them later.

In the meantime, check out below Strand of Oaks’ synth-laden, heartfelt cover of Pink Rabbits.  We love it.

Here at the Late (Late Late) Show, we’re just getting to know Sinkane, the group led by Sudan-born, Brooklyn-resident Ahmed Gallab (who has also been a member of the Caribou, Yeasayer and Of Montreal ensembles).  Sinkane began releasing records years ago, but it’s only been recently, with the release of new album Mean Love (on City Slang), that we’ve been hearing more (good things) about them.  Sinkane received assistance on the album from the likes of guests Damon Albarn, David Byrne, The Lijadu Sisters, Money Mark, and members of Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, and Blood Orange.   Sold!

With videos/songs as great as How We Be below, Sinkane is destined to impress.  Check out the video (directed by Nick Bentgen) in which crazy-great dancers do their thing to this superb, funkified song.  In addition to soul/funk, we hear the pan-African influence in Gallab’s songs and perhaps a flash-ghosting by Curtis Mayfield.  Check the video 0ut below.

Afterwards listen to another outstanding, soulful track (Hold Tight) off the new album.   You can pick up the new album HERE, HERE and HERE.

Sinkane is on tour in Europe right now (check the dates HERE).

Last month we attended a special concert by The Antlers at the Mack Sennett Studios in LA sponsored by Pandora/StubHub (read our rave review and view pictures HERE).  The entire show is now available in audio and a portion in video HERE.   It was a great West Coast showing by the East Coast band, and it still bears up well a month later.  Check it out.

It’s been eight years since Damien Rice released his last album, but the hiatus will soon end when Rice releases the new My Favourite Faded Fantasy, produced by Rick Rubin.  The album is out on November 11th via Warner Bros Records.

This week Rice released the album’s triumphant title track.  The song begins slowly with Rice’s stirring falsetto, but then adds strings, vocals, drums, fuzzy electric guitar, horns and eventually the entire musical-kitchen-sink as the song builds to dramatic conclusion.  Maybe more artists should take eight years.  Check it out below.