We’ve all been thrilled by Jack White’s incendiary electronic guitar flourishes, but his enthralling unplugged performances have become even rarer these days.  Today France’s fanastique La Blogothèque remedied this conundrum by releasing (on its A Take Away Show series) a special vignette filmed at the Château de Fountainebleau of White, Lillie Mae Rische, Dominic Davis and Fats Kaplin unplugged and performing two gems from White’s treasure-trove discography.  Watch below as White and ensemble first perform the older White Stripes’ track The Same Boy You’ve Always Known (beginning perfectly with the chapel bells’ harmony starting at 0:36).  This performance segues to the rooftop where White and Rische render a superb version of the castigating Entitlement off of his much-acclaimed recent album, Lazaretto.  Well-played (and sung) Mr. White, and well-captured La Blogothèque.  Bravo!

As mentioned previously, we love the new album Brill Bruisers from The New Pornographers.  Last night the band appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and beautifully bruised the stage on the shimmering title track from the album (one of our 2014 Songs of the Week).  Check it out below with the talented A.C. Newman leading the way, and Neko Case joining a horde of other harmonic Pornographers for a crowd-pleasing performance.  Fantastic sound!  Tongues will wag though:  where in the world was Dan Bejar?  The band is out on tour and coming to California next month.  Check the tour dates HERE.  They’ll be at the Wiltern in LA on October 17th, and we can’t wait.

A highway of ink and a constellation of pixels have justly been spilled on the songwriting of Leonard Cohen. We’ve been transfixed by Cohen’s songs since we first set our ears on his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen (released in 1967).  We don’t have the time or the energy to do Cohen’s songs justice right now (for example, he long-ago wrote one of the greatest songs of our lives–Hallelujah).

Instead will give you the official lyric video for the first song released from the 80 year-old’s imminent new album Popular Problems.  We confess we were somewhat skeptical when we first heard of the upcoming album, but listen below on Almost Like The Blues as Cohen paints a restrained masterpiece that tells of the horrors and redemption of modern man, with piano, horn and bongo-accompanied jazz-inflections.  With Boko Haram, Syria and Richard Dawkins shadings, it’s almost like the blues.  We can’t wait for the new album.  Long live Leonard!