It’s been a long dang time (2006) since the first time we caught TV on the Radio at Soho in Santa Barbara on their tour in support of their second album, Return to Cookie Mountain.  Last night the band appeared on the Late Show With David Letterman last night to perform a raucous version of their song Happy Idiot off of their new, critically-acclaimed, fifth album Seeds.  Check it out below.

On a dream weekend earlier this month, we caught up with the nonpareil Mariachi El Bronx as they toured through California.  And MEB delivered one of the most riveting, driving live deliveries we have heard from a band in quite some time. The flipside to the alter-ego punk band side of this melange is a soulful, authentico band that serves up lock-step, soul-infused mariachi music, with hard-driving percussion, riveting vocals and a committed gestalt, which will not quit. Con mucho brio! To get a sample of what you missed, check out their performance for KCRW below.  So dang good. Don’t you miss them, next time they come around.  Whatever you do.

As we’ve now written repeatedly, The New Basement Tapes, featuring Elvis Costello, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Mumford & Sons’ Marcus Mumford, Dawes’ Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith and The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Rhiannon Giddens , were brought together by T-Bone Burnett to add music to unfinished lyrics of Bob Dylan’s, from circa Basement Tapes.  Hence the group’s name.

The group has now released its album Lost On The River. Last night, they were on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where Jim James led them through a sterling version of Nothing To It, and Giddens and the boys absolutely annihilated Duncan & Jimmy in a web-exclusive.  Check ’em both out below.  Superb work from this supergroup!

As mentioned before, two new acts, Brit-pop band Vaults and Brooklyn’s Tei Shi, strike an emotional chord within us much harder and deeper than other acts in the pop genre.  Vaults’ song Poison is a perfect example.  Vaults has just released another new track Mend This Love.   Check it out below.  Once again, there are no unnecessary histrionics (so de rigueur these days).  Instead there’s  perfectly spare instrumentation to accentuate an affecting ode to an irredeemable love.  Singer Blythe Pepino and Vaults deliver again with aplomb.

Vaults’ Vultures EP is out December 1st on Virgin/EMI.

After two stunning releases in the aughts, New York songwriter Elvis Perkins somewhat disappeared for five years.  Now Perkins has announced a new album via his own MIR imprint, I Aubade.

As a preview of the LP, check out below (via Stereogum) the first single therefrom, Hogus Pogus.  The track evinces a sunnier outlook than we’ve predominantly perceived previously from Perkins.  To get a feel for the less sunny (and for good reason) go HERE to hear one of the all-time greats, Perkins’ beyond-sorrow song Ash Wednesday.

Perkins has this to say about the new album:

“Here lies my third Long-Playing collection of songs. The vast majority of what can be heard is the product of my own placement of microphone to source in the period between February 2012 & December 2013. My previous releases had for the most part been made with steady players in studios and overheard by engineers and producers, so this was for me both a novel approach and a return to the 4-tracking solitary self of my early 20′s.

“I recorded and edited mostly at home {middle new york}, sometimes with others and at their places {hudson, dallas, los angeles}, in american hotels and for a spell in a ‘Wilderness’ {im}mobile home happenstantially catching radio waves {ojai}. Ultimately it is a record full of waves and of changes.”

Record Store Day’s Black Friday approaches on November 28th.  In support, Swedish sisters First Aid Kit will release a special 10” with Simon and Garfunkel’s epic song America.  The duo has now released a self-produced music video (watch below) which tracks their tours across the U.S and adds vintage film of the country.  The 10” release will also feature a previously unreleased track, Brother.

Afterwards, watch from 2012 as First Aid Kit honored Paul Simon (who watches approvingly in the audience) by covering the same song at the 2012 Polaris Music Awards.  Showing that they can kill it live under pressure and in front of one of their idols, this performance is one of our all-time favorites.

Someone once sang “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.”  Well, the great Brit-pop group Belle & Sebastian have just done that by releasing the first video for their lead single, The Party Line, off of their impending new album Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance.  We love this track with its synthesizer-flavored dance motifs.  The video is a historical vignette of people dancing/partying over the ages, but with the usual embedded melancholy we’ve come to expect from this band.  The video was directed by LeBlanc + Cudmore.  Check it out below.  We can’t wait for the new album.

As we’ve been writing since September, Damien Rice has just released his first album in eight years, the critically-acclaimed My Favourite Faded Fantasy. From what we’ve heard, we are in complete agreement with said critics.  Last night Rice showed up on the Letterman Show and performed his resplendent I Don’t Want To Change You off the new album. Watch below as Rice eschewed a backing band in favor of a seven-piece string section (which meshes nicely with the obligatory singer-songwriter rug).  We love this song and performance.

Rice also has announced more North American tour dates for next year (in Oakland and LA on 4/23 and 4/24, respectively).  You can see the dates HERE.

Many have said that we don’t know The Very Best (cha! don’t vex I!).  Say what you will, but all that ended last month when we discovered a heart-rending performance by the duo of singer Esau Mwamwaya and producer Johan Hugo (who go forth under the humble moniker, The Very Best).  At the time of our discovery, we couldn’t find much on the ensemble and feared the worst.  Thankfully,  The Very Best have just announced that they will release a new album in 2015.   The new album was recorded in Mali’s M’dala Chikowa Village.  Below you can watch/listen to the first single from the album, Hear Me.  We love the hypnotic song, with sublime bass added by Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio.   Check out the time-lapse video below in which Hugo filmed M’dala Chikowa Village.  We love this track and hope for deliverance from the Mali (and other) oppressors.

Hugo has this to say about the song and video:

Hear Me:

“We wrote this song in May 2014, only days before the Malawi general elections. It was also the 50th anniversary for Malawi independence from colonial rule. One day we where sitting outside the house listening to the radio and Joyce Banda (the president that day) was talking about something to do with the election and progress, or lack of progress for Malawi as a nation. We put an iPhone next to the radio and recorded some of her voice. That’s the voice you can hear in the beginning of the song. Esau really wanted to write a song about the corruption, poverty, struggle of Malawi, and how frustrated he was about the fact that very little has changed since independence. We recorded the whole song that day, and the next day we asked the local church choir to come in and record some choir vocals for it. As with most vocals and instrumentation on this record, we recorded them outdoors, on the beach, singing the bridge and last chorus with Esau. Back in London a month later, Chris Baio from Vampire Weekend came in and played bass on the song.”

And the video:

“Between writing songs and recording, we would climb the mountains above the lake and set the camera up to take time lapses. any time we wanted a break we would bring the camera on a tripod to the shop or to someones small house and always leave it taking time lapses. we would sit for hours in the dark while the camera clicked away, working on a song, tweaking melodies or words. mosquitos everywhere. Sometimes we would leave the camera running and trek back to the house, hoping none would find it.”

We look forward to much more of The Very Best.

Oh what we wouldn’t have done to catch a show on the fantastic Damon Albarn & The Heavy Seas tour.  The tour is being touted as the Best of 2014, and from what we’ve seen we cannot disagree (due deference to Elbow and The National).  Both tonight and last night at Albert Hall in London, Albarn and his fabulous ensemble of singers and players were joined by the brilliant Brian Eno, Blur’s Graham Coxson and De La Soul.  Check out below as Eno joins for the recent, Sunday-perfect Heavy Seas of Love, Coxson joining for Blur’s feel-good song Tender, and De La Soul joining for Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc.  There was beauty and magic to behold, and thankfully several  fans captured the proceedings.  Check out the videos below of those three performances. Included first are alternative videos of Heavy Seas of Love, the first better visually and the second better sounding.  What a heartwarming, joyous way to end a concert.  Bravo Damon (and Eno)!  Afterwards watch as Tender was its usual beautiful self and Feel Good Inc. was just that.  There you have it: a hat trick of love and good will.  What could be better on a Sunday?

Heavy Seas of Love (better visual):

Heavy Seas of Love (better sound):

Tender:

Feel Good Inc.: