One of the most soulful and best live artists extant, Glen Hansard (Once, The Frames, Swell Season), has released a heart-rending new EP entitled It Was Triumph We Once Proposed … Songs of Jason Molina.  The new record is Hansard’s tribute to his friend, the gone-too-soon Molina (Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co.).   Hansard is now making the rounds and appeared this week on the Letterman Show, supported perfectly by members of Songs: Ohia (Jeff Panall, Jennie Benford and Dan and Rob Sullivan), to give a passionate reading of Molina’s song Being In Love.  We love the scorching guitar solo about which we can only say: heavy emphasis added. Pure beauty in song.

Afterwards, watch Hansard and crew’s superb live performance of Hold On Magnolia.

You can also listen to a superb recent solo session/interview by Hansard for Firehouse Sessions HERE.

As mentioned repeatedly, up-and-coming Australian artist Courtney Barnett will release her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, on March 24th through Mom + Pop Records. You can listen to it in full for now HERE.

In addition, Ms. Barnett appeared yesterday on the Ellen Show and performed one of our favorite songs from the new album, Depreston.  Check it out below.

We agree with Kendrick Lamar who tweeted:  “Yesterday. March 14th. Was a special day.”  Wait, what!?  Over the weekend, Kendrick Lamar, one of this generation’s leading artists, surprised the world and released his highly anticipated new album, To Pimp A Butterfly.  The album is now available HERE and is streaming on  Spotify.  And cataclysm ensued across the land.  Even The Swiftness (Taylor) vamped verklempt on Twitter: “KENDRICK PUT HIS ALBUM OUT EARLY. NO ONE TOUCH ME.”  If the walls could talk indeed.

A first listen reveals high-density and musical evolution (his collabs with Flying Lotus and Thundercat paying huge dividends) since his highly-acclaimed last album, good kid, m.A.A.d city.  Guest collaborators included Flying Lotus, George Clinton, Pharrell, Thundercat, Snoop Dogg, and more.

One of the most impressive cuts on first listen is How Much A Dollar Cost.  It’s got it all, combining Radiohead chord progressions, Smokey Robinson references, FlyLo/Thundercat production elements, etc. into a completely mesmerizing track.  The album’s general heaviness is leavened only occasionally (the previously released uplifter track, i, the obvious exception).

But the closing track, Mortal Man, is the album’s masterpiece/centerpiece.  Inspired by Lamar’s 2014 trip to South Africa, at twelve-minutes long it’s a tour of African-American reality, a musical/spoken-word/interview (spliced in Tupac from a ’94 interview) tour de force, and an answer to the mindless Azealia Banks and her ilk.  I remember when you was conflicted.  Butterfly.  Let music and love be the answer.

Human Advisory:  Not for the weak of heart, but that’s life.

The full tracklist is as follows:

1. Wesley’s Theory (ft. George Clinton & Thundercat)
2. For Free? (Interlude)
3. King Kunta
4. Institutionalized (ft. Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg)
5. These Walls (ft. Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg)
6. U
7. Alright
8. For Sale? (Interlude)
9. Momma
10. Hood Politics
11. How Much A Dollar Cost (ft. James Fauntleroy & Ronald Isley)
12. Complexion (A Zulu Love) (ft. Rapsody)
13. The Blacker The Berry
14. You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said)
15. i
16. Mortal Man

As a part of the push for her promising new album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, great new Aussie artist Courtney Barnett was in LA for an Ellen Show taping, and this morning made her way over to KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic to perform a set.  Watch below as Barnett and band give a brazen performance of An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in NY) off the new album, followed by the song that garnered her international attention last year, Avant Gardener.  You can listen to the entire Morning Becomes Eclectic session HERE.   Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit will be released on March 24th, 2015 via Mom + Pop Music.  She will take a turn through LA on tour and play at the Roxy on 5/30 and 5/31.  Be there.

Leslie Feist appearances are few and far between these days, so when she appeared Tuesday night at Cherrytree Records’ 10th Anniversary event at Webster Hall in New York, NY, the world took note.  Check out her gripping solo take on her own I Feel It All, as captured by QRO Mag.  Watch below as Feist proves once again that she is an inventive, guitar-ripping force to be reckoned with. Here’s hoping she will grace us soon with new music and/or tour.

Yesterday one of our favorite artists, Tad Wagner, relinquished a great new song and video from his forthcoming solo album, Free Enough.  A long-time member of the talented, sly band Buellton, Wagner has released the mesmerizing song and hand-lettered lyric video for a new song from the album entitled Coney Island.

We have waited a long time to feel the full gravitational pull of Mr. Wagner’s artistry, and it was well worth the wait.  As you’ll hear below, the song sucks you in immediately with its metronomic, piano-laced jangle and sonorous vocals.  Wagner’s lyrics here are appropriately oblique, but the gestalt is of tumult and loss (“The rain let up, I don’t want to go home,” “Who is it now, I don’t want to know,” and “Don’t want to let you go”).  But then with the new instrumental  interlude at 3:19 and the green light in the video, we sense relief and movement beyond the tumult.  The windshield’s wiped clean from the watery force majeure, and we move on with sweet harmonies to pave the way.  That’s life, we hope.  The song’s a beauty, and we can’t wait for the full album.

Sign up for Wagner’s newsletter HERE to receive musical missives along with hand-letterings, art and other fine fettle from Wagner.

Sufjan Stevens has already released the devastating single No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross from his upcoming album Carrie & Lowell on Asthmatic Kitty.  Today brings the second song from the album, Should Have Known Better.

On Should Have Known Better Stevens remains understandably enshrouded, but counters the grief with leavened music, even breaking out an electronic interlude that dances (starting at 2:38) after  his spectral vocals (2:24).  The heaviness is further abated with Stevens’ admonishments:  “Don’t let down, nothing can be changed” and “Concentrate on seeing.”  The song is a tour de force musically and bodes incredibly well (again) for the new album.

Carrie & Lowell will be released near-term.  You can pre-order it HERE.

“I should have known better
To see what I could see
My black shroud
Holding down my feelings
A pillar for my enemies

I should have wrote a letter
And grieve what I happen to grieve
My black shroud
I never trust my feelings
I waited for the remedy

When I was three, three maybe four
She left us at that video store
Be my rest, be my fantasy

I’m light as a feather
I’m bright as the Oregon breeze
My black shroud
Frightened by my feelings
I only want to be a relief

No, I’m not a go-getter
The demon had a spell on me
My black shroud
Captain of my feelings
The only thing I want to believe

When I was three, and free to explore
I saw her face on the back of the door
Be my vest, be my fantasy

I should have known better
Nothing can be changed
The past is still the past
The bridge to nowhere
I should’ve wrote a letter
Explaining what I feel, that empty feeling

Don’t back down, concentrate on seeing
The breakers in the bar, the neighbor’s greeting
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination

Don’t back down, there is nothing left
The breakers in the bar, no reason to live
I’m a fool in the fetter
Rose of Aaron’s beard, where you can reach me

Don’t back down: nothing can be changed
Cantilever bridge, the drunken sailor
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination”

We’ve been continuously impressed by live vignettes of the great Austin-based band Spoon.  Their recent Austin City Limits episode was one of the best musical demonstrations we’ve seen on ACL in quite some time.  Leave it to La Blogothèque to add further to the Spoon largesse via a new Take Away Show in which Britt Daniels and pianist Alex Fischel perform Inside Out and I Just Don’t Understand unplugged.  The setting and spare delivery add greatly to the songs’ effect.  Spoon is out on tour (again) and, having missed them last time ’round, we can’t wait to catch them at The Wiltern Theater in late May.  Their other tour dates can be found HERE.

As we’ve professed, we don’t have much need for musical nostalgia.  Having lived through over 50 years of intent listening, we’d far prefer to hear new and inventive music, and there’s a world of it out there.  In the past all of this had placed us on a very uncomfortable fence when it comes to the band St. Paul & The Broken Bones. We were tempted to write glowingly about them after they impressed at last October’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  But afterwards we watched, listened and wrang our hands together, and then we desisted.  What kept getting in our way with this talented band is their obvious homage to Otis Redding and our feeling that we’d heard it all before.

But time has passed, and today we stumbled onto yet another vignette of St. Paul & The Broken Bones, their third for La Blogothèque’s Take Away Show series.  Perhaps it’s that we also heard more of the added sounds of The Band (the Allen Toussaint-arranged version), perhaps it’s because of the conviction of the singer and ensemble, or perhaps it’s their always-positive effect on their audience (watch at the end of It’s Midnight below when a Pariesenne exclaims “you are saving my life!”).  Afterwards watch other two other Take Aways, one featuring their song Half The City, and another featuring their rending cover of Redding’s own I’ve Been Loving You (on which singer Paul gets down on his knees for effect).

When it comes to this band, you’ve heard much of it before.  But still the music moves you.

Photo above by Kenwyn Alexander.

As we’ve prognosticated, The Staves’ new Justin Vernon-produced album If I Was (on Nonesuch) is set to impress when released.  But where these sisters (literally) really shine is live.  To get a feel for the new album and to see their live delivery, check out their impressive outings on La Blogothèque (for a Take Away Show) below.  Watch as the women and dude backer perform in a bar.  We love the energy on the album’s superb track Black And White, followed by another stellar new song Teeth White.  After, check out the stirringly wistful new song Don’t You Call Me Anymore.

In addition to the Take Away Show, the band has today released a live vignette of the magnanimous Make You Holy off of the album. Check it out at bottom.  The closing harmonies are sheer magic.

Between these four songs and other previously-released tracks from the album (such as Blood I Bled), If I Was is sure to be amongst 2015’s best albums.   Now if we can only get them to perform in the U.S. (other than as a part of the incredible lineup at Justin Vernon’s Eaux Claires Music Festival next July).  Fingers crossed.