It’s been a long wait since Destroyer’s masterful, synth-disco album Kaputt (No. 3 on our Best Albums of 2011).  But at long last the wait is over with next month’s release of Poison Season (tracklist at bottom).  We’ve already heard the guitar-sax, Springsteen-esque-but-completely-Destroyer Dream Lover (listen at bottom), and now leader Dan Bejar has released a counter-point ballad entitled Girl In A Sling on Merge Records.  It’s a beauty that will destroy you and destruction never sounded this good.

Video director David Galloway has this to say about the video:

“Bejar sings a lot about cities and girls and injury, sometimes all at the same time. Sometimes they are the same thing, as surreal novelists would have us believe. Besides, people like to see Dan sing — which he doesn’t do a lot of in this video, but he does do a little bit. We wanted to make a video that dealt with central Destroyer themes: to some, Destroyer is a lech; to some, he is an arsonist; to some, he is a savior. To me, he is the consummate comedian, but he resists that role. So we decided to go the opposite way and make something sad, something tragic, something that fits the new record. The adage “comedy equals tragedy plus time” is attributed to Carol Burnett’s mum. Or it might have been Steve Allen. Either way, I always want Dan to do physical comedy, but he resists. He’s a natural, though. He’s the Pacific Northwest’s Buster Keaton, and I hope one day to share that with the world. One day. For now, though, there’s just this sadness. This poison season.”

In support, Destroyer will head out in September on a world tour.  Check the new songs below.

Poison Season Tracklist:
01. Times Square, Poison Season
02. Dream Lover
03. Forces From Above
04. Hell
05. The River
06. Girl in a Sling
07. Times Square
08. Archer on the Beach
09. Midnight Meet the Rain
10. Solace’s Bride
11. Bangkok
12. Sun in the Sky
13. Times Square, Poison Season II

The half-Congolese, half-Angolan, Cape Town-residing Yannick Ilunga, aka “Petite Noir” will release new album La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful on 9/11 on Domino. The album was recorded at Box Ten Studios in London with Oli Bayston (Boxed In) and Leon Brichard (Ibibio).  A press release advises that the album is “named after a revered Congolese film of the same name…[and r]epresents the first full expression of what Ilunga calls ‘Noirwave’, which is more of a concept than a specific sound. Inspired by innovators like Mos Def and legends Fela Kuti and Tabu Ley, Noirwave encompasses a ‘new African aesthetic’, plain and simple. ‘I think for me, it’s just the story their music tells and the sense of freedom. It’s about seeing the positive in dark times’ said Ilunga.”  As an introduction, check out below the video for vibrant song Down, which was filmed in Lubumbashi, Congo. We love everything about it.

You can pre-order the album HERE.

By Dylan Lefort

Coming off playing a show in Hollywood for Sean Comb’s new TV network early Monday, it seemed like rising neo-R&B artist Miguel might have grabbed some “coffee” before coming on stage last night at the intimate Sonos Studio.  The crowd was similarly jacked that Pandora and Sonos had invited them into the smallest venue of Miguel’s impending world tour.

After hitting the stage, Miguel went wire-to-wire during his hour-long set with barely a pause.  Backed by bass, guitar and electric drum, the LA-born and raised R&B crooner moved fluidly through his hit-filled show.  In closing with the Grammy-winning Adorn off his previous album, Kaleidoscope Dreams, and adding the radio-friendly version of his ode to roasted seed-pods, Coffee (In The Morning), off his critically-acclaimed and chart-topping new album, Wildheart, Miguel gave the crowd the hits this night.  He also got the 200 people in attendance fired up with a medley of Rae Sremmurd’s No Type mashed with Sure Thing.

The one extended break he took he spent talking about growing up in LA, being “normal,” and how people can lose themselves living around the flash of LA.

““I was kind of down and I was having a really weird moment, having challenges creatively and on a personal note, and I realized normality is such a subjective thing,” he said. “Everyone has their own idea of what normal is based on their circumstances and their experiences. And it was in that moment that I realized that we really can free ourselves from worrying about other people’s perceptions of us if we just take the time to figure out what the **** we stand for, what we believe in, what we’re willing to sacrifice, what we’re not willing to sacrifice.”

Miguel, naturally, then launched into the beginning of What’s Normal Anyway accapella. “Too proper for the black kids/ Too black for the Mexicans,” the song begins.  The son of an African-American mom and Mexican-American father born and raised in San Pedro, Miguel wowed the heavily female crowd with both his impressive vocal skills as well as his stage presence: dancing, spinning and writhing till his white shirt was soaked through with sweat.  He also took a selfie with one particularly enthusiastic girl in the front row and really seemed to be loving his time on stage, dancing and laughing with his band members and getting the audience to two-step along to a chorus.

As mentioned, Miguel ended with Adorn and left Sonos Studio with a little inspiring message for the crowd: “The truth is, whenever you’re doing something that’s unconventional, you’re bound to face adversity. But I can tell you, you stick to your guns, and you believe deeper, transcend all of the programming, life is beautiful. So stay well. Live your passion. Live your truth.”

And the truth is: Miguel was beautiful live.

All photos by Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for Pandora

A couple years back we featured the audio of the traditional song Trials Troubles Tribulations off of a MusicNow Festival retrospective album as performed by Sounds Of The South.  The song (written by Estil C. Ball0) was originally captured in the seminal Alan Lomax field recordings.  Sounds Of The South is the super-group consisting of Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Frazey Ford (Be Good Tanyas), Matthew E. White, Phil & Brad Cook & Joe Westerlund (Megafaun).  Unbeknownst to us, there is a fine capture (below) of Sounds Of The South performing the song at the Sydney Opera House in 2013.  We love everything about it, but the horns in particular and especially from 2:41 to 3:15 in the video.  Reminds of the arrangements by the great Allan Toussaint on The Band’s Rock of Ages live album.  Higher praise we have not.

Afterwards, watch the MusicNow Festival version by Sounds Of The South, but featuring Sharon Van Etten in lieu of Frazey Ford.  We hope you have time to compare the two versions, with the latter featuring more of the underrated guitar playing of Matthew E. White (check out 3:05-4:15–superb!).  Watch as Van Etten gives Vernon a couple of knowing looks during the solo.  Outstanding!

Watch the video for the stupendous All Is Forgiven below.  The song’s lyrics are at bottom.  You can buy it HERE.

All Is Forgiven:

“sometimes i think about
things before they happen
float it around in my head for a while

all of a sudden
its grown too big to handle
changed it’s clothes
and grown a mind of its own

too loud to listen
too proud to put the paper to the pen
clean up this place
run the vacuum of my head

too many time zones
two thousand planes
tack on the distance
it only brings me back again

these books are overdue
there’s tenderness inside
the depth of the lineup
watch the characters come alive

dip into the system
feel the volume fill the space
bending horizons
fall into place

all is forgiven
times will clean us
absolute, absolution
all is forgiven
time is a genius
absolute, absolution

shift these shapes
make the landscape disappear
tech tonic plates
serving powers to your fears

sometimes I hear that voice
when words were never spoken
proceed with caution
before glass has ever broken

quantize the groove
while it’s dancing in your head
controlled emotions
find me drifting instead

till we feel better without it
go and knit some sweaters about it
two stone statues
trying hard not to laugh

maybe there’s something in the movement
or the stillness of the air
put that good stuff on ice
and keep that elephant over there

let’s shift through modern times
i hold a future pass
non existent obstacles
squarely in our path

all is forgiven
times will clean us
absolute, absolution
all is forgiven
time is a genius
absolute, absolution”

Julia Holter’s last album Loud City Song was amongst our Best Albums of 2013.  Thankfully, Holter has announced that her next offering, Have You in My Wilderness (the album has its own website), will be released on September 25th on Domino. To accompany the announcement, Holter released a new video for the album’s first track entitled Feel You.  We’re not exactly sure what to make of the video, which features the singer and her scruffy-sweet dog within and without her Los Angeles environs, but the song soars throughout and is a return to form for Holter.  We know others who have been similarly saved by a dog’s love.  Let it be so.

According to a press release: “Have You in My Wilderness was written from the heart – warm, dark and raw – and explores love, trust, and power in human relationships.” Check it out below and, after, the song’s handwritten, enigmatic lyrics (zoom in).

Above photo by Tonje Thilesen.

Leon Bridges is receiving raves for his new neo-soul album Coming Home.  In an increasingly-crowded field, Bridges stands out with his Sam Cooke-stylings and his thoughtful, evocative lyrics.  Today La Blogothèque gives us a unique glimpse of Bridges (with acoustic guitar and sweet singers) performing his song River in a cafe in Paris next to the Seine River.  The song is surely an homage lyrically to Al Green’s Take Me To The River, though the river metaphor runs deep in the genre.  Check it out.  Gospel beauty right there.

River:

“Been traveling these wide roads for so long
My heart’s been far from you
Ten-thousand miles gone

Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there is blood on my hands
And my lips aren’t clean

In my darkness I remember
Momma’s words reoccur to me
‘Surrender to the good Lord
And he’ll wipe your slate clean’

Take me to your river
I wanna go
Oh, go on
Take me to your river
I wanna know

Dip me in your smooth waters
I go in
As a man with many crimes
Come up for air
As my sins flow down the Jordan

Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there is blood on my hands
And my lips aren’t clean

Take me to your river
I wanna go
Go on,
Take me to your river
I wanna know

I wanna go, wanna go, wanna go
I wanna know, wanna know, wanna know
Wanna go, wanna go, wanna go
Wanna know, wanna know, wanna know
Wanna go, wanna go, wanna go
Wanna know, wanna know, wanna know

Take me to your river
I wanna go
Lord, please let me know
Take me to your river
I wanna know”

Sometimes you just need a sweet and sultry voice traveling over a torpid tune just in from pops-ville.  Such is the case with Deadwater, a track off of young Brooklyn Western Massachusetts band Wet’s recently released debut album, Don’t You on Columbia.  Check out the song via its official video below (lyrics at bottom).  We love singer Kelly Zutrau’s pure and unaffected vocals (which remind of Hem’s great vocalist Sally Ellyson) on the song in particular, but also the low-key effects layered on by the band.  The video also has multiple heartwarming moments to dull the song’s ache (beware of gratuitous kitten and kid-on-bike glimpses).

Afterwards check out a compelling remix of the song by Jam City.

Deadwater:

“If I could be stronger
And if you were just older
We might last this out longer
But the task just gets harder
And my face turned to red
From drinking all that dead water
And the again when you said
That I was my mother’s daughter

Shaky when he comes to me
Shaky but I believe
Shaky and I’m on my knees
There are better things for me
Shaky when I came to be
When they left, they left me in pieces
Shaky, but I believe
There are better things for me

If my legs were longer
They might carry us further
But we waited too long
And so the task just gets harder
And the thoughts that come in
They come on stronger and stronger
And it takes all of me
To just stay out of the water

Shaky when he comes to me
Shaky but I believe
Shaky and I’m on my knees
There are better things for me
Shaky when I came to be
When they left, they left me in pieces
Shaky, but I believe
When you left, you left for a reason

Ohhhh, take me to the things I see I see
My eyes can reach passed all that’s been laid out for me

Shaky when he comes to me
Shaky but I believe
Shaky and I’m on my knees
There are better things for me
Shaky when I came to be
When they left, they left me in pieces
Shaky, but I believe
There are better things for me”

We lauded the recent Torres show we attended at the Echo.  One regret that night was that Torres’ highly-affecting song Ferris Wheel was not included in the setlist.  Thankfully Sound Opinions today has released their capture of the band performing the heart-rending song.  Check it out below (lyrics at bottom).  At bottom is an equally superb solo-acoustic version.

Ferris Wheel:

“Do I have reason to be sad
Crying over something I never had
You borrowed my car a couple times
You don’t like me, you just like my ride

You hide behind glasses and music and wit
You laugh at yourself and hand roll cigarettes
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too

I talk about you like you’re mine
My friends just laugh, and roll their eyes
When I tell them I don’t mind the way it feels
To ride an empty Ferris wheel

You hide behind glasses and music and wit
You laugh at yourself and hand roll cigarettes
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too

You hide behind glasses and music and wit
You laugh at yourself and then roll cigarettes
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too
To show you that I’ve got the sadness too”