A good part of current pop music (Adele, Sam Smith, etc.) almost always gives us the sensation that we’ve heard good portions of it before.  This might explain the spate of copyright infringement lawsuits currently afflicting the music industry.  While there’s nothing new under the sun, modern artists (and their hired-gun songwriters) might try a little harder.

We always sensed something about Hozier’s Take Me To Church that reminded us of another song/artist, but we couldn’t put our finger on it until today when Chilly Gonzalez pointed out (in his latest Pop Music Masterclass video) that Hozier’s song is at least a partial rip-off of the fantastic Feist’s song, How Come You Never Go There.  Watch below as Gonzalez assays the song’s foundations and its relation to hymns and requiems, and then lets Hozier have it.  Is it any wonder, given that Feist is Gonzalez’s friend and Gonzalez produced and played on Feist’s fantastic album Metals, on which How Come You Never Go There is found?  Apparently Hozier DID go there.

Mondays are tough; we cannot lie.  We do, however, like aquariums (aquaria?).  So if you’re feeling underwater or are under the weather this Monday (perhaps you drank an aquarium’s worth this weekend?), then watch below as French trobairitz, Marion Mayer (and harmonizers) perform her song Walk Away in the St. Malo Grand Aquarium courtesy of Le HibOO/Lame de Son.  Beauty on all fronts.

Afterwards, watch Mayer performing with Angus Stone (sans soeur Julia).

Real country artist, Lee Ann Womack, released a critically acclaimed album (The Way I’m Living) last year that we at the Late Show are just getting ’round to fully appreciating.  Womack will appear at next weekend’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, and we can’t wait to finally catch her live.  To get a feel for Womack on Sunday, check out a live performance of and the official video for Send It On Down off that album.   Please, send it on down.

Afterwards, watch another winning vignette of Ms. Womack.

Send It On Down

Dad used to own the hardware store
But now it and him ain’t around no more
Don’t know the whole story but I’ve overheard some
I know he’s who I got my drinking from

Jesus can you save me
From going crazy
I need some help getting out of this town
Are there any answers
Up in the hereafter
Oh if you got something won’t you send it on down
While I’m still able to be found

Guys around here want a girl who’s rich
Even if I was I wouldn’t be no catch
But this ain’t where I’ll be settling down
I wanna be gone when the fall rolls around

Jesus can you save me
From going crazy
I need some help getting out of this town
Are there any answers
Up in the hereafter
Oh if you got something won’t you send it on down
While I’m still able to be found

Sitting in the bleachers at the football field
Got a pretty good buzz from a quart I just killed
it’s a cold sunday morning and the church bells ring
I can just about hear all the good folks sing

Jesus can you save me
From going crazy
I need some help getting out of this town
Are there any answers
Up in the hereafter
Oh if you got something won’t you send it on down
While I’m still able to be found

Oh if you got something won’t you send it on down
While I’m still able to be found

Kurt Vile showed up on Conan last night to perform one of our recent favorite tracks, Pretty Pimpin’, with fantastic full-band in which Vile filled out the sound perfectly on guitar.  Check it out below followed by a web-exclusive performance by Vile and the awesome Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint and Tinariwen) on spare, but effective, sistrum (?) and tambourine, on Wild Imagination.  Both songs can be found on Vile’s just-released, critically-acclaimed album, b’lieve i’m goin down…., which you can pick up HERE.

Matt Berninger (The National) clued the world early that the narratives on EL VY’s debut album, Return to The Moon, were still-more autobiographical sketches that didn’t fit in The National context. While we heard snatches in the first two released songs, Return to The Moon and I’m the Man to Be, today’s release gives more credence to Berninger’s claim. Watch below as EL VY (Berninger and Brent Knopf from Menomena/Ramona Falls) perform No Time To Crank The Sun at Studio Brussel.  The song features Knopf’s treacly melody lines and Beethoven-sonata piano-bridges (the contrapuntal “Moonlight” to offset the title’s “Sun”?), and Berninger captures well the harried musician’s life and how easy it is to lose sight of a loved one.  This is our favorite song yet from EL VY and bodes well for the entire album (which you can pre-order HERE).  The song’s lyrics are at bottom.  Aside:  the song’s title is strong evidence that Berninger’s move to Los Angeles has fully taken.  Crank the sun, dude!

No Time To Crank The Sun:

“No time
To crank the sun
And dry our hair
Before we go

No time
To lay around
We’ll come back someday

No time
To change our minds
The pricks are always
On our heels

No time
To fight about it
This time we can’t be late

I was driving
Taking chances
Walking way too far out on
Some broken branches

Sometimes where you’re going
Is hard to see

I always knew there was
Something missing
They said no one could ever get me
To sit and listen

I was always
Trying to leave

Babe it got away from me
It got away from me

No time
To plan our fears
These things they always
Come from nowhere

No time
To lay around
We’ll come back someday

Nothing will ever just
Come to you, it’s only
What you find around and
What you do

If you don’t hold it tight
It’ll leave

I kept seeing you
All around me
I couldn’t just stand here and wait
Until you found me

I had to take you to make you
Believe

Babe it got away from me
It got away from me
It got away from me

It got away from me

If I wasn’t so gone tonight
I’d try to explain
Some people just know what they want
It doesn’t change

If I wasn’t so gone completely
This would feel like pain
Some people just know what they want”

One of 2014’s Best New Artists, Sylvan Esso have continued their takeover of radios and labs around the globe (combining the two, at bottom check out their tune Jamie’s Song done for a recent Radiolab episode).  Today they released their return to the Moog Sound Lab to re-imagine H.S.K.T from their 2014 debut album.  For all you synthesizer/production geeks, Moog Sound Lab had this to say about the Sylvan Esso session:   “Using Ableton Live to route MIDI messages to an array of analog synthesizers, Nick Sanborn controls his Minitaur for basslines as well as a tower of Minimoog Voyager Rack Mount Editions to produce H.S.K.T.’s percussive track. Ableton’s master MIDI clock locks the arpeggiator tempo of a Moog Sub 37, which all ran through an MF-104M Analog Delay. Vocalist Amelia Meath played a Werkstatt running through the Minifooger Delay, and sang through another MF-104M Analog Delay. Nick then sequenced the whole thing with his Akai APC40. The only prerecorded sound was a loop of of Amelia singing ‘wanna get’ from the original track.”

See more Moog Sound Lab Sessions HERE  and HERE.

Anybody who knows this space knows that we hold Joni Mitchell in the highest regard.  Her oeuvre remains above the fray of all other female musical artists (due respect to Carol King, Feist, PJ Harvey and many other amazing talents).  Of the current guard (again, Feist) there are a few who are making good strides towards the Mitchell pantheon.

Chief among them is Laura Marling, who continues to impress with her songwriting, guitar playing and vocals.  On her latest album, Short Movie, Marling has “gone electric” and delivered some of the best electric guitar in recent memory.  But she still can touch with an acoustic guitar and song.  Take, for example, her performance below of How Can I (off Short Movie) for The Current.  Watch below as Marling perfectly channels the best of Joni Mitchell on How Can I.   Beauty, right there.  May the performance help to heal Mitchell and bring her back to full health after her aneurysm this year.

The Lilliputian band Circa Waves have been garnering a good buzz from across the pond.  Last night they made their US television debut, appearing on Conan and playing two ebullient songs, T-Shirt Weather and Stuck In My Teeth.  Both catchy, well-delivered songs are off of their recent, well-received album, Young Chasers.  Too early to tell about Circa Waves’ role in the musical pantheon, but there’s nothing to not like about the performances below.  “I’m a little too young and not enough time.” Indeed. Go forth!

Web Exclusive:

We’d waited fifteen-plus years to catch a show by Destroyer, the moniker of the deconstructionist ensemble led by Vancouver’s Dan Bejar (also a member of the superb New Pornographers).  That wait finally ended last night at the Regent Theater in LA when Destroyer stopped by on its current tour in support of its revelatory, seeker-infused album, Poison Season.  Destroyer’s eight members took the stage by storm at the Regent and relented only occasionally to calm the musical nerves.  To sum up:  Destroyer out-performed our heightened expectations (a nearly-impossible task, given how much we’ve treasured Destroyer’s discography), and delivered one of the more captivating shows of the year.

Throughout the evening, the band (consisting of Bejar, Scott Morgan, John Collins, Ted Bois, Nicolas Bragg, Tim Loewen, Fisher Rose and Joseph Shabason) ranged widely from delicate, horn-and-flute infused arrangements to all-in, wall-of-sound assaults on our ears.  There was beauty in the variety, and power in the largesse.

The centerpiece of the show, naturally, remains the hirsute, unbuttoned Bejar, whose vocals have rightly been compared to early Bowie.  Despite that comparison, Bejar’s spoken-sung delivery remains one of THE signature voices in all of music.  Most of the evening Bejar sang with microphone in right hand and left hand holding on to the “cane” of a half-mast mic stand.  After each vocal segment, Bejar would crouch/kneel and sway to the ravishing music of his band while swigging a beverage.  Focused on the task at hand, Bejar barely interacted with the audience, saying “thanks” a couple of times and lifting up Frog Eyes for praise despite their absence (owing to US visa problems).  In the end, all that mattered was the profound music being made on stage.  Bejar’s talented band mates must be heard to be believed, with exemplary trumpet, sax, guitar, keyboards and drumming tugging hearts or wailing throughout, as needed.  Complex arrangements and deft/delicate playing were mixed and melded in maelstroms varying from beauty to verve.

Destroyer dotted their set with Poison Season songs predominantly, but also with gems from masterpieces Kaputt (from 2011) and the earlier Destroyer’s Rubies. Great moments from the set included the pastoral-opening Bangkok, Girl On A Sling, Midnight Meet The Rain, Times Square (which, with any justice, would be a radiant radio hit), Hell Is An Open Door, the Springsteen-ish, full-tilt Dream Lover, and Kaputt’s Chinatown.  The clear highlight of the evening, though, came on the heart-rending Poor In Love, which was as affecting as any performance in recent memory.  Bejar seemed to relish the emotion the song drew from the audience, as evinced by the seasoned lad nearby who sang along, tears streaming down his face as he danced on.  And he wasn’t alone.

We can’t wait to be destroyed again.  Long live Destroyer!  Don’t miss their tour, the remaining dates of which can be found HERE.

As a last minute replacement for scheduled openers Frog Eyes, LA artist Devon Williams (and band, pictured above) delivered a passionate opening set while updating the sounds of the Smiths and Robyn Hitchcock. Williams is one to keep an eye on.

Destroyer’s Setlist:

Bangkok
Forces from Above
Kaputt
European Oils
Girl in a Sling
Savage Night at the Opera
Midnight Meet the Rain
Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape)
Times Square
Poor in Love
Hell Is an Open Door
Libby’s First Sunrise
Dream Lover
Encore:
Chinatown
Rubies

Having fallen under the spell of the The Staves, we were not surprised to find this video of the sisters beautifully warming up before their opening for Florence + The Machine in Manchester the other night.  Check out below their absorbing accapella rendition of Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You.  Beauty right there.

Go HERE to pick up their superb, critically-acclaimed recent album, If I Was.

Photo by Daniel A Harris.