We have recently been smitten with the music of Florida-born, Berklee College of Music-educated Laney Jones (and The Spirits).  We will shortly have a full review of their fantastic latest album (eponymously-titled; cover art above).  But in the meantime check out their song Allston (Dance Around) and its official video below. The song is catchier than SARS. As you can imagine, the album has a broader and more varied pallet than this dance around (you can pick it up HERE). For now, however, bring on the weekend and dance around with Allston (Dance Around)! If there was any justice in this world, this song would be a massive hit.

As seen above, Jones and The Spirits will be out on tour shortly and headed to California in July for the High Sierra Music Festival, and will hopefully add some other Cali dates. Don’t miss ’em.  You can get tickets HERE.

One of our all-time favorite “indie artists,” Okkervil River, will release a new album entitled Away in September on ATO.  Per leader Will Sheff’s press release, the album embodies a traumatic, transitional period for Sheff, which entailed the loss of his grandfather and various band member changes. “I wrote the songs during a confusing time of transition in my personal and professional life and recorded them quickly with a brand new group of musicians,” said Sheff.  Sheff continues: “2013-2015 has been a strange time for me. I lost some connections in a music industry that was visibly falling apart. Some members of the Okkervil River backing band left, moving on to family life or to their own projects. I spent a good deal of time sitting in hospice with my grandfather, who was my idol, while he died. I didn’t know where I belonged. Eventually, I realized I was writing a death story for a part of my life that had, buried inside of it, a path I could follow that might let me go somewhere new.”

The album will consist of nine songs (listed below) that were apparently written over a three-day, fever-dream period at an empty house in the Catskills and subsequently recorded in a Long Island studio. Sheff was assisted by the likes of Marissa Nadler, composer/arranger Nathan Thatcher, former Okkervil River (and now Shearwater) member Jonathan Meiburg, and classical troupe yMusic.

To get a feel, check out the elegiac and emotion-filled album-opening track Okkervil River R.I.P. below. It’s a fantastic, form-fitting song that builds and flies away during its nearly seven-minutes, and bodes incredibly well for the new album. “They had some great songs, must have been a great time so long ago.” Thankfully, those times aren’t over for Okkervil River.

Okkervil River will kick off a tour on June 30th in Austin, TX, in support of (and ahead of) the new album.  Check the dates below.

Away Songlist:

1 Okkervil River R.I.P.
2 Call Yourself Renee
3 The Industry
4 Comes Indiana Through The Smoke
5 Judey On A Street
6 She Would Look For Me
7 Mary On A Wave
8 Frontman In Heaven
9 Days Spent Floating (In The Halfbetween)

Okkervil River Tour Dates:

06-30 Austin, TX – Stubb’s Bar-B-Q %
07-01 Dallas, TX – The Bomb Factory %
07-02 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall %
07-03 San Antonio, TX – Aztec Theater in San Antonio %
07-14 Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall
07-15 Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace
07-16 Hudson, NY – Club Helsinki
07-17 Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
07-20 Brooklyn, NY – National Sawdust
09-14 Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair *
09-15 Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair *
09-16 Montreal, QC – Theatre Fairmount
09-19 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club *
09-20 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle *
09-21 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West at King Plow Arts Center *
09-23 Memphis, TN – 1884 Lounge *
09-24 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks *
09-30 Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom *
10-01 Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern *
10-04 Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom
10-05 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
10-07 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom *
10-08 Seattle, WA – Neptune Theatre *
10-10 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge *
10-11 Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater *
10-13 Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line Music Café *
10-14 Chicago, IL – Metro #
10-15 Ferndale, MI – The Magic Bag ^
10-16 Millvale, PA – Mr. Small’s Theatre ^
10-18 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer ^
10-30 Oslo, Norway – Parkteatret
10-31 Gothenburg, Sweden – Pustervik
11-02 Stockholm, Sweden – Debaser Strand
11-03 Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega
11-04 Weissenhauser Strand, Germany – Rolling Stone Weekender
11-05 Amsterdam, Holland – Paradiso Nord
11-07 Paris, France – Petit Bain
11-08 Brussels, Belgium – Botanique Rotonde
11-10 London, England – Islington Assembly Hall
11-11 Bristol, England – Thekla
11-12 Manchester, England – Gorilla
11-13 Glasgow, Scotland – Stereo

* with Landlady
# with Lip Talk
^ with Landlady & Lip Talk
% with Shovels & Rope, Matt Vasquez, and Girl In A Coma

On March 27th, Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters) will release a new, piano-laden covers album entitled Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites. The ever-controversial Kozelek is one of our all-time favorite singer-songwriters and he’s always evinced a way with covers, and this album (and its cover art above) perfectly matches the May-Gray vantage outside our windows.

Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites is piano-heavy and includes stellar accompaniment by Will Oldham, Low’s Mimi Parker, Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton, among others. Included are eclectic songs penned by the likes of Bowie, Mancini and Mercer, 10cc, Waylon Jennings, Sondheim and Modest Mouse.

If you have a short amount of time, don’t miss Kozelek’s cover of Modest Mouse’s Float On with its ghosted, Gregorian-chant background vocals.  It’s a beauty with the following Kozelek-relevant line: “I ran my mouth off a bit too much, ah what did I say?”  Superb stuff from the arguably-misunderstood Kozelek.

To stream it, go HERE and then go to Caldo Verde Records HERE to pre-order it.  The song list is below.

Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites Song List:
1. Send in the Clowns
2. Moon River
3. Win
4. I’m Not in Love
5. Amanda
6. O Holy Night
7. Main Street
8. Somewhere Over the Rainbow
9. Get Along Home Cindy
10. Another Day
11. Float On
12. Something Stupid

When Gallant opened for Sufjan Stevens on Stevens’ tour late last year, the cognoscenti noted his impassioned delivery and fearless, glass-shattering vocals.  Wednesday night (Christopher) Gallant further proved his worth by making his television debut on the Fallon Show and performed his single Weight in Gold off of his critically-acclaimed studio album Ology released last month.

Watch below as Gallant comes off the couch in a big way and takes the stage (and standing-ovation audience) by storm. Fallon introduced Gallant as “the next big thing in R&B,” and we couldn’t agree more. There is no falseness in the power of Gallant’s falsetto.  Bravo!

Just to prove their songs are generally great vehicles, EL VY has today released a remix of track Need A Friend off of their Best of 2015 album Return To The Moon.  The remix was pulled together by the frequent and talented remixologists Wye Oak (Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, EL VY’s drummer), and features slowed-down dub-reggae inflections, additional ghosted background vocals, and great free-jazz sax from the talented multi-instrumentalist Stack. Bravo!  Check it out below.

One of our Best Albums of 2011 was Adam & the Amethysts’ Flickering Flashlight. Adam Waito’s band’s album was a masterful mix of pop styles combining many influences (from Spector-echo-pop, to 60s’ farfisa organ, to R&B, to plucky folk). But after attaining our prestigious list, the Amethysts subsequently disappeared into the ether. Or so we thought.

From the interwebs we have finally learned that Waito is alive and well in various incarnations (Silverkeys, assisting Julie Doiron, and on solo projects–listen to all below the featured video).  The Waito project that’s particularly grabbed hold of our ears is the Montreal buzz-band, Nancy Pants, which also features singer-guitarist Ohara Hale. The band’s live sets are heralded as must-sees (see below). To get a feel for the band, check out their impossibly catchy fuzz-rocker, Happy, and its bizarre amateur video below capturing a Fairfax Ave. palm tree on fire after a bottle rocket was shot into it (for all you palm tree huggers, the picture above confirms that the palm tree was either nonplussed by the conflagration and roared back to life–or was replaced).

Afterwards, watch the recently-released video for I’ve Got A Crush On You and Everybody Knows It, evidently from their upcoming second album.  We look forward to hearing it and seeing the band live.

Photo: Geneviève Alary

It could have been worse. Bon Iver’s hiatus might have been permanent instead of just a pause. The good news is the band is back together preparing some new music and venturing out for a series of gigs. In the meantime, bandleader/songwriter Justin Vernon has thankfully collaborated again with James Blake (to go with other recent collabs by Vernon with Kanye, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and The Roots). Blake’s new album, The Colour In Anything, has just been receiving universal accolades rivaling Radiohead’s new album’s devotionals.  Today Blake has released the official video for track I Need a Forest Fire, which supports the applause for the album. The song features Vernon and is beauty. As is the artful video, which was directed by Matt Clark with Chris Davenport.  Check it out below.  We will have more on the talented Blake’s new album later.

Where have we been??!! We were happily drowning deep, deep, and deeper in A Moon Shaped Pool when Janelle Monáe suddenly pulled us out and revived us.  “Mo” Monae completely resuscitated us with St. Beauty’s newly-released song Holographic Lover. And now, for reasons that will sound apparent below, we are completely smitten with this duo, which has signed with Monáe’s Atlanta-centric label/industry Wondaland, a consortium of talented musicians and artists that includes Jidenna (and which we first wrote about six years ago). After listening to Holographic Lover, our ears are just glistening! Word to the wise: Monáe’s got the Midas touch!

In all honesty, Nylon gets the assist here. Monáe blessed the song, which Nylon has disclosed comes from the annual mixtape entitled Love The Free released by fashionista-DJ Cachee Livingston (better known as Kitty Cash and as Baby Khaled).

St. Beauty released its EP The Eephus last August and you can pick it up HERE.  After getting Holographic, check out the official video for their great track Going Nowhere off of The Eephus. Dang. So good!! We can’t wait to hear more.

We have become huge fans of Chance The Rapper and most everything he touches (Chance contributed mightily to Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment’s album Surf, which you can download for free HERE and which remains at the top of a very short list of our Best Albums of 2015).  The world’s been awaiting his next release entitled Chance 3, his long-awaited third “mixtape” and last night he performed a new song off the release entitled Blessings on the Fallon Show.  Watch below as Chance, Jamila Woods (who sang with Chance on his outstanding Sunday Candy song off of Surf), gospel singer Byron Cage, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, and a gospel choir backed him up on great new gospel-rap song entitled Blessings.  Chance 3 will be released in a week.

“When the praises go up, the blessings go down.” Bless on, Chance.

After releasing new song/video Burn The Witch a few days ago, Radiohead have released news that their still-untitled LP will be released digitally this Sunday and hard copy on June 17th via XL Recordings.  To further whet the world’s appetite for the long-awaited album, the band has just released the official video for new song Daydreaming.  The video was directed by guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s oft-collaborationist Paul Thomas Anderson. Check it below.  The song continues the analog, orchestral-maneuvers motif, this time propelled predominantly by piano. The video features Thom Yorke walking about, ultimately opting for an ice-cave with fire. Naturally.