Sampha previously took the world by storm and then went missing. Now he’s back to fulfill the earlier promise. After suffering through his mother’s passing (adding to the earlier loss of his father) and throat/vocal issues, the gallant gent is back with an impending new album. In conjunction, he’s performed a stunning new piece as a part of a Fader interview (worth your effort and found HERE). Watch below as Sampha swings for Stevie Wonder/Ellingtonian fences and delivers supremely on poignant new track Plastic 100°C”. Artist. In residence. “Up and away” indeed.

Photo: Paras Griffin/BET/Getty

Unlike a lot of awards shows, the BET Awards never fail to bring the entertainment and art in full. Last night was no exception when Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar rained serious fireworks on the Awards show. Watch below their powerful collaboration on Freedom off of her monstrous Lemonade album.  There is water everywhere and fireworks to match, but especially when Kendrick climbs into the water pit and the two lock in together from the 5:44 mark on. Wow!  Once again, these two have set the artistry and entertainment standards by which all others will be judged. With all the water, it was like a hip-hop steeplechase.

On Friday night, the fantastic live band The Avett Brothers showed up on the Fallon Tonight Show and performed a rousing version of Satan Pulls the Strings off their brand new, critically-acclaimed album True Sadness.  Check it out below and check out their tour dates HERE.

As mentioned previously, case/lang/veirs, (Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs), have combined to last week release their superb, eponymous-titled album. You can purchase it HERE. To kick off support of the album, the supertrio performed the album in its entirety for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland.  The fantastic entourage (featuring the perfect backing of Steve Moore (seen on Sufjan Stevens’ recent tour) on keys, Lex Price on bass, Barbara Gruska (Belle Brigade) on drums and Johnny Sangster on guitar) is out on tour now (they play LA’s Greek Theater tomorrow night) and you can get tickets to see them HERE. Watch the entire show below courtesy of NPR.

We’re long-time fans of Metronomy, who today have released the beguiling track Night Owl from their impending new album Summer ’08. As with many of their prior releases, the new album was written, played and produced solely by Joseph Mount, and was recorded by the legendary Bob Clearmountain (Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie) and Neal Pogue (OutKast). Given the album’s title, it’s not hard to gather that with the new album Mount is glancing back to the band’s beginnings in 2008-09 (coincidentally starting with their Nights Out debut album).

Night Owl is the perfect homage to that era with its masterful amalgam of then-newcomers XX, Phoenix and Girls sounds, but also with a dollop of Bowie and OutKast thrown in for good measure. We love it!  Night Owl bodes incredibly well for the new album, which you can pre-order HERE. Knowing Metronomy’s propensity for inventive music videos, we can’t wait for the Night Owl video, which is promised soon by the band.  The song’s lyrics are at bottom.

While you’re at it, check out two more new and well-received Metronomy tracks, Old Skool and Back Together.

Night Owl:

Don’t need your number, babe, but I’ll take it anyway
I spent my nights recalling of showers in the morning
And what you said that day, I’ll take it to the grave
But once I’m in the grave, you won’t care anyway

So let’s imagine right now
I’m just another night owl
And if you’re going out tonight, girl
The city is my light house
So let’s imagine right now
I’m just another night owl
And if you’re going out tonight, girl
The city is my light house

No need for comfort, babe, but I’ll take some anyway
Don’t need the roller blades you got on holiday
I’ll take the feelings that I wish I never had
You take your favorite band, that shit was always bad

I think I’ve seen a ghost, she walks along this coast
And on the breakfast shows
All the FM radio hosts keep playing “Paparazzi”
I think I’ve loved you most when we were in my [?] relaxing

So let’s imagine right now
I’m just another night owl
And if you’re going out tonight, girl
The city is my light house
So let’s imagine right now
I’m just another night owl
And if you’re going out tonight, girl
The city is my light house
So let’s imagine right now
(So let’s imagine right now)
I’m just another night owl
(I’m just another night owl)
And if you’re going out tonight, girl
The city is my light house

We’ve been fans of Phantogram for quite some time, watching them progress over the years from duel-instrumental stages and simmering songs to adding backing members on tour and collaborating with the likes of Big Boi, Flaming Lips and others.  We always wondered if they would hold in that pattern or break out into something more. The answer is in: way more. Between their new, massively-addictive, fuzz-guitar song, You Don’t Get Me High Anymore, and its performance on Fallon the other night, the band is breaking big and bad. Sure, the fuzz is a direct descendant of Radiohead’s Myxomatosis, but Phantogram also inventively cuts away to electro-ballad motif, all to fantastic effect. And singer Sarah Barthel tosses in some Gwen Stefani-inflections to accent the song.

On 6/16/16, Phantogram will release new album Three (on Republic Records), on which they collaborated with the-Dream and Tricky Stewart, and Ricky Reed.  Evidently, the new album is laden with the heaviness of loss (a loved one, Bowie and Prince). Check out both the lyric video for You Don’t Get Me High Anymore and the Fallon performance below (Sarah Barthel, having eschewed her former Grace Slick look).  And then just try to get that hook out of your head. Ain’t happening.

Phantogram recently told Pitchf*k that You Don’t Get Me High Anymore is “kind of about this feeling of everything being redundant and nothing being good enough. Metaphorically, it’s about addiction. It’s also about certain things that we see in culture, pop culture, and even music that we find redundant, that we’ve always kind of strayed away from as a group…. Yeah, it also taps into this idea of wanting to feel something. Basically, wanting to feel something strong and doing whatever it takes to feel it again, because you know it feels good and you miss it.”

We recently (finally) unearthed the otherworldly Sampha thanks to his release of traumatic track Timmy’s Prayer.  So we were delighted to discover his performances of two songs last night for BBC Radio 1. Watch below as Sampha beautifully airs out Air’s song All I Need and his own Timmy’s Prayer, both delivered unadorned save his own piano support.  Beauty.

Photo: Meghan Sinclair/TeamCoco

It was only two weeks ago that we first become aware of the impressive Marlon Williams when the Kiwi and pal Ben Wooley opened for the evocative Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop at the Fonda Theater.  We then highlighted his subsequent KCRW session.  Last night Williams & The Yarra Benders appeared on Conan and performed Hello Miss Lonesome a track from his esteemed eponymous album. Watch below as Williams again wows with his vocal-acrobatics (a beguiling mix of Hank Williams, Pavarotti, and Roy Orbison), but especially on the mournful descending cadenza at 2:51. And the Yarra Benders bend it hard too with their harmonies and instrumental pluck. As Conan raved, we are “huge fans.” Alt-country has a new poster boy. Bravo!

Afterwards, watch Williams impressively cover Leonard Cohen’s Bird On A Wire, Screaming Jay Hawkins’ Portrait of a Man, and a Bob Carpenter cover with various helpers.

Go HERE to buy his most recent album.

Williams and band are out on tour now and headed back to Cali in October. Don’t ya miss them. For dates and tickets go HERE.

Bon Iver is thankfully back together working on songs and recently played a few dates in Australia. Check out below professionally-captured performances by the band at the Vivid LIVE Festival in Sydney of Creature Fear, Heavenly Father (done acapella to great effect with the staggeringly-great Staves sisters), and Michicant (with a superb sax solo by someone who is not Colin Stetson–qui est-il?).  Great to see the band back together and sounding stellar. Now about that next album….

Oh how we’ve lost some sleep. Last week the still-stalwart singer-songwriter Paul Simon released his 13th solo album entitled Stranger to Stranger and then performed at the Santa Barbara Bowl to an adoring crowd. We love the new album, and our favorite song is the closer Insomniac’s Lullaby. Watch a lyric video for the song below and check out the lyrics at bottom. Master Simon still has a way with words after all these years, but the melody with its Harry-Partchian instrumental nuances is thoroughly entrancing as is Simon’s vocal. Bravo!

Insomniac’s Lullaby:

“Oh Lord, don’t keep me up all night
Side by side with the moon
With its desolate eyes
Miles from the sunrise
The darkness inviting a tune
The Insomniac’s Lullaby

A siren is playing its song in the distance
The melody rattles the old window frame
Gradually, angels reveal their existence
And there’s nothing and no-one to blame

Oh Lord, don’t keep me up all night
Side by side with the moon
Alone in the bed
The season ahead
Is winter that lasts until June
The Insomniac’s Lullaby

Sleep

They say all roads lead to a river, then one day
The river comes up to your door
How will the builder of bridges deliver us all
To the faraway shore?

Oh Lord, don’t keep me up all night
With questions I can’t understand
While I wrestle my fears
The sound in my ears
Is the music that’s sweeping the land
The Insomniac’s Lullaby

Sleep

Soft as a rose, the light from the East
As if all is forgiven
And wolves become sheep
We are who we are
Or we’re not, but at least
We’ll eventually all fall asleep
Eventually all fall asleep”