Spoon is one of our favorite bands of all time. We just can’t shut up about the band and its discography, having devoted entire weeks and countless lobbed-lauds to the band and their crunching, snarling magnificence.

Spoon has now announced a greatest hits compendium (retrospective?) from their entire discography entitled Everything Hits at Once (check the songlist at bottom). It’ll be released on July 26th via Matador Records and will feature 12 of their best tracks. The huge bonus is that the album will also feature the fantastic new song No Bullets Spent. The song is classic Spoon with its cadence and crunchy guitars, and fits perfectly on their music shelf. It’s also culled from recording sessions that will result (hopefully near-term?) in a stellar new Spoon album.

About No Bullets Spent leader Britt Daniel has said: “I solo in it. I do two guitar solos. But don’t worry, they’re 10 seconds or less. The song is sort of a story/parable thing about an oppressive minister and fantasizing about how to get rid of him in the best way.”

Check the fantastic new song out below via its lyric video.

Spoon is also headed out on tour and you can check the dates and get tickets HERE.

Everything Hits at Once Songlist:
01. I Turn My Camera On
02. Do You
03. Don’t You Evah
04. Inside Out
05. The Way We Get By
06. The Underdog
07. Hot Thoughts
08. I Summon You
09. Rent I Pay
10. You Got Yr Cherry Bomb
11. Got Nuffin
12. Everything Hits At Once
13. No Bullets Spent

All the tea in China? A landing on the moon? A free-fall dive over Niagara Falls? All of that and much, much more, to be sung to one-on-one by one of our all-time favorite musical artists, Leslie Feist. Watch below as a lucky lad, who has been plucked from an audience, is blind-folded and led to a seat on stage where Feist sings and loops to him her evocative gem, Baby Be Simple (lyrics at bottom, off of her last album Pleasure). Beauty abounds all around.

The performance is another in a series from La Blogothèque entitled One to One. In these performances a person in the audience is “kidnapped,” then taken to a secret room where a musical artist is waiting to perform a sing in front of the kidnapped person. There have been others in this charming series, including a majestic Heavenly Father and 8 (circle) from Bon Iver and this charmer from Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats. (By the way, Fruit Bats perform this Friday night at Soho in Santa Barbara and you can still get tickets HERE.)

To see another fantastic intimate performance (from 2011) from Feist, go HERE.

Photo at top by Steve Armstrong.

In and out
That’s my way in
I saw an old sign
When my world was way down
Quiet on the streets
So I climbed the stairs
To the rarified air
I’ve been on fire
Made from my thoughts
I thought up my life by
Out then back in
That’s the way to begin
But I had to climb down
Into today
And give up the pain
I held myself up by

Baby, be simple
Baby, be simple
Be simple
Be simple with me

Out, thicker skin
That’s no way to begin
Come with your true arc
To fall all the way down
Like an empire
Into a kingdom of guts
To become a rooftop
I built me from the bedrock
Made me right up
Ignited little tunes
While the wind was still
Trying to find a way to tell you
If I’m not the true arc
Is even there
Or on a pillow of air
Rip me apart by the lore
To become that rooftop
Had to fall all the way down

Baby, be simple
Baby, please be simple
Be simple
Be simple with me

We awoke yesterday to the great news that Bon Iver had released two superb new songs and announced North American tour dates for this fall. We are led to believe the two new songs will be featured on Bon Iver’s next studio album (only their fourth) and feature contributions from Jenn Wassner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes), Bryce Dessner, Moses Sumney, Bruce Hornsby, Elsa Jensen, Psymun, Phil Cook, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and others.

The first song (listen below) is Hey, Ma, a comparatively straightforward (though “looks is deceiving man, don’t underrate no man“) song from Vernon that seems to look back on his youth, his relationship with his mother (and others), and cataclysmic growings-up. The lyric video below ads to the heft with what appear to be old home movies from Vernon. Though Vernon always sells his songs with lyrical crypto-currency, we will forever buy the weight and weft of their worth. ‘Cause the songs always allow light to leak in. “Tall time to call your Ma.” Dang. Do so if you can!

The second song is U (Man Like), which opens with Chance the Rapper undertones and Bruce Hornsby on piano. The song cryptically (natch) explores current social issues (lyrics at bottom), with allusions to the under-wealthed, the opioid crisis (the “domer” and “rot”), homelessness, the over-wealthed, and the potential resulting comeuppance thereto (“Let ’em eat cake!) as projected in Brecht/Weill’s seminal Pirate Jenny (and the Black Freighter). U (Man Like) was arranged by Bryce Dessner and features affecting backing vocals from Jenn Wasner, Moses Sumney and Elsa Jensen. While sounding the warning, the message is delivered in a sweet-sounding package. Keep cueing Justin, compassion’s bound to take at some point!

Bon Iver has also made reference to icommai.com, a nebulous website with hints about the band’s upcoming recording (fourth studio album?).

Check out both lyric videos below. Superb songs yet again from Bon Iver!

As for the fall tour, Wasner will also join Justin Vernon, Sean Carey, Matthew McCaughan, Michael Lewis, and Andrew Fitzpatrick on stage, together with supporting acts Feist, Indigo Girls, Sharon Van Etten, and Yo La Tengo. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 7 at 10:00 AM local time HERE. The dates are listed below. Catch them if you can!

06/04 – Esch-Sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal
06/08 – Aarhus, DK @ Northside Festival
06/12 – Bergen, NO @ Bergenfest
06/14 – Malmo, SE @ Mölleplatsen
06/29 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
07/07 – Montreux, CH @ Montreux Jazz Festival
07/11 – Madrid, ES @ Mad Cool Festival
07/13 – Oeiras, PT @ NOS Alive
07/16 – Lyon, FR @ Les Nuits De Fourvière
07/17 – Verona, IT @ Castello Scaligero, Villafranca di Verona
07/19 – Wiesbaden, DE @ Schlachthof
07/21 – Gräfenhainichen, DE @ Melt Festival
08/31 – Missoula, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater*
09/02 – Vail, CO @ Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater∞
09/03 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre∞
09/04 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center∞
09/06 – George, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre∞
09/07 – Vancouver, BC @ Pacific Coliseum∞
09/10 – Portland, OR @ Theater of the Clouds∞
09/12 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center∞
09/15 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum∞
10/03 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center†
10/04 – Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena†
10/06 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena†
10/08 – Columbus, OH @ Schottenstein Center†
10/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center†
10/11 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center‡
10/15 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden†
10/17 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem†
10/19 – Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena†

*w/ Indigo Girls
∞ w/ Sharon Van Etten
† w/ Feist
‡ w/ Yo La Tengo

U (Man Like) lyrics:

“Mmm, mmm
I will see you off now
Down the back of the ridge
There’s just something that I got to show you
There is domer and there’s rot
And the common case
It ain’t nothing what you say is true

With your long arms, try
And just give some time
Presently, it does include my dues
Ain’t your standard premonitions
All this phallic repetition
Boy, you tell yourself a tale or two

Man like you
Man, improve

Well, I know that we set off for a common place
(And the lines have run too deep)
How much caring is there of some American love
When there’s lovers sleeping in your streets?

So Cerberus Ride!
Bring those dead alive
Like Pirate Jenny on the Black Freighter
It’ll be a long day of fixing
Make something else your mission
Boy, this shit’s so hard to cue

Man like you
How you do?

Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Hey”