As we’ve written, 20-year old Julien Baker is a singer-songwriter worth her weight in musical salt and light (though there will be darkness).  Her 2015 album Sprained Ankle has been rightly acclaimed and appeared on many Best Albums of 2015 lists. Today NPR released its Tiny Desk Concert featuring Baker and a new song Funeral Pyre (“Sad Song #11”), which keeps Baker’s winsome, lose-some streak alive.  Check her TDC set and Funeral Pyre out below.  Brava!

Photo at top by Kaitlin Garney

It took a while, but we eventually succumbed to the infectious ear-worm, Tearing Me Up, from Vancouver duo Bob Moses (a.k.a Jimmy Vallance and Tom Howie).  As you can hear below, the song and sound is deeply indebted to the late Bob Welch and his Fleetwood Mac era (easily the best era of that band).  We had to fight off all our vehemently anti-nostalgia ways to let the song in, but Bob Moses co-opted us by adding a compelling new electro-swing to the gestalt to bring it into the 21st century.  The song was one of the highlights on the duo’s critically-acclaimed 2015 debut album Days Gone By.  

Bob Moses recently showed up at KCRW to perform their first US radio session.  Check out their winsome performance below of Tearing Me Up below on KCRW.  They will return to Southern California to play Corpchella and related venues in April (e.g. above–check out the tour and get tix HERE). Afterwards watch the official video for the same song, followed by the analogous Fleetwood Mac song Hypnotized as sung by Bob Welch.

You can listen to Bob Moses’ entire KCRW session HERE.  Time will tell.

As reported in early January, we were seriously wowed by LA indie band Alyeska’s song Medicine River. Now comes Alyeska’s superb follow-up, the track EverGlow, which you can listen to below.  Once again revered producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Phosphorescent, Hop Along, Alvvays, etc.) is at the production helm (as he will be on their debut album to be released this summer).

The Nada Surf is up and building in advance of their sweet-sounding new album You Know Who You Are, which will be released tomorrow on Barsuk/City Slang. On Monday night Nada Surf played new track Cold To See Clear on Seth Meyers (watch below, followed by the song’s official video) and today have released the official video for Rushing off the album.  Just as with Cold To See Clear, Rushing is quintessential Nada Surf:  chiming, jangling pop masterpieces. While there’s nothing new under the Nada Surf sun here, Rushing was co-written with Dan Wilson (Semisonic, Adelle, etc.) and melodically rolls and rushes off of Caws’ tongue.  The video was filmed in in Paris (naturalement, mais porquoi?) and depicts a new love at t-minus spontaneous combustion (thankfully very SFW despite the concept). And apparently the band’s Matthew Caws likes to watch.

Caws in turn e.e. cummingsed the following about the video: “i’ve known sarah and emilie barbault for a long time. i did the music for two short films of theirs, a day of lucidity and pleurer des larmes d’enfance. they shot the video for the minor alps song “waiting for you.” we’d wanted to make another video together for a long time. the song is about the transporting feeling of new love. i wrote it with dan wilson. we were writing together to see what it would be like, not for nada surf necessarily. it was a really wonderful experience. he has such a great musical and lyrical mind. i was originally hoping that this song would be sung by a woman because while there is (more and more) pressure on men to be attractive, there is still clearly more on women, and this song touches on body-consciousness in the chorus, how the right person can make you forget issues of appearance, and more holistically can pull your mind up out of your body and into a plane of one-ness, of spirit. there’s a line about watching the human river go by, when you’re not participating or can’t find your way in. we had a great day taking the subway all over paris and shooting wherever felt good. it was fun to play for the commuters but i’m sure they were wondering why i wasn’t singing a famous song.”

Pick up Nada Surf’s new album HERE.  The band heads out on a worldwide tour starting next Monday and will make their way to California in May.  Check out the dates and get tickets HERE.

We were big fans of Snowblink’s 2012 album Inner Circles. Evidently Snowblink (Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman) met and became fast friends with Lefort-fave (Leslie) Feist at the 2012 Polaris Gala. Fast forward four years and Snowblink and Feist have collaborated on new song How Now, which will be featured on Snowblink’s next album to be released later this Spring on Outside Music.  Check out How Now below, which features Feist on the song’s mantra-like chorus. How Now (lyrics below) bodes incredibly well for the new album from Snowblink. Stay tuned.

HOW NOW

“Look at you, look at you
Look at you, look at you

Ancient-treetop from the neck-up and newborn-calf in the knees
Will the goodness we have witnessed stay good for centuries?

This is so new, how now!
Look at you, look at you

Honey still hot from the tired bees
Sweet sap weeping from our favorite tree
Tell me will the goodness we have witnessed
stay good like this for centuries ?

You and me, let’s get together!
Watch what you call for — all birds have a call
Look at you, look at you
Look at you, look at you”

Last year The Hold Steady’s ever-crafty and compassionate Craig Finn released a stellar, canyon-deep album entitled Faith In The Future that graced many Best Albums of 2015 lists. Finn then followed with his equally-worthy Newmyer’s Roof EP, which will be newly-available this Friday with two added tracks via Partisan Records.  With the album and EP, Finn downshifted and edited musically to focus more on keyboards and other instruments than the Hold Steady’s usual (great) electric guitar attack.  Finn’s storytelling has never been more affecting than in these solo recordings, and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle mien soundtracks the stories perfectly.

Finn recently aired a new song from the EP entitled Screenwriters School, and it has been set on repeat at Chez Lefort, drawing us in with its somber sounds and evocative lyrics. The song tells of an art/screenwriting school experience at which a cop is shot.  As usual, Finn’s lyrics are poetic and haunting. These lines repeatedly scroll through our minds:

“I met this girl and she’s a dancer, she said ‘hit me one more time’.”
“But it’s been heard to discern what’s a dream and and what’s true; there’s an officer down at the screenwriters school.”
“In The Name of the Father, Anatomy of a Murder, Dog Day Afternoon; came here to make movies, not to shoot something blue.”
“My fingernails are falling off, but I keep flipping through.”

And then saxophonist Stuart Bogie perfectly closes with a discordant “taps” to thoughtfully lay the song to rest. Songwriting of the highest caliber right there.

Finn has this to say about the song: “Screenwriters School was a song that we had a lot of fun creating while recording Faith In The Future. It changed a lot while we worked on it, and it ended up somewhat different in tone than rest of the record. When we had to make choices about what would make the record track list, this song got cut because it seemed more like a stand alone track. I really love it and I’m excited people are hearing it now. Stuart Bogie’s sax playing at the end is especially great.”

After listening to Screenwriters School below, check out The New York Times’ capture last month of Finn performing the moving Maggie I’ve Been Searching For Our Son from a recent American Songbook show in NYC. And at bottom check out the new extended EP tracklist.

Newmyer’s Roof EP:

1 “Newmyer’s Roof”
2 “Three Drinks”
3 “They Know Where I Live”
4 “Extras”
5 “Dennis & Billy”6 “Screenwriters School”
6 “Screenwriters School”
7 “Sometimes SheDoesn’t Call Back”

Car Seat Headrest turned a lot of ears with their 2015 album Teens Of Style.  We’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting to hear the next, post-bedroom recording before making our call.  We didn’t have to wait too long. CSH has just released the first song off their impending, full-band second album for Matador entitled Teens Of Denial.  The song is titled Vincent, and indeed its full-band sound and onslaught are simply thrilling. We love in particular the combo of Toledo’s excellent Mark E. Smith-like growl with the hard-charging Nirvana-esque sounds, coupled with the full-stop and horns at 2:10 and after. With its cryptic lyrics (Toledo is apparently a follower of REM’s Michael Stipe, so what do you expect?), it’s helpful that leader Will Toledo has explained that Vincent is: “Both for and about parties.  Fighting to hold one’s place in the crowd, to hold one’s drink. Shouting to be heard, but what’s the point, no one’s saying anything worth listening to. Wanting to leave, not wanting to go home. Music is too loud.” The song’s lyrics are at bottom.

The video below (which, without a drop, left us with a hangover) features a “radio-ready” version of the song, trimmed down from the nearly eight minute version on the album.  Vincent bodes incredibly well for Teens of Denial.

Vincent:

“And half the time I want to go home
And half the time I want to go home

For the past year I’ve been living in a town
That gets a lot of tourists in the summer months
They come and they stay for a couple days
But hey, I’m living here every day

I don’t need the complications
I’m just in it for the beating
It’s almost a point of pride
They say that it doesn’t happen that often
Pure sadism
Pure sadism
Pure sadism
Pure sadism

I find it harder to speak
When someone else is listening

In the back of a medicine cabinet
You can find your life story
And your future in the side effects
I haven’t played guitar in months
My strings all broke

They got a portrait by Van Gogh
On the Wikipedia page
For clinical depression
Well, it helps to describe it
Yeah, it helps to describe it
Yeah, it helps to describe it
Yeah, it helps to describe it
Yeah, it helps to describe it…

I don’t have the strength
(I don’t have the time)
I poured myself a drink
(I told myself a lie)
You know I’ve worried
(You know I’ve tried)
Don’t you know I’m not strong?
(Don’t you know I’m not kind?)
Someone’s getting lucky
(Someone’s calling the cops)
Someone take me away
(Someone make it all stop)
I had a bright tomorrow
(I spent it all today)
Now I am silent at last
Now I have nothing to say

If I’m being honest with myself
I haven’t been honest with myself

It must be hard to speak in a foreign language
Intoxicado
Intoxicado
Intoxicado
Intoxicado
Intoxicado
Intoxicado

I find it easier to sleep
(And half the time I want to go home)
When I’m not holding the noise machine
(And half the time I want to go home)
And half the time, I’m like THIS –
They’ll send in Matt. CAPtain Trash!

I don’t have the strength
(I don’t have the time)
I poured myself a drink
(I told myself a lie)
You know I’ve worried
(You know I’ve tried)
Don’t you know I’m not strong?
(Don’t you know I’m not kind?)
Someone’s getting lucky
(Someone’s calling the cops)
Someone takes me away
(Someone makes it all stop)
I had a bright tomorrow
(I spent it all today)
Now I am silent at last
Now I have nothing to say”

While scanning the radio two weeks ago, we heard what sounded like a new track from the great Bill Withers. This was shocking since Withers retired from music-making in 1985. So when the DJ came on to say the song was not Bill Withers, but instead Andrew Bird’s new song Capsized, we were taken aback. Capsized was the first song released off of the talented Bird’s impending new album, Are You Serious (due out on April 1st, cover above). When we next heard Bird’s Capsized, in all honesty we dismissed it as being too derivative for our nostalgia-averse tastes. But it just goes to show that some music takes more time to set in, because on subsequent listens we have come to respect and like both the song’s music (far more contemporary than Withers) and recording, but also Bird’s superbly-oblique, tumultuous lyrics (see below).   Check out below the studio version and then Bird’s recent performance of the song on Conan.  Afterwards, to hear the Withers’-connection, check out Withers’ not-entirely-dissimilar song, Use Me.

You can pre-order Are You Serious HERE.

Capsized:

Now when you wake up
Night’s falling someone is by your side
Pull it together, darling you’re not alone

But when you break up
Sky’s falling no one is on your side
Spoon dirty laundry, darling you’re all alone

And when you wake up, another sunrise
Another break up, this ship is capsized
And when you wake up, another sunrise
Another break up, this ship is capsized

Just keep your lamp on

Now he’s a dyin’ bed maker
He’s a dyin’ bed maker Jesus gonna make my…
It’s a holy ghost, holy ghost religion
It’s a holy ghost religion Jesus gonna make my…

And when you wake up, another sunrise
Another break up, this ship is capsized
And when you wake up, another sunrise
Another break up, this ship is capsized

And when you wake up
Night’s falling someone is by your side
Pull it together, darling you’re not alone

But when you break up
Sky’s falling no one is on your side
Spoon dirty laundry, darling you’re all alone
Spoon dirty laundry, darling you’re all alone
Spoon dirty laundry, darling you’re all alone

And when you wake up, another sunrise
Another break up, this ship is capsized

Sufjan Stevens’ illuminating (Come On Feel The) Illinoise album celebrated it’s tenth anniversary last year, and to celebrate his label, Asthmatic Kitty is releasing the Illinois: Special 10th Anniversary Blue Marvel Edition, which includes a die-cut, star-shaped 12″ vinyl record based on Chicago’s city flag that includes a stellar demo of song Chicago off the album.  Asthmatic Kitty announced that they are also “selling a slightly less special, misprinted 12-inch version of the song separately. The label on these 2,000 records incorrectly reads 45 RPM. The record plays best at 33 RPM. We made a lot of mistakes.”

Though they are out of pre-orders for the Special Blue Marvel Edition, it will be available worldwide through your favorite local record store.  So go visit your local record store and pick up a star or two. You can listen to the superb Chicago demo below and buy a copy HERE.

Wilco remains one of the best rock bands extant, and continues to release albums chock-full of great songs (last year’s Star Wars appeared on a bountiful number of Best Albums of 2015 lists).  As partial proof of their continued vitality, NPR brought Wilco back for an unprecedented second Tiny Desk Concert.  The band first performed on the Tiny Desk back in 2011 and now in 2016.  Watch below as the band admirably opens with the Dylan-esque The Joke Explained from Star Wars.  They then segued into the still-brilliant Misunderstood from their second album Being There, before closing out with Wilco-set-list stalwarts I’m Always in Love and Shot in the Arm from their brilliant Summerteeth album.  There is beauty within.

On the comedic front, before performing their last song Jeff Tweedy remarks: “OK, we’re going to play one more song, and then you guys need to get back to solving this Trump problem. That’s what you do right?” Please. Someone.

Check out the performance below.

Set List

• “The Joke Explained”
• “Misunderstood”
• “I’m Always In Love”
• “Shot In The Arm”