Great Brit-pop masters Belle & Sebastian showed up on CBS This Morning today on their way to Corpchella. Watch below as Stuart Murdoch and crew performed a few great songs (The Party Line, Perfect Couples, and Allie) off their critically-acclaimed new disco-very album Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance. Check ’em out below.

This week has been chockablock with would-be chart-topping releases.  In an ideal world Desaparecidos’ City On a Hill and Pfarmers’ The Ol’ River Gang would be sitting at or near the top of the new-release charts and joining them would be Eskimeaux’ I Admit I’m Scared from new album O.K. on Double Double Whammy. (We would also include Death Cab For Cuties’ Black Sun in the list, but their new release may actually be a chart-topper.)  We trust that in no time, the world will get a clue and our dream-chart will be realized.  Holding breath.

Eskimeaux is the meauxniker [sic] of front-lady Gabrielle (Gabby) Smith, with other Brooklyn-centrics aiding, including Oliver Kalb of Bellows, Felix Walworth of Told Slant, and Jack Greenleaf of Sharpless.  Apparently Smith developed O.K.’s songs on her own over two years.  Smith then brought in Greenleaf to co-produce the album.  Greenleaf also added arrangements and vocals.

We love everything about the song I Admit I’m Scared, which you can listen to below.  Lyrically, Smith hews to the classic confessional-songwriter motif (tip-off: the song’s title).  Musically, the track begins soft and treacly, then builds and adds layers and emphases until the explosion at 3:21 and the resolve.  We imagine that Eskimeaux can blow the roof off of joints with this song.

Speaking of which, Eskimeaux will be touring in support of O.K. (which will be released on May 12th).  You can pre-order the album HERE.

Photo above by Andrew Piccone.

Evidently “armed with a single microphone and an iPhone,” The National’s percussionist Bryan Devendorfer has been gathering material for a while for a new super-band dubbed Pfarmers.  The band features several of our favorites, including the core of Devendorfer, Menomena’s Danny Seim, and horn player David Nelson (Sufjan Stevens, Beirut, St. Vincent/David Byrne).  Pfarmers will later this spring release their debut album, Gunnera, on Jurassic Pop.

About the album, Seim says:  “The record is about a dream I had where I’m reluctantly accepting a fear of drowning by focusing on being reincarnated as a giant Gunnera plant, which thrive on the banks of rivers (specifically the Jordan River, i.e., the Biblical promised land) after I paint myself gold and sink to the bottom like the El Dorado of South American folklore.”  Well OK then.

To get a feel, listen below to a fantastic new track entitled The Ol’ River Gang.  We love everything about this cut:  Seim’s Peter Gabriel-esque vocals and synthesizer-play, Nelson’s layered, contrapuntal horns, and especially Devendorfer’s now-standard drum/percussion extravaganza (Devendorfer has, in our humble opinions, eclipsed the estimable Mick Fleetwood and Glenn Kotche with this and other efforts).  This track also has the added, sizzling guitar-play of Shugo Tokumaru.  It’s all wrapped up in a mesmerizing, multi-layered attack that draws you in and won’t let go.  Repeat number 21 about to begin.  The song bodes incredibly well for the rest of the album, and we can’t wait.

You can pre-order the new album HERE.

Death Cab For Cutie have released a new album entitled Kintsugi.  Coincidentally, Ben Gibbard and crew have appeared on a new NPR Tiny Desk Concert.   Check it out below as Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer and pianist Zac Rae give compellingly rending, stately performances of Black Sun (a great divorce song from the new album), No Room In Frame, Your Heart Is An Empty Room, and Passenger Seat.  It’s lovely indeed.

For those that’ve seen or heard Conor Oberst spit lyrics with vehement venom, today was a dream day.  Whether on his own or as a part of Bright Eyes, Oberst has always slathered the stage in estimable slicks. With some artists, it might seem only a surface show.  But with Oberst it has always felt real and oh so right, harkening back to the gifted gobbing of yore.

Getting back to today, Oberst and his other desperate Desaparecidos have released a phenomenal new song, City On The Hill, and announced they are at long last releasing a new album, Payola, their first in thirteen (13!) years. Longtime Oberst collaborator Mike Mogis produced.

Oh how we love this song.  Check it out below.  While others have inexplicably ascribed certain influences (Rolling Stone says Tommy Tutone. Huh?  Conor, you really need to stop granting those idiots interviews–really? the 867-5309 band??), we give you just one:  Husker Du.  Husker Du and the other Twin City bands laid the foundation and Oberst and crew desperately build on top of it with City On The Hill.  We can’t stop it from repeating.  Please don’t make it stop.

“We could sing together in America”! Let’s do! “We’ll all get rich in America!!!!”  Please, do define rich.

Many have forgotten the depth of artistry on Oberst’s Saddle Creek Records.  Desaparecidos are one of many great, semi-unheralded artists on the label that includes Cursive, The Faint, The Good Life (!!), Now It’s Overhead and Son Ambulance.  Go there now.

Back in 2011, Van Pierszalowski sailed away from his former band, Port O’Brien, into Waters (his new band).  That year we caught Waters vibrant set at Muddy Waters amidst a tidy little crowd in support of their stellar debut album Out In The Light.  As good as the band was that night, we were concerned given the small turnout and their ability to separate themselves from the heightened competition.  Our concern increased as Waters faded a bit into the background.  But amidst this drought they are thankfully back with a new album, entitled What’s Real, which will come out next week.  And they showed last night, in their late-night TV debut on Conan, that they are a power-pop force to be reckoned with.  Watch below as the augmented band delivers a powerful performance of new song Got To My Head.  We love everything about it.

The National have surprised by dropping a previously unheard song, Sunshine On My Back “in celebration of Mistaken For Strangers being available for rental and purchase on VHX.”  The track is apparently a remainder from the sessions that resulted in their Best Album of 2013, Trouble In Mind.  The song could have easily made that album and is quintessential National.  While the band does what it does so well, intricately and deftly supporting, and Sharon Van Etten adds background vocals, Matt Berninger introduces new character “Tina” who “knows the devil” and who “loves the violence of living in the country, she loves that it’s so far from me.”  Not surprisingly, we love everything about the song.

You can pick up Sunshine On My Back HERE.  And listen below.

Alt-J has gone from inventive Brit indie-band performing in clubs to having released a second critically-acclaimed album and selling out large venues.  The band is currently embroiled in a world tour which takes them to the likes of Madison Square Garden and Corpchella, with a diversion to the comparatively-cozy Santa Barbara Bowl on April 14th. Last night the band performed Every Other Freckle, off of their latest album, This Is All Yours.

Check out the performance below. We hope you have your tickets for the show at the Santa Barbara Bowl.  You can check all their dates HERE.

If there are better interpreters of Elliott Smith’s perfect songs than Jessica Lea Mayfield and co-hort Seth Avett, we have not heard them.  Mayfield and Avett have just released a fantastic album homage to Elliott entitled Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith.  We are huge fans of Mayfield, and her world-weary vocals match well the Elliott gestalt and gate.  And the duo’s harmonies are simply luminous (see Baby Britain below).

To get a feel for the fealty and fettle of these fine artists, check out the performances below of Smith’s Between The Bars, Fond Farewell, Baby Britain and Pitseleh on KEXP (which deserves kudos for recently reversing its policy of delaying–for months–their video releases, which had rendered the videos mostly moot).  Between The Bars is particularly worthy.

Oh how we miss Elliott.  It’s a long way from that spellbinding night at the Yucatan circa 1998 and now, and we regret deeply that he’s not here to keep venting life’s spleen and bending its spine.  Thankfully we have Mayfield and Avett to help recover and assuage the loss.  Check ’em out below.