New Los Campesinos! single/video – International Tweexcore Underground

While Los Campesinos! are prepping their debut album on Arts and Crafts, the twee poppers have let another single slip out through their myspace page and exceedingly fun music video. The song’s conspicuous title and mock-snobbish pokes at Henry Rollins and Sarah Records show that haven’t strayed from their stated goal of “trying to find the perfect match between pretentions and pop”.

They also are continuing to make great music, and this song ranks up with You!Me!Dancing! (MP3) as my favorite from the band. This song showcases all the eccentric qualities of the band that reminds me of Architecture in Helsinki before they got so serious. The bands size allows them to create a huge wall of sound, a effect that’s improved by looping background vocals and handclaps over the music. Also, you have to give Los Campesinos! credit for bringing glockenspiel back. Download the song and watch the video below.

MP3 Internation Tweexcore Underground

Pygmalion Friday Report: Andrew Bird, Marla Hansen, Baby Teeth

I wasn’t sure if I was going to attend Pygmalion Fest on Friday, since the main attraction was Andrew Bird, who I had seen no less than 6 days before his Pygmalion performance at a little event known as Austin City Limits (maybe you’ve heard of it). After reading Matt’s recent review of an Andrew Bird solo show and finding out that this performance at the Krannert Theatre would be a similar affair, I decided that I needed to make the trip to Urbana.

When it was all said and done, I would probably agree with Matt in saying this solo tour brought out the best performance of Andrew Bird. I arrived to the packed theater just as Bird was starting his first song “Sovay”, and he continued to play through songs that he rarely does live, “Action/Adventure”, “Why?” and “Opposite Day” (which was accompanied by a wonderful black & white video).

MP3 Andrew Bird – Action/Adventure

The quirks of each song were amplified by the performance with Bird improving vocal parts and drawing out violin solos much further than a studio recording would allow. The entire night Bird talked and joked with the crowd, obviously feeling at home with the more laid-back and intimate atmosphere of the night. He even took the chance to play a couple of new songs which featured prominent violin (perhaps proof that Armchair Apocrypha‘s focus on guitar-oriented songs was just a one-album experiment) and a cover of The Handsome Family.

Andrew Bird ended with a number of crowd favorites, “Plasticities”, “Skin, Is My”, and “Scythian Empires” were all played and the crowd rewarded the fantastic performance with a noticeably lengthy standing ovation. After the show was over, I walked over to the bar to catch Marla Hansen perform songs from her debut EP, The Wedding, to a overly noisy audience. Eventually, the crowd quieted a bit to hear her charming folk songs played elegantly on a viola. Marla’s an artist I’m nearly positive I’ll be hearing about a lot in the future, so it was fun to see her this early in her career.

MP3 Marla Hansen – Shuffle Your Feet

I stumbled into the Canopy Club to see who was playing before I headed out for the night, and I caught a few songs by indie pop band, Baby Teeth. I was surprised that I’ve never heard of this Chicago band before, since their music was right up my alley. The songs had big hooks and lots of keyboard jamming and the band was very funny live. Unfortunately, I was too tired to remember anything they said, but I know I laughed alot and when I looked up the band later the music was just as enjoyable. They even recorded a Daytrotter Session that I listened to (link here). Since it was pushing midnight at this point, and I was extremely worn out I decided to skip Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s. I’ve seen them twice before though, and I’m sure they were just as good as those previous times. Another great night of music courtesy of Pygmalion Fest comes to a close…

MP3 Baby Teeth – The Simp

Iron & Wine "The Shepherd's Dog" Track-By-Track Review

Ever since I heard The Shepherd’s Dog, Sam Beam’s latest piece de resistance, early this summer, I’ve been fully entranced by the album. If you’ve read anything about the record, you know that it’s a big step up from the lo-fi whisper folk that you probably would expect from Iron & Wine. Instead it’s overflowing with dense instrumentation that fills the songs but never take away from the absolute beauty of the album.

Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car – Download MP3

The album begins, perhaps teasingly, with a lo-fi guitar heard faintly in the background. It’s almost immediately traded for a rich guitar riff that’s matched with piano. The song does well to showcase the new Iron & Wine sound that is featured throughout the album. During the first verse, flourishes of piano, violin, and backwards guitars bounce in and out of the music, while Sam Beam shows off his newfound liking for layering his vocals many times over. We’re off to a wonderful start to the album.

White Tooth Man

“White Tooth Man” gives us our first idea of how much world music has influenced Iron & Wine (it also is what could have sparked recent John Lennon comparisons). The sitar is the primary instrument in the song and the verses feature a call-and-response method of layering Beam’s vocals. The track builds towards a booming, feedback-heavy climax.

Lovesong of the Buzzard

This song sparks a return to the neo-folk that old-time Iron & Wine fans will appreciate, but also has a genuine alt-country atmosphere that I’m sure any Wilco fan would have no problem getting into (interesting note: Wilco’s former keyboardist is playing with the band now). The lyrics are some of the most colorful on the album contributing to the laid-back, mid-summer nights feel to the song. My favorite aspect of the song is the organ, which jumps back in forth across the melody. A very picturesque tune and one of the best on the album.

Carousel

“Lovesong”s extended outro leads perfectly into the understated beauty of “Carousel”. Beam’s wavering voice almost gives the song a spacey feel, like an early Bowie folk song. The acoustic guitar on the track is toned perfectly to fit the mood, sounding clear and succinct with every note plucked. Light piano and bells add to the song, but the yearning falsetto is clearly the star here.

House By The Sea

This track is Iron & Wine at it’s most creative. Much has been said of the song’s densely packed nature, the West African percussive influences, and the almost strange use of instrumentation like the saxophone at the song’s intro. The song does have some amazing rhythmic qualities which are exhibited most at the end where electronic looping plays a large a roll. It’s a very experimental turn for the band, but is so well executed that even the most conservative listener can’t help but love it.

Innocent Bones

Innocent Bones is a laid-back and very pleasant sounding track, but I find it to be more simple than most on the album. A well-placed banjo solo and some pretty harmonizing vocals, save it from being a skip-over track, and while it’s not a bad song by any means, I still find it one of the least interesting on the album.

Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)

On this song from which the album takes it’s name, Sam Beam takes yet another musical turn that no one could have seen coming and pulls it off fantastically. Dub Reggae in this case, and while not a genre you would imagine mixing well with Iron & Wine’s sound pallette, Beam does it so delicately that it’s easy to not hear the influences on first listen. The melody on this song floats above the tropical groove very naturally for the first half and the more drawn-out outro of the song gives all the interacting loops and guitar part room to breathe.

Resurrection Fern

This song would have fit beautifully on Our Endless Numbered Days, and if was on that album, it would have easily been my favorite track. “Resurrection Fern” is a very hard track to describe, but it just hits you in the right place. When the end of the verse comes and the melody changes oh so slightly during the phrase “we’ll undress beside the ashes of a fire”, that’s an amazing moment. The song is in a very similar vein as “The Trapeze Swinger”, which if you’re familiar, is one of the greatest songs ever recorded. This song alone would be enough reason to buy The Shepherd’s Dog.

Boy With A Coin – Download MP3

The pace quickens on “Boy With A Coin”, which is the official first single for the album. The lively guitar and ever-changing handclaps make this song come alive and give it an immediate accessiblity and catchiness that I wouldn’t attribute to most Iron & Wine songs. It’s a definitely a highlight of the album, and it’s the song you’ll most likely be humming after it’s over.

The Devil Never Sleeps

In continuation with the upbeat pace of the last song, “The Devil Never Sleeps” is full of a rambuctious and spirited instrumentation. A rolling, ragtime style piano caries the melody, while violin and electric guitar add it’s twists and turns to the song, and Beam sings about how there’s nothing on the radio. Another stand-out track on the album

Peace Beneath the City

There’s a spooky nature to this track, due to the ominous sounds during the intro and Middle-Eastern atmosphere. It’s probably my least favorite of the genre experiments on the album, although there is some interesting slide guitar that I like.

Flightless Bird, American Mouth

Iron & Wine picked the absolute perfect song to the end the album with, an epic ballad that’s as gorgeous as anything the band’s ever created. I had the pleasure of seeing the song performed in concert which I at the time described as “one of the most transcendent moments I’ve ever had a concert.” Beam’s voice is perfect on this song, almost angelic. The song starts very sparse and as the song builds the vocals and instruments become more and more impassioned and poignant. The powerful ending of the song is one of the greatest things I’ve heard this year. My favorite song on this album is constantly changing, but in the end this song will probably win out. A perfect ending to an unbelievably great album.

Pygmalion Wednesday Report: Okkervil River, Damien Jurado, Catfish Haven, Early Day Miners

Almost immediately after coming back from Austin City Limits, I found myself completely absorbed in another music festival (this one being much less costly and much more local than the previous). The opening night of the festival included a number of great Secretly Canadian bands: Early Day Miners, Catfish Haven, Damien Jurado, but the main attraction was Okkervil River. The Stage Names is currently one of my favorite albums of the year, and this being my first time seeing the band live, in person, I knew I was in for a treat. Before I get to that here’s a recap of the other bands I saw.

I got to see a little bit of the Early Day Miners when I arrived and I wished I could catch more of their set. The band had a very washy, textured guitar sound that filled every corner of the room. The loudness of the music would make it difficult to classify as mellow, but the music was very atmospheric in nature, slowly revealing itself and building towards a climax. Good stuff!

MP3 Return of the Native

Interestingly enough, I met the bass player for Catfish Haven at an after-party during Austin City Limits, and being completely new to the band I was eager to find out what they sounded like. It turns out they’re all about the southern rock/gospel/soul music. I can’t say those are favorite types of music to listen to, but the groovy bass-driven sound had a sudden appeal to me in the dimly-lit live setting.

MP3 Crazy For Leaving

Damien Jurado was the first artist playing that I had listened to before. The slow acoustic material that he played didn’t quite fit though, with the constantly growing crowd who were there to hear rock songs. He played a short set without saying anything except “thanks” before leaving. His songs are very well-crafted and dense on record, but it just didn’t work in this setting.

MP3 Denton, Tx.

It well past midnight by the time Okkervil River took the stage, but the audience didn’t seem to mind as we were all excited to see what Will Sheff had to offer us. He came out to much fanfare, and immediately announced that nearly all of the band had thrown up in the last hour after being infected with a rapidily spreading stomach virus. Being under the weather didn’t seem to deter the band’s energy one bit though, in fact they thrived on it, leaving everything out on the stage.

The whole night is a blur in my mind due mostly in part to my tiredness so I won’t try to recall the setlist, but I remember the band played through most of The Stage Names as well as some of the more upbeat cuts from Black Sheep Boy and a few older favorites like “Red” and “Westfall”. Each band member was completely on, immersing themselves in the music with Will Sheff as a ringleader of sorts for the troup. In contrast with some of the dark lyrical themes of the songs, the band was all smiles and played off each other the entire night. It was especially awesome to see Johnathon Meinsburg who I interviewed when he was last in town, lend his many skills to the band (his keyboard playing and background vocals are essential to the band’s sound). The first set ended on an very high note with “For Real”, but nothing could top the four-song encore.

After the break, Will Sheff came out solo for a minimal-yet-striking performance of “Title Track” that surpassed the studio version in every way. He then went on to play “President’s Dead” much to my delight and during the “three shots to the head” climax was joined by the rest of the band. One great moment led to the next as the band went into “John Allyn Smith Sails”, igniting an all crowd sing-a-long to Sloop John B. While this would have served as a perfect climax, the band upped themselves again with BSB Appendix closer “Last Love Song for Now”. Seeing Okkervil River is seeing a band in it’s prime. I highly suggest making it to one of their shows if you haven’t before.

MP3 For Real
MP3 Westfall

It's official: LFO is slightly more annoying than O-Town

For reasons plentiful and diverse, it has been officially decided that LFO takes the crown for the boy-band edition of Who’s Worse. The Lyte Funky Ones picked up 56% of the vote while O-Town grabbed 44%. There was less voter turnout for LFO vs. O-Town than the previous Who’s Worse contests, which I’ll stack up to the pure fact that boy bands really just make fun of themselves and it’s a bit more satisfying to take down bands like Creed, Staind, and Hoobastank (our previous three winners). So when next time rolls around, who do you want to see?

MP3 LFO – Summertime Girls

Here’s some snippets of the best comments:

-“LFO is far worse, but I’m almost tempted to vote for O-Town because they actually seemed to try. At least LFO put so little effort into their music that it can come across as comedic. O-Town actually tried to suck.”

-“Trying to justify one of these ‘bands’ as being better than the other to my brain would be akin to opening the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders and not covering my eyes. For my sanity, I’m going to have to cop out and go with LFO-Town.”

-“I love Kevin Bacon but hate footloose?? Blasphemy.”

– “O-Town is the worse of the two, because it took five of them to sound just as bad as the three guys in LFO.”

-“These are actually bands?? I always thought they were both just ads for some sort of shitty baggy jeans.”

Bella

So far Vancouver’s Mint Records is 3 out of 3 for the albums they’ve sent me. The Awkward Stage’s Heaven is for Easy Girls was one of my favorite discoveries last year, Immaculate Machine’s Fables is still getting constant play on my iPod, and now Bella’s sparkly dream-pop album, No One Will Know.

The band reminds me very much of a Canadien Headlights, which as you might know are favorite of mine (I actually just saw them for the fifth time Saturday). Both band claim have an expertise in mixing pop synths with buzzy guitars, as well as making choruses that are catchy without being forceful. Their first single is power-pop anthem “Give it a Night” and I’d also recommend “Don’t Sleep Alone”, an immediately danceable album track with some killer guitar.

MP3 Give It A Night
MP3 Don’t Sleep Alone

Buy No One Will Know from Mint Records

Wilco – Live @ Austin City Limits

I’ve got one last ACL review to leave you with before I get to my regularly scheduled blogging, and it’s from one of the best acts of the weekend (second only to Muse). It was my first time seeing Wilco so I made sure I was front and center. It was a good feeling to have, knowing that if I yelled out anything, Tweedy and the gang would be easily able to hear me.

The band played a very varied set, picking most of their tracks from Sky Blue Sky and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and then throwing in a number of tracks from earlier albums, Being There and A.M. (“Handshake Drugs” was the only Ghost is Born song that got the live treatment). The band made it clear early how much they loved playing in Austin from the beginning, and then treated us to killer performances of “Side With The Seeds” and “A Shot in the Arm”. Nels guitar work was extraordinary on both of these songs. The speed that his hand moves around the guitar is unmatched by any other artist I’ve seen and the intensity of how he threw the guitar around to create feedback during “Shot” was pretty unbelievable.

“I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” was next which was great, but the two tracks they led into were undeniably the best of the set. “Impossible Germany” has always been my favorite track on Sky Blue Sky but nothing on record can match how fantastic the song sounds live. The song features Nels, Tweedy, and Pat all on electric guitar and it showcased their ability to each play very different parts perfectly in sync while still improvising. The extended guitar solo at the end of the song will be stuck in my brain for a long time. The next song, “Via Chicago” was just as good. In the middle of the seemingly quiet alt-country ballad, Glen Kotche erratically begins pounding the crap out of his drums, while the rest of the band doesn’t miss a beat. Somehow it works perfectly with the song, and the moment illicited the biggest crowd response of the show.

The second half of Wilco’s set wasn’t as memorable for me since it featured mainly older songs I’m not as familiar with (I need to give Being There a full listen sometime), but it did feature two of my favorite Yankee Hotel tracks, “I’m The Man Who Loves You” and the audience sing-a-long favorite, “Jesus Etc”. Overall, an amazing and memorable show, my only regret being that I didn’t get to hear “Heavy Metal Drummer” or “At Least That’s What You Said”. Wilco also signified the close of the festival for me, as I only stuck around Bob Dylan long enough for me to be able to say “Hey, I’ve seen Bob Dylan”. In closing, Austin City Limits was one of the best weekends I’ve ever experienced, and easily the best festival I’ve ever been to. I hope to be back many times.

MP3 Impossible Germany
MP3 Via Chicago (Kicking Television version)

Bloc Party – Live @ Austin City Limits

Everyone around me was really interested in how Bloc Party would sound live, and in the hour we spent waiting for them to start I was continuously being asked if I had seen them before. Like them though, this was my first experience with the band live and although it was great to finally see them, they didn’t quite live up to my high hopes. Granted, I was only able to catch half their set and the sound didn’t seem to be mixed as well as it could have, so I’m still giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Of the songs I did see, the ones that stood out were “Banquet”, “Waiting for the 7.18” and “This Modern Love” (my current favorite Bloc Party song). The band were having alot of fun on stage and you could tell that they loved playing in front of so many people. The multi-colored Yoshi’s around the stage were a unique touch that I enjoyed, and if I would have stayed a bit longer than I’m sure I would have had a better overall impression (they played “Like Eating Glass” and “So Here We Are” right after I left). Getting a great spot for Wilco was my priority though at that point. Hopefully, I can catch a full set by the band sometime when I can give them my full attention.

MP3 This Modern Love

Ben Kweller – Live @ Austin City Limits

I was finally able to break myself away from the amazing The National set to find my friends in the Ben Kweller crowd. He came out shortly after I arrived, full of enthusiasm as he announcing to the crowd, “No blood in this nose, Austin”. He jumped into some of his bounciest guitar jams from each of his three albums, “Commerce TX”, “I Need You Back” and “I Don’t Know Why”. He continued his exuberant crowd banter and recalling last year’s ACL nosebleed event during the middle part of the set, which included a couple new songs.

One song I wasn’t familiar with before the day but I really enjoyed was “In Other Words”, a soothing piano ballad that ends with an extremely catchy, upbeat refrain. I made a point to download the song right when I got home, and I would recommend you do so also (link below). My two favorite songs from Kweller’s latest, self-titled album were also played, “Sundress” and “Penny on a Train Track”, the latter closing out the set with an all-crowd sing-a-long. Very enjoyable performance.

MP3 In Other Words
MP3 Penny on a Train Track

The National – Live @ Austin City Limits

Due to some extreme Saturday after-partying (basically what you’d expect when you mix a ton of music bloggers + great bands + alcohol), I woke up pretty late on Sunday. Luckily though, me and my friends made it to the festival in time to catch The National. I’d seen the band before at last year’s Pitchfork Fest, but I was mostly unfamiliar with the band at that time and I’ve become a pretty huge fan since (I would list Boxer and Alligator as two of my favorite albums of the last five years). The band is so captivating and watchable live, I can imagine it’s one of those bands that I could watch them play anything for any amount of time. Even the early afternoon heat seemed bearable while The National were playing.

From the new album I saw the band play “Squalor Victoria” “Brainy” “Mistaken For Strangers” “Slow Show” and “Apartment Story”. The live versions of the songs gave me a new appreciation for each track. The best moments though, were the songs from Alligator. “Baby, We’ll Be Fine” and “All The Wine” were both beautiful and transcendent (the latter of them gave me goosebumps). “Abel” on the other hand, was a complete rush, and Matt utilized the entire stage during the show (including that lower part of the stage where the photographers stand). If you haven’t seen this band live, you’ll want to change that very soon.

MP3 Abel
MP3 Mistaken For Strangers