Cover: Portland Cello Project – All of the Lights

This is the type of musical pairing that was just meant to be. Kanye West‘s most extravagant, orchestral pop song “All of the Lights” played by an actual orchestra, the Portland Cello Project, an amorphous collective signed to Kill Rock Stars that regularly plays with indie artists like The Decemberists and Thao With The Get Down Stay Down. The philharmonic ensemble does a beautiful instrumental rendition of the song, which includes the preceding interlude and symphonious renditions of all the guest verses. Download the track below (it’s a live performance, but still good quality).

MP3 Portland Cello Project – All of the Lights (Live)

*Update: A studio version of this cover has now been made available. Listen below and grab it at iTunes.

Portland Cello Project “All of the Lights” by killrockstars

Watch a video of the performance at NYMag.

The Decemberists: Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!

Over the years, The Decemberists have displayed the kind of consistency that few bands can lay claim to. Both in style and subject, the band never disappointed; you could always count on them for tales of anachronistic adventure set against baroque pop music. In 2009, the band took things to their logical conclusion on The Hazards of Love, creating an album-length narrative following the tale of woman that falls in love with a shapeshifter. While it was certainly ambitious, it ultimately suffered under its own weight. It was the extreme culmination of the band’s aesthetic, one that perhaps needed to be purged in order to move forward.

With The King Is Dead, The Decemberists have made an about-face and created their most immediate and accessible record yet. Sure, it may lack some of the whimsy of previous albums, but it is the sound of a band with a firm grasp on their capabilities. You could call it a retreat, the band is clearly more in touch with their influences here than ever before, but it is also more than that. Rather than just reaching back and pilfering the past for sounds to graft, the band absorbs styles and proves they have the prowess to wholly own them. At no point does anything sound out of place. Even when the band incorporates sounds new to their palette, it never feels forced; it all seems like the next logical step in the growth of The Decemberists.

But while the band is branching out, The King Is Dead finds Meloy eschewing the stories that held his previous songs together for more ambiguous turns of phrase. The star-crossed spies, the vengeful mariners, and the murderous rogues are all absent here. But in stripping the songs of artifice, what we find out is that Meloy is still an excellent songwriter. The topics here have been tackled before, but are now refracted through Meloy’s unique lens. There’s the apocalyptic schadenfreude of “Calamity Song”, the bleak miner’s lament “Rox in the Box”, and the ambivalent longing of “Down By the  Water”. Meloy sketches more, leaving the songs more open to interpretation. There are still nuggets of story here, they are just not as overt now; songs like “June Hymn” come off more like poems than stories.

Despite some bleak patches, like the ones mentioned above, The King Is Dead radiates an overwhelming sense of hope. Songs like the communal rally of “Don’t Carry It All” and the call-to-arms of “This Is Why We Fight” create an atmosphere of optimistic promise; things might not be good right now, but they will get better.

At this point in their career, The Decemberists have nothing to prove. They have been steadily growing with each release over the past 10 years, and their current popularity is a testament to their artistry. Even after a slight stumble like The Hazards of Love, the band remains unfazed, marching ever onward. Hazards will ultimately prove to be a minor slip in the career of a truly great band. The King Is Dead is both a return to form and a step forward. It’s a redemption for a band that needed none.

MP3 The Decemberists – Don’t Carry It All
MP3 The Decemberists – Rox in the Box

Geographer

Although the San Francisco based trio Geographer may have entered a lane that’s moving all too fast, I feel as though the working elements of this band look kindly upon overawing potential–and who could nonchalantly overlook any front man who stands behind the mic as a multi-instrumentalist? Mike Deni’s vocals vicariously hover over layers of strings and synths with a measure of poise that runs afoul to the otherwise mess of pining confessions. Their most recent EP Animal Shapes definitely broke ground in terms in evolving from the complicatedness of genres. In fact, I’m still not even sure what I would call it besides “brilliant” and “ridiculously catchy.” Each track buzzes from one to the next in a slew of 8-bit chords and Brian Ostreicher’s maiden drum kicks, all the while, and in perfect fifths, charming cellist Nathan Blaz bows in-and-out with elegant composition that quintessentially holds every aspect of their sound together.

MP3 Geographer – Kites
MP3 Geographer – Verona

Buy Animal Shapes EP on Tricycle Records.

Video: Metronomy – She Wants

There’s quite a few great music videos that have been released in the last couple days (No Age, Sleigh Bells, Lykke Li, etc) but here’s one that you may not have seen yet. It’s for English electronic band, Metronomy and it’s directed by Jul & Mat (who were also responsible for this We Have Band clip which made by best music videos list last year). The video mixes clever storytelling with some fantastic camera work, lighting, and reverse video effects. Easily one of the most well-crafted music videos I’ve seen in a good while. Watch above, listen below.

The Spoken Word Intro Mix

While perusing through my music library the other day I realized just how many of my favorite songs from the last year included spoken word introductions, either as samples, recordings, or by the artists themselves. This prompted further exploration and after a bit more searching I was able to round up enough spoken intro songs to warrant a mix. Some ground rules: I didn’t include count-ins (one, two, three, FOUR!), studio talk (“Jim, can you record the talk back?”), spoken word portions in the middle of the song (“Graveyard Girl”) or songs that are entirely spoken word (“Century of Elvis”). Anything else was basically fair game. The songs are all available for download below with the corresponding quote (or partial quote) written below it. If you can think of any other spoken word intros, let me know in the comments!

MP3 The Radio Dept. – Heaven’s On Fire
“People see rock n’ roll as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolized by big business, what are the youth to do?”

MP3 Stars – Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
“When there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire.”

MP3 GZA – Liquid Swords
“When I was little, my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in the empire; and he was the Shogun’s decapitator”

MP3 Summer Camp – Round The Moon
“Mac is giving me the evil eye. What?”

MP3 Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around
“And I heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, “Come and see”, and I saw, and behold a white horse”

MP3 Kanye West – Dark Fantasy
“You might think you’ve peeped the scene, you haven’t. The real one’s far too mean. The watered down one, the one you know; was made up centuries ago.”

MP3 The Honeydrips – Fall From A Height
“Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!”

MP3 Evangelicals – Party Crashin’
“Doctor, I don’t think he’s going to make it. What seems to be the problem?”

MP3 Public Enemy – Fight The Power
“Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight!”

MP3 Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect Union
“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some transatlantic giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never!”

MP3 Patrick Wolf – Thickets
“Just a little further up the hill, boy. You’ll be home soon enough.”

MP3 Sir Mix A-Lot – Baby Got Back
“Oh, my, god. Becky, look at her butt.”

MP3 The White Stripes – Little Acorns
“When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us where do we find the will and the courage to continue?”

MP3 Cults -Go Outside
“But to me, death is not a fearful thing. It’s living that’s treacherous.”

MP3 Nada Surf – Popular
“There comes a time in every girl’s life when she’s really got to ask herself: Is she ready to be going steady?”

MP3 Bright Eyes – At The Bottom Of Everything
“So there was this woman and she was on an airplane and she was flying to meet her fiance seaming high above the largest ocean on planet earth.”

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Bonus points to anyone who knows where the above image is from and how it relates!

MP3: Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks

With Foster The People’s self-titled EP having just been released in mid-January, I figured it was time to acknowledge its predecessor single, and overall best song, “Pumped Up Kicks”. The track has the simplicity of Spoon combined with the funkiness of Gorillaz. Throw in a dash of MGMT-like melody and vocals, and you have the recipe for an overall superb song. The most intriguing aspect of the track is easily the vocals, with a chorus that is impossible to resist tapping your foot to and a cool whistle that further emphasizes the lightheartedness of it all. Although the Los Angeles-based band has taken their sweet time producing their debut EP, if “Pumped Up Kicks” is any indication of the caliber of their future work, it will be well worth the wait.

MP3 Pumped Up Kicks

Buy Foster The People EP.

Suicide Demo for Kara Walker

Destroyer‘s Kaputt is the best album I’ve heard so far in 2011 and my favorite of Dan Bejar’s nine albums. Much has been said about the album’s vintage 80’s sound (referred to as soft-rock, smooth jazz, or “ambient disco” depending on who you’re talking to) but I find it amazing how Bejar has taken a style of music that is easily laughed off and used it as the medium for his most ravishing work. The album strikes a balance of being faithful to the sound, with it’s palette of airy synths, extravagant woodwinds and soulful back-up singers, and creating something entirely new that’s both whimsical and stunning. The best example is the lively eight-minute epic, “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”, the centerpiece of the album and the track that fully realizes its’ potential.

The song’s curious title is actually far less sinister then you may expect on first glance. The “Suicide” the title refers to is the 70’s synth-rock band and Kara Walker is a contemporary artist who collaborated with Bejar on the songs’ free association lyrics. The track opens with a hazy blend of synths, guitar, piano and flute that immediately puts you in a trance-like state. Everything about the song evokes a dream from the abstract lyrics to Bejar’s drowsy, sly vocal delivery. The lyrics are nonsensical by nature, yet never boring, feeling like long run-on sentences that are full of interesting words and clever turn of phrases (“Longings, longings, longings, all in vain, just ask Vanity, abandoned out in the rain by the world, another proud American”). Most breathtaking is the song’s instrumental refrain, a captivating display of dueling instrumentation amidst the pulsating electronic backdrop. The horns and woodwinds take turns one-upping each other with their increasingly flamboyant improvisations, resulting in the most arresting musical passage I’ve heard this year. In other words, a masterpiece.

MP3 Destroyer – Suicide Demo For Kara Walker

Purchase Kaputt at Merge Records.

MP3: Little Scream – The Heron & The Fox

Produced by Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire and featuring Aaron Dessner of The National, Little Scream‘s “The Heron & The Fox” already has an edge over other whatever other tracks may be coming your way this week, but even without the famous collaborators, this song is brilliant enough to stand on it’s own. It’s a delightfully simple song, not much more then picked guitar and whispered vocals, but the results are breathtaking. Laurel Sprengelmeyer gives an achingly pretty vocal performance and the multi-tracked acoustic guitar is lush and exquisite. You won’t be able to take this off repeat.

MP3 Little Scream – The Heron & The Fox

Little Scream’s debut LP, The Golden Record will be out April 12th on Secretly Canadian.

Il Gato

When listening to San Francisco indie-baroque-folk band Il Gato, the first thing I noticed was the wide array of instrumentation that hit you like a wave…a big fantastic wave. From the violins and trumpets to the harmonica and piano (not to mention the melodica and guitar) the band is bursting with an exceptionally whimsical culmination of music, producing a sound that is reminiscent of Beirut, with a dash of Modest Mouse thrown in.

The band’s debut album, All These Slippery Things has no shortage of upbeat and catchy tracks. “Burning Red (The Fa Fa Fa Song)” and “In The Lightening It Is Written” both have lively and varying tempos, with the intensity building at all the right moments. The carefree sound of “On Feathers & Arrows (On Burnt Pine)” is the heart of the album, with the horns and guitar working together magically to create an overall merry sound that keeps me anxiously waiting to hear what they bring out next.

MP3 Il Gato – On Feathers & Arrows (On Burnt Pine)
MP3 Il Gato – Burning Red (The Fa Fa Fa Song)

Listen to Il Gato’s debut album, All These Slippery Things at bandcamp.

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Xakota is a new musicforants.com contributor from L.A. via Boston. And yes, that is her real name. Follow Xakota on twitter.

Video: S. Carey – In The Dirt

I was introduced to this song by the fabulous Winter (Or What We Mistake for December) mix that Cheryse posted last Friday. It turns out that the creator of the enchanting tune, S. Carey, is a singer and multi-instrumentalist in Bon Iver who released his solo debut last fall. The stunning track is matched with a video that’s just as lovely. The clip matches the wintry feel of the song depicting a young boy and girl bonding amidst a snowy Swedish backdrop, so basically Let The Right One In without all the vampire stuff. Watch above and download the track below (or better yet, grab all of the Winter mix).

MP3 S. Carey – In The Dirt

S. Carey’s debut album, All We Grow is out on Jagjaguwar Records.