Category: News

First Listen: R.E.M. – “Mine Smell Like Honey”

Out today is R.E.M.’s first official single from Collapse Into Now (Out March 8th): “Mine Smell Like Honey.”  And longtime fans will be happy to hear that it’s got all those vintage things we’ve come to see in the post-Accelerate Renaissance: a hook-driven chorus with Mike Mills’ soaring voice, guitars that… jangle (seriously, can we find another word for Peter Buck’s style), and a confidence that shines through.  Yet, unlike the bombast of Accelerate, this track has a more relaxed, lived-in kind of feel… it’s the sound of a band playing for the sake of it, and with nothing to prove.  In short, it’s everything that made R.E.M. great in the first place.

And here it is… If you like it, consider picking it up on iTunes, Amazon, or wherever digital music is sold…

Iron & Wine Visits Daytrotter

This week, Daytrotter released a lovely session with Iron & Wine, which you can listen to as well as watch.  Of the music, they write:

He takes the fog right out of us, counteracts our insecurities with the beautifully hushed uncertainty. It’s as if he has a way of gathering up all of the bumps in the night, all of the fire light and all of the tender touches of a young mother or father, of a dying grandmother or grandfather and bringing them all into the picture to put us at ease. It’s as if all of the things that we’ve ever feared in our lives – bringing life into the world, growing older and passing out of the world we lucked into, and all of the craziness in the whirlwind in between – are summed up in Iron & Wine songs, distilled into his leafy version of silence and love and shown to us in a way that makes them more enchanting than scary.

How could you not use a little more of that in your day?  So, have a listen – and then watch the session!

First Listen: Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (Live)

One of the albums I’m most looking forward to this month – Iron & Wine’s Kiss Each Other Clean – comes out on January 25th.  But thanks to the excellent people over at NPR and WNYC, we can bide the time with a bit more cheer… as of right now, you can see the band perform the entire album live!  Why wait?  Head on over and check it out!

First Listen: R.E.M. – “Oh My Heart”

Another great one from NPR today, as the track “Oh My Heart” from R.E.M.’s forthcoming Collapse Into Now has been released for our listening pleasure.  The song, which features a nice callback to Accelerate‘s “Houston” (“The storm didn’t kill me… the government changed.”) is a lovely continuance of the energy and focus of that earlier record into a more acoustic setting.

Michael Stipe told NPR this about the song:

It’s a very quiet and very meditative song dedicated to New Orleans — about New Orleans. Jacknife [Lee] is great as a producer, because he saw that we were struggling with what is a very quiet song. We were standing really far away from each other in the room, and it was hard not only to actually physically hear each other, but it felt dispersed. He brought us into the middle, and instantly, of course, the song worked.

Head on over to NPR and check it out!

First Listen: The Decemberists – The King is Dead

One of the albums I’m most looking forward to in 2011 – The Decemberists’ The King is Dead – comes out on January 18th.  But thanks to NPR’s First Listen series, you can now hear the whole thing in its entirety for free on their site.  The album will be available until Jan. 18th, and I heartily recommend you check it out.

Go here to hear The King is Dead, now!