My birthday might be tomorrow, but NPR already gave me a sweet present… as of right now, you can hear all of Telekinesis‘ forthcoming album – 12 Desperate Straight Lines – over on their site. I urge you to head on over, now!
(And hey, thanks, NPR!)
Tag: Music
Coming Soon: Greater Pacific – “Rainfall” EP
Greater Pacific began when Kyle Kersten and John Phinney, members of Travel By Sea, decided to take their love of pedal steel and country folk into a new realm. On the Rainfall EP, out 1/25 as a six-track, digital release on Yer Bird Records, the pair are joined by fellow Travel By Sea member Mike Cusick on drums, as well as L.A. favorite Angela Correa. The result is a gentle, rolling cascade of expansive, haunting songs that draw us to those places of quiet solitude that mark a Winter’s night, a walk in the Spring rain, or where we go inside when no one else is looking.
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JBM Performs M.Ward’s “Carolina” for The Voice Project
We’ve talked about The Voice Project before, and today they continue their tradition of bringing us excellent, intimate cover performances with JBM (Jesse Marchant) doing a cover of M.Ward’s “Carolina.” It’s a touching performance of a song that Jesse says is “…just a beautiful song,” as well as “one of the favorites of my mother, as well.” Have a listen:
JBM » M. Ward from The Voice Project on Vimeo.
First Listen: The Mountain Goats – “Damn These Vampires”
The Mountain Goats’ new album – All Eternals Deck – is out 3/29 on Merge, but today we’ve got the first taste in “Damn These Vampires.” Merge offers this about the album’s themes and style:
“The songs cluster around themes of hidden things and the dread that hidden things inspire,” says singer/songwriter John Darnielle, “but also the excitement, the attraction, the magnetic draw that scary unknown hidden things exert.” The title refers to an apocryphal tarot deck, though Darnielle explains that the album’s fascination with the occult originates in having run across the word “occult” in a textbook in his nursing-student days. “‘Occult’ just means ‘hidden’ or ‘not immediately obvious’ in medical terminology. There was a nursing directive to be aware of ‘occult blood.’ I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard,” he says.
“Damn These Vampires” has an expansive, epic quality that bodes well for the album as a whole. There’s a precision in that emotional punctuation that Darnielle uses so effectively elsewhere that leaves me with goosebumps… So, grab your headphones, press play, and enjoy.
[audio:https://www.shh-listen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/The-Mountain-Goats-Damn-These-Vampires.mp3|titles=The Mountain Goats – Damn These Vampires] Download
After that, check out this Pitchfork interview with Darnielle about the making of the album, and then head over to Stereogum to grab the new, twitter-released, non-album track “Tyler Lambert’s Grave.” Enjoy!
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…