Tag: Music

Mailbag: He and Him – At the Foot of Mount Tabor

Honestly, is there anything better than getting great, free music in the mail?  Such is the question I’ve been asking all evening, as I sit and listen to He and Him‘s delightful At the Foot of Mount Tabor.  He and Him is a recent collaboration between Douglas Jenkins (Portland Cello Project) and David Shultz (David Shultz and the Skyline).  The music is a rich combination of acoustic guitar, cello, and a warm baritone vocal.  The kind of sound that reminds you of Summer evenings – those simpler times, perhaps out on the porch, with friends and fireflies.  In a nutshell, if you’re feeling a little out of place, it’s almost certainly “just what the doctor ordered.”

Follow me to read more, and hear the music:

Continue reading “Mailbag: He and Him – At the Foot of Mount Tabor”

News: Billy Bragg Covers Joanna Newsom for The Voice Project

We’ve mentioned The Voice Project before, and I’d really suggest you check out our previous post or visit their site.  That said, we’ve shown you videos from Peter Gabriel, Joseph Arthur, and Mike Mills.  In that Mike Mills video, we were treated to a cover of Billy Bragg’s “Sing Their Souls Back Home.”

And now, it’s Bragg’s turn to give us a cover of Joanna Newsom’s “On a Good Day.”  It’s a lovely, intimate version, and I won’t waste any more time by trying to render it in prose.  So, follow me, check it out, and then go visit the fine folks of The Voice Project:

Continue reading “News: Billy Bragg Covers Joanna Newsom for The Voice Project”

Au Revoir Simone: Live on “Dinner with the Band”

We mentioned Dinner with the Band when the Mountain Goats dropped by, and now it’s time to have dinner with the lovely women of Au Revoir Simone.  Last night, after some Korean food, the girls played “Stay Golden,” “Shadows,” “All or Nothing,” and “Anywhere You Looked.” Come check out the first two after the jump:

Continue reading “Au Revoir Simone: Live on “Dinner with the Band””

New Music: School of Seven Bells – “Disconnect from Desire”

Thanks to the fine work of The Yellow Stereo, I’ve been listening to School of Seven Bells’ new album Disconnect from Desire all morning.  The album is available (to stream) for the price of an e-mail address here, and it’s really a lovely, dreamy sort of electro-pop, in the spirit of bands like M83, that just shines out with large, nuanced textures…

Continue reading “New Music: School of Seven Bells – “Disconnect from Desire””

Mailbag: Small Sur – Bare Black EP

The fine folks over at Aural States pointed me towards the warm, folk-tinged music of Small Sur, and I’ve been happily listening to it all evening.  In fact, it’s fair to say that it has become my evening – pushing aside the English Summer to make room for visions of vast, American forests and skies.  All I’m missing, really, is a campfire and the gentle hum of crickets… Here’s how the folks at Aural States describe the band:

Small Sur stands opposed to today’s quantity-over-quality stampede, in which the pursuit of fleeting Internet notoriety threatens creative continuity, growth, and a sustained sonic relationship that honors the listener as well as the creator. The band’s patient, near-obsessive exploration of warmth, depth, and space makes each offering an experience rich in sensory detail—quietly compelling listeners to turn their iPods off shuffle and allow the entire release to envelop them from start to finish. […]

Small Sur is the primary musical alias of Baltimore-based songwriter Bob Keal and current collaborators Austin Stahl and Andy Abelow. The project was born during the spring of 2005 in a friend’s Southern California bedroom, where Keal recorded the self-titled Small Sur EP shortly before relocating to the East Coast…

Continue reading “Mailbag: Small Sur – Bare Black EP”