Music Recommend

Joshua Radin - Simple Times - Sky, Brand New Day, You Got Growin Up To Do (featuring Patty Griffin)

All in all a really great album, but those three songs I find particularly catchy. I find it hard to write, or read with lyrical music in general, but this album somehow breaks that rule (I wrote a couple of my very final seminary papers to this album). It's got a pleasant, folky, productive feel to it.

Two Star Symphony - Danse Macabre ...

My favorite sermon writing music is a station that I have created on Pandora Radio, seeded with the soundtrack by Clint Mansell from the movie "The Fountain." I get all kinds off eerie orchestral music, and I love it. This song "The 9th Level" popped up sounding like it had come from a Tim Burton film, but it took a lot of digging to find anything about it, or the band. I clicked the "buy it on Amazon" link Amazon didn't have anything by "Two Star Symphony." This of course made them all the more intriguing. After finding the official website/blog I found that this track was written as part of the "sophisticated and dark puppetry art (theater) in the three-part collaboration, Danse Macabre."

The Grates - Teeth Lost, Hearts Won

With bands like Bis and Yeah Yeah Yeahs slowly shifting over to a more electro-disco sound, it's kind of great to find a band that's still rocking that late-90's good-natured-Riot-Grrl rollerskate-punk sound. If Bikini Kill had to play at a high school sock hop, it would sound a lot like this.

The Magnetic Fields - Realism

So, I tend to listen to The Magnetic Fields a whole bunch at a time, and while that's always a great thing, it lets me forget how different in both form and content they are from other bands. They always have this weird folky instrumentation, and on this album in particular, the lyrics are really simple but describe situations that are kind of fascinating and weird, and combination of all of it makes me wistfully remember a fictional time when I was in the circus in spring and all day long clowns were straightforwardly professing either their love or dislike for each other, regardless of whether there happened to be an audience there right then or not.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Tell 'Em What Your Name Is!

Sugarfoot.  Man, it's been a long time since I played air bass guitar this hard.

http://www.last.fm/music/Black%2BJoe%2BLewis%2B%2526%2BThe%2BHoneybears/_/Sugarfoot?autostart

They Might Be Giants - Here Comes Science

I've been really digging "Here Comes Science", TMBG's 4th children's album, the last few weeks.  Their other children's albums were varying degrees of ok.  But this one stands out from the others.  I think I actually like it better than their last "grown-up" album, The Else.

Bela Fleck

I haven't posted anything for a very long time, so I thought I'd throw something different at you.  Bela Fleck, banjo playing like you've never heard before.

http://www.last.fm/music/B%C3%A9la+Fleck+and+the+Flecktones/_/Big+Country?autostart

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul

You can read the convoluted story and listen to the album free and whole here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104129585

The opening track just kills me, and was one of my top songs of the summer, and now that I've bothered to find the above-listed website I can get further into the rest of the album.

fun. - Aim and Ignite

I played this at Katie, and she said, "It this The Format?" Turns out, the lead guy is the same. I'm gonna go ahead and call this genre "Symphonic Pop". I'm a sucker for "Na na na na na na" choruses. And for albums where you probably need a decent pianist onstage.

Fanfarlo - Reservoir

This band is a weird collision of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Devotchka. It totally works.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Vaguely electro-indie band. If you're leaving in the early afternoon for a road-trip towards the West to find high adventure, you should probably be listening to this album all the way through, on repeat.

Say Hi - Oohs and Aahs - Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

The rest of this album is pretty laid-back, and sounds like Pela, which is really pretty admirable. But this track is awesome.

"It's the shape of her legs,
It's the way that she curses."

You've never heard synth-horns used this well.

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

So last night I had the opportunity to see Neko Case as part (all?) of the annual PDHVH Day festivities. I had yet to purchase this album, and had only heard a few of the songs. Still, I found these new tunes to be my favorites in the live show, which is really saying something. Of course, she didn't play anything off Tacoma-themed Furnace Room Lullabies, which I bought in CD form at the show along with Middle Cyclone. Man, this living in the TC thing is going to increase my spending on music by astronomical proportions. Perhaps ironic, as here I can listen to The Current free and easy, yet that seems to be what drives me to pay for great music and shows. Anyway, Neko Case = the loveliest, still.

Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel - Return of the Grievous Angel

Is this the best song I've ever heard? How have I lived til now without knowing this album? Read the damn heartbreaking story ( http://www.avclub.com/articles/week-7-gram-parsons-solo-years-life-hurts,26634/ ), and mourn / celebrate this life.

Gram Parsons - GP

So if by now you're not RSSing Nathan Rabin's Nashville or Bust feature at the AV Club ( http://www.avclub.com/features/nashville-or-bust/ ), I can't imagine what we'd have to talk about. Besides the opening Johnny Cash bits, this week's Merle Haggard was great, but I missed until today his entry on Gram Parsons' solo work. Holy fuck, this is the music my soul has yearned for since I was born. His vocal collaborator is none other than Emmylou Harris, and it turns out this is where she made her mark as the greatest harmony vocalist in the history of pop/rock/country music.

Listen to every musical example on here, and if your work internet blocks these things, burn down your office and live in freedom.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/week-7-gram-parsons-solo-years-life-hurts,26634/

Metric - Fantasies

I can list off a string of previous Metric successes, but Fantasies is the best place to figure it all out.  The first song is perfect. The last song is perfect.  A couple of the middle songs are perfect, too. Electrogirl. Give it a chance. because, wow.

Bob Dylan with Johnny Cash - Nashville Skyline - Girl From the North Country

I've been sniffing around this song for awhile, listening to some Dylan and Cash, even listening regularly to a cover by Conor Oberst, M. Ward, and Jim James. Finally I heard the Dylan / Cash version the day Bill DeVille played Johnny Cash on his Honey Do list on The Current. It fucking blew me away. I knew Oberst and the rest were covering Dylan, and I know everyone does that, but those guys do not in any respect hold a candle to the Dylan / Cash version.

I also notice that Nathan Rabin at the Onion's AV Club is doing a wonderful yearlong country retrospective (Nashville or Bust Week 3; also watch the Joni Mitchell duet), and I watched video of Dylan and Cash doing this song on Cash's TV show. Life-changing.

The Lonely Island - Incredibad

While I'm a little reluctant to post silly albums. . . this is awesome.  Andy Samberg  got a bunch of these songs on Saturday Night Live, and they're pretty amazing. He's got this sense of nerdy-guy-vs.-hiphop, and has some impeccable production.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/56632/saturday-night-live-digital-short-im-on-a-boat#s-p1-st-i1
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1397/saturday-night-live-snl-digital-short-lazy-sunday#s-p1-st-i1
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1404/saturday-night-live-snl-digital-short-natalie-raps#s-p1-st-i1

Bishop Allen

This band is pretty much what indie rock should be. Their first LP, "Charm School", is really great. I saw them at the Entry shortly after they released "The Broken String", which is just pretty much perfect. And on March 10, their new album "Grrr..." comes out, which is maybe even better. 

They're not a big-name band, but they believe in what they're doing, and they do it very, very well.  They've got kind of a higlight reel at http://www.bishopallen.com/ .

The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

Unapologetic old-style rock 'n roll. It's like it's 1994 on a Sunday afternoon in the summer and you're driving around and your radio starts to pick up a station from the future, but it all makes perfect sense and you just keep on driving west.