Philip Selway - Running Blind EP

1 Running Blind
2 All In All
3 Every Spit And Cough
4 What Goes Around

Radiohead fans know that drummer Philip Selway is not the first member of the band to go solo. But he does seem to be the first member of the band to write and record songs that sound so very little like his day job. When singer Thom Yorke and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood each made recent solo projects, their respective sounds did not catch anyone off guard. Yorke’s album, The Eraser, recorded with producer Nigel Godrich, did not fall far from the Radiohead tree at all. There were differences, yes, but they were outnumbered by the similarities. Greenwood’s soundtrack work and avant-garde classical pieces were pretty out there, but he was also responsible for many of the alien sounds on OK Computer and Kid A.

Selway’s slow, hushed British folk, on the other hand, didn’t sound like it came from neither a Radiohead member nor a drummer. This makes it sound like he was courting disaster, but Selway’s debut album Familial was just good enough to reward the curious while leaving room for him to grow as a singer and a songwriter. Four reheated outtakes from the album now comprise Running Blind EP. As his label puts it, “he kept back a handful that he felt worked best as a separate piece of work.” But realistically speaking, they just sound like they weren’t good enough.

One thing that works against the EP is how homogenized it is. Despite the fact that Selway is the drummer for Radiohead, his songs are not rhythmically driven. Sticking to nylon or steel string guitar, his songs revolve around his vocal melodies. Selway has a certain way of spinning melody that can be frustratingly subtle. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was as if no one working on this recording noticed that all four songs had the same tempo and dynamics. They are all medium-slow and quiet. One of the things that made Familial better than this EP is that it had a little more variety. And not variety in the sense of loud and fast pitted against ballads, but variety in the details. It was the little things that counted. The brightening of a high-end tone, the addition of one small instrument to the mix, and the small shifts in pace helped differentiate the songs. All four songs on Running Blind EP are entirely too like-minded, exposing more weaknesses than necessary.

I also believe that Selway is a better singer than he leads on. He can carry a tune just fine and was good enough to sing on the same CD with Neil Finn and Jeff Tweedy, so that’s certainly not the problem. It’s just that his harsh afraid-of-waking-the-baby whisper begs for a change-up. Standing back and looking at his lyrics, this approach may not be altogether unwise. He seems preoccupied with troubled people. Shortly after the release of Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, I read an article about Selway’s volunteer work with psychiatric hot lines. It all started by trying to get a girl’s attention, but he found that sacrificing his time to talk people down from their ledges gave him special meaning. “I’ve been going ‘round in circles / trying to figure you out”, goes the opening line on “What Goes Around”. The title track admits to feelings of fear while “All In All” acknowledges how good fortune often comes in smaller packages than we"d like. If anything sounds like a breakdown, it’s the moderately pounding “Spit and Cough”: “I believe you, now please go away”.

Phil Selway’s talents as a singer and songwriter warrant attention. Running Blind EP, however, does not. As the drummer moves on to bigger things, this 15 minute collection will hardly be a footnote in his history...www.popmatters.com

Jens Lekman - An Argument with Myself EP

1. An Argument With Myself
2. Waiting for Kirsten
3. A Promise
4. New Directions
5. So This Guy At My Office

The first of two forthcoming Jens Lekman releases he promised earlier in the year will arrive on September 20 via Secretly Canadian: An Argument With Myself, a 5-track EP teased as “a little taste of what’s not to come,” featuring cuts that “just didn’t seem to fit the mood of the record” he is working on. Both the title track and “Waiting for Kirsten” — his tune about semi-stalking actress/Lekman fan Kirsten Dunst when she visited Sweden — are live favorites we’ve shared previously at the links above. Check out the tracklist alongside another live take on “Waiting for Kirsten” below and read more about Lekman’s adventures over the past year in this interview that accompanied today’s announcement...www.twentyfourbit.com

Feist - Metal

01. The Bad in Each Other
02. Graveyard
03. Caught a Long Wind
04. How Come You Never Go There
05. A Commotion
06. Bittersweet Melodies
07. Anti-Pioneer
08. The Undiscovered First
09. Cicadas and Gulls
10. Woe Be
11. Comfort Me
12. Get It Wrong Get It Right

Anyone who didn't buy Feist's breakthrough album, 2007's The Reminder, might be forgiven for mistaking this Canadian chanteuse for a winsome girl touting iPod nanos. Those who did buy it have been waiting four long years for a follow-up. Announced through a series of nicely shot online teasers , Metals finds Feist embracing her inner geologist, mining the elements – fractured relationships, hard-won wisdom, the natural landscape – for their intrinsic worth. Standouts include "Undiscovered First", which reveals a thus-far-hidden kinship with PJ Harvey, and "Comfort Me", a stomp with a lyrical sting in its tail. Other fairy godmothers including Kate Bush and Carole King hover over the track-listing, but never in a heavy-handed way – Feist remains her own woman. A deceptively easy-going single, "How Come You Never Go There", is due on 25 September, while Feist's first UK gig in three years, at London's Palladium on 17 October, sold out in just three hours.

She says: "There's the way you feel versus the way you wish you felt. The raw material and what our minds turn it into are completely different states."...www.guardian.co.uk

Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know

01. The Muse
02. I Was Just A Card
03. Don’t Ask Me Why
04. Salinas
05. The Beast
06. Night After Night
07. My Friends
08. Rest In the Bed
09. Sophia
10. All My Rage

Laura Marling proved that her startling debut, Alas I Cannot Swim, was not just a precocious one-off when she followed it with last year's I Speak Because I Can. Both were nominated for the Mercury prize. Now 21, she's about to put out a third album that will confirm she's the sort of artist who only gets better with age. The album has Marling at her warmest and most playful yet, affecting a debonair, half-spoken style over the jazzy piano of "The Muse" or pulling off a mid-song switch to country hoedown on single "Sophia". Not a feat for the faint-hearted, but that's never been a charge you could level at Marling. This could just be a Mercury nomination hat-trick in the making.

She says: "The songs I was writing were a lot more rhythmic and a bit louder. [The material] needed a band feel and I've got a phenomenal drummer who shares my love of punk."...www.guardian.co.uk

Säkert - På Engelska

01. November
02. Honey
03. Fredrik
04. Can I
05. The Lakes We Skate On
06. The Flu
07. Dancing, Though
08. You'll Be On Your Own
09. It's Going To Lead Up To Something Bad
10. Weak Is The Flesh
11. Quiet

In 2010, we released "Facit", our second album with my band Sakert (Sakert is a band where I've sung in Swedish. I also have a band where I sing in English - Hello Saferide.) We are lucky enough to have super sweet listeners in different countries and some of them wrote me, saying they were google translating "Facit and babelfishing it and asking their grandfather with Norwegian ancestors for translation, and it all turned out very weird

"How sad", I thought, "that I can't just translate the songs Which is when I thought: "Um, why don't I just translate the songs "What if", I thought, "I translate them almost word by word, and it nearly turns into a third language, English words used in a Swedish way So I did, and we decided to record the songs
and turn them into an album. During the process, the translated songs pretty much felt like new to us. Everything seemed different when sung in another language, and
producer/guitar player Henrik Oja found some new sounds for them

About the album, then. Well, "Pa Engelska mostly contains songs from "Facit", but it
also features two tunes from our first album, Skert. The songs are about working too hard, loving too much, talking too little, growing up too slow in the northern parts of Sweden,and about fearing your country's politics in going somewhere where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They're about crying at a wedding. They feature a lot of sad guitars and folk-ish violins. Every time I go abroad I
meet someone who asks me about the famous Scandinavian melancholia and I guess this
album pretty much embraces that. The songs are simple and sad. In a fun way, hopefully

Sakert is a project based in Umea, Sweden. On tour and on album, we have been: Annika Norlin, Henrik Oja, Daniel Berglund, Mats Hammarstrom, Jakob Nystrom, Lovisa Nystrom, Frida Johansson, and some other people who occasionally help out

We've been nominated to a lot of awards, like the Swedish Grammys, and won a few. We sold a lot of albums and we always try to make people cry when we play. Um, that's about it...www.itsatrap.com

Nick Diamonds - I Am an Attic

01 Attic
02 Gone Bananas
03 Used to Be Funny
04 Word Was Swords
05 Don't Do Us Any Favours
06 In Dust We Trust
07 The Vaccine
08 You Must Be Choking
09 (untitled instrumental)
10 Dream, Dream, Dream
11 Fade Out

Nick Diamonds never takes a break. He started out fronting the psych-pop the Unicorns, moved on to the more ambitious and less combustible Islands, and then came Th' Corn Gangg, his much maligned hip-hop project. After that, we received records from side projects including Reefer and Human Highway. At the moment he's headlining for Mister Heavenly, a recently announced supergroup that also includes members of Modest Mouse and Man Man, and Diamonds just released I Am an Attic, a solo album, by way of his Bandcamp page for a price of your choosing.

While it doesn't come with the pre-packaged, stylistic framework of, say, Human Highway (read: Young, Neil; 1970s folk and country), I Am An Attic does scan like pure Diamonds: whether he's trafficking in serpentine guitar licks or screwballing sound effects and synths, there's an unmistakable sneer to it all. That said, you're also hearing him here at his most muted and still, which doesn't make for as compelling a listen as that might promise on paper. This is an unusually reined-in record, one whose spartan arrangements tend to register more as scraps or free-floating ruminations than exercises in restraint. Take opener "Attic", with its plumes of Theremin, crystalline guitar work, croaked-up vocals, lightly-applied layers of keys and synth: It all seems to appear and then dissolve in just two very forgettable minutes. Diamonds, as it turns out, is most effective when spontaneous. Here, he's sleepwalking.

When he does work up some energy, the results are terrific. "You Must Be Choking" is an at-times majestic and unsettling highlight that, despite cribbing the vocal melody from "Silent Night", does well by working in a few unexpected jolts of volume. "Used to Be Funny" flirts with a "Stairway to Heaven" reference before erupting into a stormy mess of industrial oompah. Interestingly, the recording quality throughout is quite good, forsaking the sort of raw, flash-fried (see also: lo-fi) qualities that you might expect from a potentially free solo record. And though closer "Fade Out" plays into to its title, what's there is ripe: a set of high-arching guitar melodies fan out over a creamy organ track, a sprinkling of bells that mirror at times the sound of Diamond harmonizing with himself. It sounds like an idea that could segue into something great...www.pitchfork.com

Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

01. Walking Far From Home
02. Me And Lazarus
03. Tree By The River
04. Monkeys Uptown
05. Half Moon
06. Rabbit Will Run
07. Godless Brother In Love
08. Big Burned Hand
09. Glad Man Singing
10. Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me

On 2007's The Shepherd's Dog, Sam Beam reinvented Iron & Wine, building out the whisper-quiet acoustic songs he'd made his name on into a strange and mysterious soundworld, using a full band and mastering the art of multitracking his own voice. It's tempting to think that the hard work was done there-- Beam established a new approach and made a great album in the process-- but Kiss Each Other Clean, the full-band follow-up, is in some ways even more ambitious than its predecessor. He's reaching in a few new directions here, pushing himself hard as a singer, and taking risks, some of which pan out and a few of which don't.

Broadly, Beam at this point is writing by far the most assertive melodies of his career. Not the best, necessarily, but the boldest and most forcefully phrased. Even the song that most clearly ties back to The Shepherd's Dog, album centerpiece "Rabbit Will Run", has a melody that's quite different from anything he's done before. "Rabbit Will Run" is an easy highlight-- the arrangement is fantastically detailed, driven by a heavily layered rhythm track that bubbles with hypnotic thumb piano, and balanced by sections where the rhythm drops out, leaving Beam's voice hovering over a strange mix of sounds that might be a chopped-up pan flute arranged into a loop. The guitar sounds like an old-fashioned modem. It's a weirdly intoxicating mix that exemplifies the imagination Beam brings to bear on his fuller sound-- he's not just putting some drums and bass behind his guitar and voice.

Some of his bolder decisions carry mixed results. Beam brings in a horn section on "Big Burned Hand" and "Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me", and it works well on the latter, the album's seven-minute closer. The horns are arranged loosely, responding a bit to the Tinariwen-ish guitar phrase that opens the song and pulling it into territory somewhere near Charles Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song". The horn scrum is nicely offset by Beam's layered, tight self-harmonies on the chorus, and it's also complemented by the ragged lead guitar part. On "Big Burned Hand", though, the honking sax is used as a device to try and make the song funky, and it's not a look Beam's really figured out yet-- it lumbers along for four minutes and is the one song where Beam's risks yield no reward.

The more elemental and important change, though, is how Beam sings these songs. On "Glad Man Singing", his voice is still a soft instrument, but he's really projecting, both on the lead and the backing harmonies he layers in behind himself. On "Me and Lazarus", he reverts to the unique whisper-plus-falsetto layering technique he perfected on The Shepherd's Dog and "Woman King", and as signature sounds go, it's a good one that sounds even more distinct when he contrasts it with the other approaches. There are places on the album where the mix of rhythm and electric piano reminds me of Still Crazy After All These Years-era Paul Simon, a writer whose scope is reminiscent of what Beam is now trying to bring to his work.

Kiss Each Other Clean isn't quite on the level of The Shepherd's Dog in terms of overall unity of vision. Oddly, even with Beam's generally bolder singing, it's also not quite as immediately striking. These songs are generally not the type to grab you right away, but there's enough mystery and melody there to call you back. It's an album that takes its time seeping in, and it's ultimately worth putting in the close listening that reveals its many details and delights...www.pitchfork.com

Joseph Arthur - The Graduation Ceremony

01. Out On A Limb
02. Horses
03. Almost Blue
04. Someone To Love
05. Watch Our Shadows Run
06. This Is Still My World
07. Over The Sun
08. Face In The Crowd
09. Midwest
10. Gypsy Faded
11. Call
12. Love Never Asks You To Lie

Joseph Arthur's 2006 album Nuclear Daydream was the last full-length release under his name alone, but we've been treated to the singer-songwriter's work in other incarnations since then. He's made two albums with his band The Lonely Astronauts, as well as a series of four solo EPs released across four months in 2008. Just last year, he put out an album with the trio Fistful of Mercy, featuring Arthur, Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison.

That varied span of work mirrors the career Arthur has built as a "triple threat" artist since the mid-'90s, bridging music, poetry and painting with prolific creativity and unyielding inventiveness. He's even opened a gallery, the Museum of Modern Arthur (now online only). None of those endeavors suggest that "restraint" is part of his vocabulary.

But if there ever was a Joseph Arthur project to dispute that claim, it's his new album, The Graduation Ceremony, out May 24. From the first finger-picked notes of "Out on a Limb," it's clear that Arthur's goal is to keep things simple in both process and sound. Even with full orchestration (guitars, bass, strings, keys, Jim Keltner on drums and Liz Phair on backing vocals), there's an intentional sparseness at work. As with much of Joseph's musical and visual work, layers — however delicate — create depth, not excess.

Restraint in subject matter is another story, as Arthur adds no filter to reflections on a relationship's ebb, flow and end. With his vocal range in fine form, moving from Greg Brown-esque growl to winding falsetto, listening is an almost tactile experience. (Try to not react to the opening line of "Watch Our Shadows Run," in which Arthur sings in full falsetto, "You betrayed me.")

Still, dark ruminations aren't the only color in the album's musical palette. "Midwest" invites listeners to clap along, dream and turn up the distortion, and the sun appears repeatedly throughout The Graduation Ceremony, including in the soaring chorus of "Over the Sun." (That said, the tune also features the line, "When I cheat on you, you're still all I see.")

Whether "Over the Sun" is a sequel to his 2000 hit "In the Sun," only Arthur knows for sure. But his catalog rarely treads the same ground twice, and The Graduation Ceremony proves it by exploring another artful dimension entirely...www.npr.org

Tim Kasher - Bigamy: More Songs From The Monogamy Sessions

01 No Harmony
02 Opening Night
03 A Bluer Sea
04 Lilybird And The Trust Fund Kid
05 Rabbit, Run
06 The Jessica
07 Trees Keep Growing

Every album singer/songwriter/rocker Tim Kasher releases has a completely different feel than the last. Even within each of his projects (hard-rocking Cursive and heartbreakingly somber The Good Life), the music varies from album to album. The one thing that has stayed consistent are his poetic and, at times, brutally honest lyrics. Though as the years have pushed on, Kasher has moved a little further away from frankness. That is until last year’s solo effort, The Game of Monogamy. Monogamy is Kasher at his most honest and truthful, and the songs on his latest EP, Bigamy: More Songs from the Monogamy Sessions, are a harsh continuation of that mind-set.

Album opener “No Harmony” is a building, rolling song musically and a stark naked unveiling lyrically. Throughout the album, Kasher is pretty self-effacing but never more so than on this song. After singing about possibly going down to the local bar to flirt with some pretty, young girls, Kasher shamelessly admits that they are out of his league—calling himself “Mr. Peter Pan” and saying that those girls “live in Never Never Land” with his sardonic refrain, “Uh huh.” He follows that with “I’m better off with a girl my age/A spinster or a divorcee, uh huh/Well here I am, a divorcee too, with a pot belly and a jagged tooth, uh huh.” If you love watching an artist completely bare themselves, you have found the mother lode.

The rest of the album isn’t quite as uncomfortably honest as the first track. Kasher keeps things at arm’s length most of the time on tracks like the bouncy “A Bluer Sea” and the slower “Lilybird and the Trust Fund Kid”, but he does continuously touch on the topics of broken relationships and life as a thirtysomething. It’s refreshing to watch an artist not just stick to his usual ideas, both musically and lyrically, and allow himself to grow up. It’s awkward to watch a singer, as he gets older, still singing about life as a young buck against the world. Kasher acknowledges the new challenges of his age and sings about them with the same candor as he did when he was younger.

Bigamy is being released as a tour and internet-only EP, and it’s definitely one to check out. The seven songs (six originals and a cover of fellow Saddle Creeker Azure Ray’s “Trees Keep Growing”) are growers that might take a few listens to wrap around, but the payoff is definitely worth it...www.consequenceofsound.net

Baxter Dury – Happy Soup

01. Isabel
02. Claire
03. Leak At The Disco
04. Afternoon
05. Happy Soup
06. Trellic
07. Picnic On The Edge
08. Hotel In Brixton
09. The Sun
10. Trophies

Although Baxter Dury's half-mumbled cockney narratives are naturally reminiscent of his late father, Ian Dury's Blockheads blended punk, R&B and music hall, whereas his son's third and album is full of terrific, understated, dry, post-modern, electro-tinged pop songs. The zippy melodies recall Blur's Graham Coxon, and the sparseness of the xx or Young Marble Giants. With observational talent in his genes, Dury relates semi-autobiographical tales of doomed holiday romances and unwanted children, set in the deliberately mundane settings of "cheesy discos" and seaside towns filled with "undesirables". He has crafted these songs with wonderful detail – Madelaine Hart's ghostly backing vocals, the way the deadpan organ drones away as lives fall apart, and drily funny lyrics ("I waited for her like an oil spillage"… "that night I let down your tyres"). Picnic On the Edge nods most to Dury Sr in the What a Waste-type vocals, but the deranged solos and psychotic narratives suggest the flowering of an individual talent...www.guardian.co.uk

Fionn Regan – 100 Acres Of Sycamore

01. 100 Acres Of Sycamore
02. Slow Mare Bitch Vixen
03. The Horses Are Asleep
04. The Lake District
05. Dogwood Blossom
06. For A Nightingale
07. List of Distractions
08. 1st Day of May
09. North Star Lover
10. Woodberry Cemetary
11. Vodka Sorrow
12. Golden Light
13. North Star Lover (acoustic version)

Just 18 months after The Shadow of an Empire, his rollicking adventure in electric folk-pop, Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan has shifted shape again. To some extent, 100 Acres of Sycamore takes him back to the acoustic territory of his 2006 debut, The End of History, but the landscape here is much richer, Regan's guitar a moonlit stream weaving through a forest of glimmering piano and velvety strings. It's not just the music that reflects the natural world: Regan plucks elegant lyrical metaphors from it, marvelling in Bedroom of Stars at how "your head fell on my shoulder like a willow", assuring his beloved that "you are the Lake District", visualising equine dreams in The Horses Are Asleep as a prelude to celebrating the free-spirit joys of alfresco sex. You can still glimpse the influence of Dylan and Drake, but the crashing waves of Vodka Sorrow and gossamer sighs of Golden Light find Regan in an experimental world of his own...www.guardian.co.uk

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

01. Perth
02. Minnesota, WI
03. Holocene
04. Towers
05. Michicant
06. Hinnom, TX
07. Wash.
08. Calgary
09. Lisbon, OH
10. Beth/Rest

The guy who recorded an album alone in the woods. This line might end up on Justin Vernon's tombstone. There's something irresistible about the thought of a bearded dude from small-town Wisconsin retreating, heartbroken, to a cabin to write some songs-- especially when the result is a record that sounds as hushed and introspective as Bon Iver's 2007 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago. These days, Vernon is more likely to poke fun at the image, but it endures because it fulfils a fantasy for us as listeners. Even if we don't care for the outdoors, most of us occasionally want to escape our lives, be alone with our thoughts, and see if we can tap into something true. In a time of easy distraction, the idea of heading into a cabin at the edge of the world to create is alluring. By tying the intimacy of that image to Justin Vernon's music, we're able to take the trip with him.

Since that album's release, Vernon's approach to writing and recording has changed. "I don't find inspiration by just sitting down with a guitar anymore," he recently told Pitchfork. "I wanted to build a sound from scratch and then use that sound to make the song." That difference is clear on Bon Iver. Instead of something that scans as "folk," the music here is more like rustic chamber pop with an experimental edge that makes careful use of arrangement and dynamics. And rather than being tied together by a central theme of loss, Vernon has fully shifted into a more impressionistic mode; these songs are broader and more musically sophisticated than those on For Emma at every turn.

But the thread between this album and its comparatively skeletal predecessor is Vernon's voice, an instrument that feels warm and personal and close regardless of setting. Now that we've heard him singing hooks with Kanye West and taking the lead with Gayngs on songs that touch on R&B and soft rock, the general sphere of Vernon's voice is clear. He simultaneously evokes the grain and expression of soul music along with the mythological echoes of folk. But more importantly, no one else sounds like him. The Beach Boys have been the primary touchstone for layered vocals in indie music for years, but Vernon's timbre comes from somewhere else entirely. Where "Beach Boys harmonies" have a spiritual undercurrent that brings to mind a choirboy's dream of perfection, Vernon sounds like a man who has outgrown such ideas. His voice is earthy and wounded and, despite his astonishing upper register, not something you would describe as "angelic."

"Holocene" contains one of this album's many virtuosic vocal performances. "Part of me, apart from me," Vernon sings early on, and those six words hold a lot. The evocative nature of his diction is apparent even in a simple line like "I was not magnificent." He sounds centered and clear while taking stock and allowing memories to be mixed in with the details of the present. His conflicted vocals trigger a half-dozen feelings all at once before releasing the tension with a refrain that finds the fleeting moment where the world seems right: "I could see for miles, miles, miles."

Vernon posted Bon Iver's lyrics shortly after the album leaked last month, but they're not easy to parse-- the storytelling here is oblique. But there are connections. The song titles reference actual places ("Calgary") and places that sound real, but aren't ("Hinnom, TX", "Michicant"); they're less about geography and more about putting a name to a state of mind that mixes clarity and surrealism. And the deeper you sink into these tracks, the harder it becomes to extract specifics. One recurring element is intoxication-- lines about being drunk or high that come with recounted details. Which makes sense, because the album deals with escape and the struggle to get outside yourself. The narrator takes in what's around him, mixing those thoughts with memories of where he's been. Sometimes the lines have a startling specificity ("Third and Lake it burnt away, the hallway/ Was where we learned to celebrate," on "Holocene") and sometimes they contain words that seem to function more as sound ("fide" or "fane" on "Perth"). Throughout, there's a strong sense of an observer taking things in and processing confusing images, trying to figure out what can be learned.

If you caught Vernon live after For Emma, you gradually saw him putting more and more emphasis on his band, moving Bon Iver from that solitary project into something that felt more like the work of a group. And Bon Iver, with its rich and layered arrangements, extends that development in a striking direction that's both logical and surprising. Blending natural instrumentation supplied by recruited players-- such as string arranger Rob Moose (Antony and the Johnsons, the National, Arcade Fire) and a horn/woodwind section that includes versatile saxophonist Colin Stetson-- with an array of electronic and treated sounds, the album combines varied textures in ways that are ambitious and unusual but often subtle enough to miss on first glance.

At points, Bon Iver draws on the experiments of Volcano Choir, Vernon's side project with the post-rock outfit Collections of Colonies of Bees (members from that group play on the album). Freed from conventional verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure, the songs become more like tone poems, patient explorations of moods that proceed deliberately but unpredictably. The holistic style is evident on opener "Perth", which builds from total silence into a crashing peak over the course of four short minutes. And there's an uncanny moment on the breathtaking "Michicant", a song in part about childhood, where a bicycle bell rings twice, pulling you deeper into Vernon's reverie. It's a simple, brief effect, but it's indicative of the how the album uses elemental sounds in unexpected ways.

Vernon has taken that voice, and these arrangements, and crafted an album that unfolds like a suite. The structure is flawless right up to its conclusion, "Beth/Rest", which has been much remarked upon for its unabashed and unironic embrace of 80s adult contemporary pop sounds. If you've spent any time in the vicinity of a radio tuned to light rock, you hear the keyboard tone that opens the song and you think Lionel Richie, Richard Marx, and "No One Is to Blame".

It's almost naive of Vernon to think he could pull this off. Yet, heard in context, it stands as one the record's bravest and most deftly executed moments-- not just because it lays bare Vernon's stated admiration for artists like Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Hornsby, but because it's executed to perfection. And while the production attempts to wring something new from a long-maligned sound, the song and voice remain true to Bon Iver as an idea. As a closer, "Beth/Rest" is more about finding comfort and resolution after a musical experience that asked more questions than it answered. The song draws a line in the sand for anyone with a deep investment in cool, and Vernon stands behind it with confidence. His belief in himself and in the power of his music is something that encourages us to transcend labels and preconceptions.

After the closeness and austerity of For Emma, Vernon has given us a knotty record that resists easy interpretation but is no less warm or welcoming. You can feel it even as you don't completely understand it-- a testament to its careful construction and Vernon's belief in the power of music to convey deeper meaning. It's a rare thing for an album to have such a strong sense of what it wants to be. Bon Iver is about flow, from one scene and arrangement and song and memory and word into the next-- each distinct but connected-- all leading to "Beth/Rest". On the way there, the music moves like a river, every bend both unpredictable and inevitable as it carves sound and emotion out of silence...www.pitchfork.com

Morrissey - Bona Drag

01 piccadilly dalare
02 interesting drug
03 november spawned a monster
04 will never marry
05 such a little thing makes such a big difference
06 the last of the famous international playboys
07 ouija board, ouija board
08 hairdresser on fire
09 everyday is like sunday
10 he knows i’d love to see him
11 yes, i am blind
12 lucky lisp
13 suedehead
14 disappointed
15 happy lovers a last united
16 lifeguard on duty
17 please help the cause against loneliness
18 oh phoney
19 the bed took fire
20 let the right on slip in

Bona Drag, the most enduring success of Morrissey's solo career, was built on his first true taste of failure. After the dissolution of the Smiths, Moz was, quite oddly, tipped by many to struggle without his longtime songwriting partner and bandmate Johnny Marr; he wasted no time proving them wrong, releasing his debut solo single, "Suedehead", just over two months after the final Smiths single. It became his biggest hit to that point, the first of four consecutive UK top-10 singles, and, with "Everyday Is Like Sunday", one of the tentpoles of his outstanding solo debut, Viva Hate.

And then the wheels fell off. Morrissey began what was to be his follow-up album, Bona Drag, surrounded by acrimony and litigation. He had fallen out with producer Stephen Street, plus former Smiths bandmates Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke-- all of whom had played key roles in that successful string of hits. The breakup of his partnership with Street was the most devastating: He had co-written all of Viva Hate and served as an unofficial mentor for Morrissey's early solo years, performing on records and playing several instruments.

Amidst the rubble of these personal relationships, Morrissey issued his fifth single, "Ouija Board, Ouija Board", a relative commercial failure that was so critically savaged that Bona Drag's progress was abruptly halted. When Morrissey did finally return to recording, he contrasted the trifling, almost-novel morbidity of "Ouija Board" with two dark, excellent, descriptive, and quite underrated singles about outsiders-- "November Spawned a Monster" (about a disabled girl) and "Piccadilly Palare" (a young male prostitute). It was a brief recovery: Morrissey's second proper album, 1991's Kill Uncle, still turned out to be a dud. (A move to L.A. and into more muscular rock thankfully soon kickstarted the second phase of his solo career.)

As a title, if not a studio creation, Bona Drag was rescued in 1990 and issued as a compilation record piecing together that first run of seven singles-- six of the m rich and eclectic and rightly beloved, one of them the song that derailed his progress. And without the weight of being an A-side, buried in the middle of the record, even "Ouija Board" comes off as charming. The seven B-sides chosen from the era were well-selected, too. Five are as good as their A-sides: the elegant (albeit edited version of) "Will Never Marry", "Yes, I Am Blind" (ironically introspective considering its title), "Such a Little Thing Makes Such a Big Difference" (not surprisingly well-detailed considering its title), and the archly humorous "Disappointed" and "Hairdresser on Fire".

The compilation was a reminder of how fruitful this period of Morrissey's career had been when he needed it most. Despite a brilliant three-year solo run, coming right off the back of his seminal work with the Smiths, Bona Drag was issued into a rapidly shifting UK music scene. Mancunian music in particular was drastically changing, going from the miserablism, soul-searching, and spikiness of post-punk and the Smiths to the rolling rhythms and textures of the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. The years covered by Bona Drag coincided directly with the crossover of acid house and subsequent emergence of Madchester, a hopeful injection of youth, optimism, and hedonism, traits met with suspicion if not outright hostility in Morrissey's worldview. Moz was instead often writing songs about England's past-- whether the dissolution of key facets of its national identity in "Everyday Is Like Sunday", decades-old gangsters in "The Last of the Famous International Playboys", or out-of-fashion slang in "Piccadilly Palare"-- while the generation behind him was re-writing UK indie's future.

The hook on this reissue of Bona Drag is the addition of six previously unreleased tracks (though three-- an early version of "At Amber" called "The Bed Took Fire"; "Let the Right One Slip In"; and "Please Help the Cause Against Loneliness", given to Sandie Shaw-- have been issued in other forms.) In sum, the songs are a nice addition to the Morrissey catalog, all worth hearing though none perhaps necessary. In a career of odd reissues and collections, however, they at least make a welcome addition to this 20th anniversary release-- all genuine curiosities for completists that will please non-fans.

Even without those additions, this would be one of the most complete and necessary compilations in rock history, working both as a functional and utilitarian way to catch up with Morrissey outside of the UK and as a way to re-assess him within it. That the latter needed doing in the face of these songs is frankly mind-blowing...www.pitchfork.com

Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz

01. Futile Devices
02. Too Much
03. Age Of Adz
04. I Walked
05. Now That I'm Older
06. Get Real Get Right
07. Bad Communication
08. Vesuvius
09. All For Myself
10. I Want To Be Well
11. Impossible Soul

With his sixth proper album, Sufjan Stevens does battle with what we've come to expect from a proper Sufjan Stevens album. This time, instead of painstakingly humanizing the locations, historical inhabitants, and trivia of a certain slab of America, he's more concerned with his own state of mind. Banjos are out; moody electronics, deep bass, and drums that burst like geysers are in. The lengthiest song title on his last LP, 2005's Illinois, was 53 words long; here, that same superlative goes to a tune called "I Want to Be Well". He's whispering less, hollering more. And at the climax of The Age of Adz, the devout Christian and poster boy for mannered indie-dude sensitivity shouts, "I'm not fuckin' around!" no less than 16 times. Believe him.

Yet, there is no mistaking this as a work by the Detroit-born, Brooklyn-dwelling overachiever. Trilling flutes, meticulously arranged choirs, and an overarching sense of hugeness are still apparent. The record's last track, "Impossible Soul", is a five-part suite that lasts more than 25 minutes and boasts harps, horns, blips, Auto-Tuned vocals, a twee-dance breakdown, some cheerleader call-and-response, and even a little trad-folk guitar picking, you know, for kicks. That single track bulges with more engaging ideas than most artists could muster in a career, and there's no one else on earth that could've come up with it. Even the record's glitched backdrop isn't entirely unprecedented; Stevens' pre-breakout 2001 instrumental album Enjoy Your Rabbit could be looked back on as a sketchbook for what would become The Age of Adz. So as Stevens' current restlessness fights it out with his past accomplishments, the listener ends up winning.

Once again there's a concept tying everything together, though it's not quite as educational-- or virtuous-- as before. The Age of Adz is a reference to Louisiana artist and self-proclaimed prophet Royal Robertson, whose work appears on the album's cover and liner notes. A paranoid schizophrenic, Robertson translated his anguish through apocalyptic sci-fi posters after his wife left him following nearly 20 years of marriage. His comic-book style pieces-- which have been shown at the Smithsonian, among other museums-- are colorful, vengeful, and crazed. They feature B-movie style robot monsters who spout cartoon captions like, [sic] "I'll distroy much town's of adultress !!WHORE'S!!" Robertson's work is a long way from the cutesy cover of Illinois, and the fact that Stevens chose such an eccentric and hate-prone avatar for inspiration this time is telling.

Because The Age of Adz is a relatively dark affair, with the 35-year-old songwriter sometimes forgoing his child-like naïveté for something more oblique and adult. Considering the triumph of style that was Illinois (and the legions of lesser lights that subsequently turned it into some sort of over-the-top Disney on Ice parody), the change of perspective is welcomed.

The record is book-ended by two quaint, characteristic acoustic passages that find Stevens reconnecting with a past love. "It's been a long long time since I've memorized your face," he starts. This is the Sufjan we know. But, in between that short intro and outro, the album tells the story of a relationship with fantastical zeal. The tale is sordid and a little absurd, filled with betrayal, selfishness, frustration, suicidal thoughts, a raging volcano, and a space ship. "I've lost the will to fight/ I was not made for life," he confesses on the title track, as robo-noises and churchly backups translate Robertson's futuristic drawings into sound.

Across the album, he relives the more harrowing aspects of a deep personal bond, pinging from bitterness ("At least I deserve the respect of a kiss goodbye," he sings over gloriously spare electro-pop on "I Walked"), to confusion ("I thought I was so in love/ Some say it wasn't true," he head-scratches on the hymn-like "Now That I'm Older", a masterclass in modern vocal arrangement), to, um, melodramatic transmogrification (referring to himself in the third person, he inhabits the Rome-burning volcano of "Vesuvius", singing, "Sufjan, the panic inside, the murdering ghost that you cannot ignore"). Surrounding himself with music that expertly balances between over-orchestrated and chaotic, Stevens elevates his pedestrian travails about love and lust into legendary myths in which he's rarely the hero.

Right before The Age of Adz's back-to-earth finale, Sufjan finally overcomes his emotional stupor as a host of voices join him for the singalong, "Boy! We can do much more together!/ It's not so impossible!" And then he shakes out of the grandeur, goes back to the finger picking, and sighs the album's more realistic final line: "Boy! We made such a mess together." It's an ambiguous conclusion that, like the rest of the album, was seemingly in jeopardy of not happening at all. In a Signal to Noise interview last year, Stevens said, "I definitely feel like the album no longer has any real bearing anymore. The physical format itself is obsolete; the CD is obsolete and the LP is kinda nostalgic. I'm wondering, 'What's the value of my work once these forms are obsolete and everyone's just downloading music?'" It's a valid question. But instead of succumbing to trends, Stevens barrels through with another long-form work that requires-- and rewards-- time and devotion. As important questions about music's worth in the age of free continue to swirl around him, Sufjan's still combating instant-gratification culture the best way he knows how...www.pitchfork.com

Regina Spektor - Laughing With EP

1. Laughing With
2. Folding Chair
3. The Call (From the soundtrack to The Chronicles of Narnia- Prince Caspian)
4. The Noise (Live from Bull Moose)

Regina announced today that she will release a new EP Laughing With to include her songs, “Laughing With“, “Folding Chair” from her upcoming Far album due out later this month, and also the songs, “”The Call” from “The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian” soundtrack, and “The Noise” from “Live at Bull Moose.”
Also announced, on the day of her new album release, she will perform “Laughing With” on ‘Good Morning America’ (ABC) and on June 26th she will perform the song on the Late Show with David Letterman’ (CBS).

Windmill - Epcot Starfields

1. Airsuit
2. Big Boom
3. IMAX Raceway
4. Ellen Save Our Energy
5. Epcotman
6. Epcot Slow
7. Photo Hemispheres
8. Shuttle
9. Sony Metropolis Stars
10. Spaceship Earth

Windmill was born from the hidden four-track recordings of Matthew Thomas Dillon. The buzz surrounding Windmill began in the alternative, underground scene with a ltd 7” release on the highly respected indie label ‘Static Caravan’. This caught the attention of another stellar independent label ‘Melodic Records’ and work began on the debut album. Produced by Dillon himself and Tom Knott, their vision was both unique and spellbinding. The record entitled “Puddle City Racing Lights” was released to unanimous, critical acclaim. “Puddle City Racing Lights” has been embraced by some of the finest independent record labels in the world. Finding homes on Beat records (Japan), Groenland (Germany), Houston Party (Spain) and Friendly Fire Records (North America, Canada). Windmill made a bold entrance into the live music scene in 2007, sharing billings with The National, Patrick Watson, The Smashing Pumpkins, Vampire Weekend and touring with Annie Clark’s St. Vincent. In 2007/2008 Windmill performed sessions for some of the premier international radio stations. Including; Studio Brussel, France-inter, BBC 6 Music and Xfm.

Dillon spent 2008 locked away with a new idea for a record. Scrapping all songs that had been written since the release of his debut, Dillon set about following a vision. This new record entitled "Epcot Starfields" captures Dillon's sense of impending doom that threatens humanity. It is etched to a backdrop of grand ideas and '70's science fiction. "Epcot Starfields" reunites Dillon with Co-Producer Tom Knott and will be released in 2009.

Andrew Bird - Fitz and the Dizzyspells EP

01. Fitz & The Dizzyspells
02. Sectionate City
03. Ten-You-Us
04. See The Enemy
05. The Nightshade Gets In It

Chicagoan prodigy Andrew Bird is still riding the wave of acclaim that followed the release of Noble Beast earlier this year, to the extent that he now returns to that spurt of creativity with this new EP, which, if it were a software release, would be called Noble Beast Version 1.5. But Bird’s music is as far removed from mechanistic sound engineering as it gets, and here he provides more evidence, if it were needed, of his ornate talents. The raw reworkings of Noble Beast tracks like Tenuousness (Ten-You-Us) and Anonanimal (See The Enemy) cast subtly different hues on familiar melodies. But with no new material to mull over, this is likely to pique the interest of committed fans only...www.theskinny.co.uk

Pajo - Scream with Me

1 Angelfuck
2 Hybrid Moments
3 Where Eagles Dare
4 Bullet
5 Teenagers From Mars
6 Devil's Whorehouse
7 I Turned Into A Martian
8 Horror Business
9 Attitude

Experimental cover albums generally tend to disappoint. Usually an artist’s motives for interpretation are sound, yet the final product is rarely impressive, often belittling the original work. Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon), known for his “interpretive covers,” has reconstructed a myriad of works ranging from Francis Scott Key’s “The Star Spangled Banner,” to various AC/DC tracks, to an entire collection of Modest Mouse songs (Sun Kil Moon – Tiny Cities). The problem with Kozelek’s covers, as with others who compose hyper-experimental covers, is that frankly, no one really cares. All he really did (and this is no knock on Kozelek’s earlier work like Down Colorful Hill, just his questionable later years) was write a completely unrelated song with his own trademark musical style. Then instead of writing lyrics that could tie a noose around any listener’s neck, he used the author’s original ones…obviously.
Unlike Kozelek’s frequent use of “poetic license,” David Pajo’s relatively unknown, vinyl only release, Scream With Me, finds a tolerable balance between interpretation and reiteration. As you’ve probably guessed, the record takes a rather sobering look at a collection of songs from the original Kings of the Underworld, The Misfits.
Pajo is probably the most important guitarist since the late 80s, and even though this record doesn’t really add to his impressive resumé (Slint – Spiderland & Tweez, Tortoise – Millions Now Living Will Never Die & TNT, Royal Trux – 3 Song EP), it does serve as an intriguing work backed by a semi-original idea. I’d like to note here that I have been acoustically covering “Hybrid Moments” for over two years now, leading me to believe that Pajo’s been using me as his own personal fountain of creativity. Hence, semi-original.
Anyways, if you the thought 3-chord punk couldn’t be simplified any further, then you’ve been misled. Pajo takes punk’s musical manifesto and turns it into very simple lo-fi acoustic jams. Pajo follows the chordal tonality of each song, then turning the power chords into natural chords more suitable for the tenderness of plucking and finger picking. Pajo’s feeble vocals could bother some, but I found them to be pleasantly human.
You’re not going to find a whole lot of progressive jazz riffs, piercing harmonics, spastic time signatures or anything else that made Pajo a Louisville legend, but there is a great way to enjoy this album: build a camp fire deep within your local wilderness destination, crack open a few cold ones and indulge in one of the most epic sing-a-longs courtesy of Pajo, and of course, Dr. Glenn Danzig.

Rhett Miller - Rhett Miller

1. Nobody Says I Love You Anymore
2. Like Love
3. Caroline
4. Need To Know Where I Stand
5. Happy Birthday Don't Die
6. Bonfire
7. Haphazardly
8. If It's Not Love
9. Another Girlfriend
10. Refusing Temptation
11. Lashes
12. Sometimes

Critically acclaimed singer/songwriter and Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller's self-titled album-- his first since 2006's The Believer -- will take fans on an up-close-and-personal journey through love, loss and redemption, set to the kind of rollicking tunes for which he's known. Rhett Miller was recorded in Dallas and produced by Salim Nourallah, who also produced the latest critically acclaimed Old 97's release, 2008's Blame It On Gravity. The album also features multi-instrumentalist and producer Jon Brion on guitar and bass, The Apples In Stereo's John Dufilho on drums and Billy Harvey on guitar...www.amazon.com

Iron and Wine - Around The Well

Disc 1
1. Dearest Forsaken
2. Morning
3. Loud as Hope
4. Peng! 33
5. Sacred Vision
6. Friends They Are Jewels
7. Hickory
8. Waitin' for a Superman
9. Swans and the Swimming
10. Call Your Boys
11. Such Great Heights

Disc 2
1. Communion Cups & Someone's Coat
2. Belated Promise Ring
3. God Made the Automobile
4. Homeward, These Shoes
5. Love Vigilantes
6. Sinning Hands
7. No Moon
8. Serpent Charmer
9. Carried Home
10. Kingdom of the Animals
11. Arms of a Thief
12. The Trapeze Swinger

On May 19, 2009 Iron and Wine will issue Around the Well (Sub Pop), a 2-CD/3-LP collection of rare tracks ranging from out-of-print to never-before-released. In support of Around the Well Iron and Wine will be performing ten intimate shows in five cities. Each individual show will be wholly unique, as Iron and Wine will turn the set list over to the fans to create. In addition, Iron and Wine have begun work on the follow-up to The Shepherd’s Dog and plan to release a new album in spring, 2010.

The tracks collected on Around the Well span from Iron and Wine’s earliest sessions which yielded the band’s debut (2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle) through material recorded for 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog. The double-disc collection is broken up into two sections. The first half is an assortment of hushed home recordings, unedited and raw, and the second highlights moments captured in the confines of proper studios with the help of other musicians, friends and engineers. The album’s title comes from a line in the song “The Trapeze Swinger,” a fan favorite which was written for and included in the movie In Good Company. Three more songs written and recorded for the film finally make their appearance here as well: “Belated Promise Ring,” “God Made the Automobile” and “Homeward, These Shoes.” Around the Well also brings together hard to find covers such as The Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ for a Superman” and New Order’s “Love Vigilantes,” along with one of Iron and Wine’s earliest originals, “Sacred Vision,” which appeared on a compilation for Sound Collector magazine...www.ironandwine.com