Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Guggenheim Grotto - Fee Da Da Dee

I recently was in Dublin, as some of you may already know, I had the privilege of listening to the entire new Guggenheim Grotto album. I was completely blown away. It is absolutely beautiful. From start to finish I felt as if I was taken on this mystical journey of emotions and in the end just felt complete. “Waking up in America” was recently released as a single but is not on this new album. “Fee Da Da Dee” is the first track off the new album. It is one of many of my favorites on this album. To my surprise I just received this little piece of information in my email box:

Irish Single Fee Da Da Dee released 11th July

Our NEW single Fee Da Da Dee will be available to buy exclusively from iTunes Ireland on the 11th of July. We’ve also added Fee Da Da Dee to our music player on our site so if you pop over to Guggenheim Grotto you can listen to it right now.

I’d love to know what everyone else thinks of Fee Da Da Dee. I just absolutely love it!

Guggenheim Grotto Music Player

Jolie Holland

Jolie Holland’s future career shows a considerable amount of promise.

She blends together a mix of folk, jazz and blues that casts a slow, woozy spell over it’s listener. The categorization of her genre may not be as easily described as it’s effects, but its all beyond infectious. A quick listen on Thursday was quickly heightened to an all-weekend binge after finding everything she’s ever publically released.

There’s a clear progression in her music that was released over the span of just a few years–from solo singer/songwriter to beautifully accompanied songs that still stay true to their more simplistic roots. It’s a bit of an up and down adventure if your more inclined to one of her styles than another, but it’s all wonderful stuff. So dust off those red-plumed adventuring caps and let her sail around your room for an hour or two.

 
 Jolie Holland - Amen: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
 Jolie Holland - Mehitabel's Blues: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Josh.

Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden

Been absolutely loving the self-titled album from Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden. A friend put a song of theirs on a mix CD for me a few weeks ago and I was immediately drawn to the track “In Your Dreams”. I decided to investigate their tunes further and I am so glad I did. Kate has such a stunning voice and the whole album is just solid. This is definately one of those albums to listen to on a rainy day or a Sunday morning.

Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden hail from the Northwest corner of Seattle Washington amidst the fisherman and sailors of Ballard. They play lush indie pop with shimmering melodies, sparkling soundscapes, and beats like a train on a track.

Seattle Sound Magazine named them as one of 10 bands to watch in 2008.

You can buy their music on

myspace

iTunes

CDBaby

Take Away Shows - Bon Iver

Yes, I know we tend to rattle on about how much we love Bon Iver here at YCD, but I couldn’t resist doing it one more time.

The fine folks over at La Blogothèque have Bon Iver featured. Go check it out and watch some amazing live performances by Justin & co….I especially loved the performance of “For Emma”…I had a good laugh when they started following the tourists down the street.

The videos are in 2 parts so make sure you visit both pages:

Part 1

Part 2

Eef Barzelay

You may be wondering why i’ve been so prolific in blogging the last week or so or maybe you haven’t, maybe you have not even noticed and are too busy to care but the truth of the matter is i had a small operation last week and so therefore have had a bit of time on my hands to listen to a lot more music than i have been able to recently which is about time to be honest as there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day recently.

Eef barzelay incase you are not aware is the lead singer of the brilliant and criminally overlooked alt/country band Clem Snide. They have been going on and off since the early 90’s (where the fuck did they go?The 90’s,not Clem snide) and Eef has released a few solo albums. His latest, lose big could be a midway contender for album of the year. Seriously not a bad track on this album, Songwriting to match anyone in this category or any other for that matter. His voice has an air of familiarity to it but can’t put my finger on it, i keep thinking Conor Oberst but not sure. Quite a diverse album is this, from the first track could be worse which is something that pehaps would sit gently on a Clem snide album. One of the stand out tracks is The girls don’t care which from the very first note with it’s heavy funky as hell bass line could be dropped into any dance club and it would get people moving, wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone does a re-mix of it, I might do one myself ! The soulful tone is maintained throughout the album but the real killer song on it for me is True freedom, a stop everything and listen track, stunning. Pick this album up asap, i have heard some superb albums so far this year and i keep saying to myself ‘album of the year so far’ but i will tell you hear and now, this one is taking some beating. It just flows effortlessly from one song to the next and when it’s finished you just want to go back and play it again and again. I have also added a track form his 2006’s Bitter honey, enjoy.

Eef Barzelay - True freedom

Eef Barzelay - Well

The Accidental

The Accidental are a band made up of various members of other bands. We have Stephen Cracknell from The memory band, Tunngs lead singer Sam Genders, Hanna Coughlin from The bicycle Thieves and a superb singer that is new to me by the name of Liam Bailey. Together they have created and just released their debut album There were wolves. It’s basically a mixture of all those above bands sounds, whispered harmonies, couple of acoustic guitars, bit of piano,harp, bass and some accordian. This has fence collective sound all over it, not surprising giving that The bicycle thieves are on that label. Free download ‘Illuminated red’ wouldn’t sound odd on a James Yorkston album but as I say it’s a collection of sounds you would find in any of their other bands. Don’t get me wrong this is no bad thing, it’s superb from begining to end. I read in an interview they were trying to intergrate into it something similar to Panda Bear which you can hear at times. Often it sounds to me like it’s improvised in parts or at least the final cut is something that has been created from sitting down and just playing and see what they come up and then giving it a good polish. See what you think.

The Accidental -Time and space

The Waterboys - Kiss the Wind

How can I resist posting couple lines about The Waterboys new collection ‘Kiss the Wind’ ? 20 years - or more - after, I’m always addicted to Mike Scott vocals. And his own interpretation of my Rolling Stones preferred ‘Wild Horses‘ is simply increasing my addiction !

Kiss The Wind is a special collection of unissued and rare music exclusive to this store, compiled by Mike Scott from material in the Waterboys sound archives. Its 16 songs were recorded between 1991 and 2006, spanning the Room To Roam, Dream Harder, Rock In The Weary Land and Universal Hall eras. The tracks include several legendary or rumoured items, a couple of rare live beauties and a generous number of terrific never before heard songs.

 
 On My Way to The Big Light - The Waterboys [5:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Including, an old-time favorite ‘Stolen Child‘ , this new collection is available only in digital format here.