So I have been a bit MIA around here lately, so long time no chat? I thought I would put down some tunes here based on a referral from fellow blogger Tart over at Love Shack, Baby. Tart was watching The Wailing Wall playing in Chicago and immediately tweeted that I needed to listen & pick up the new album.
Who is “The Wailing Wall”? Well it is 23 year old multi instrumentalist Jesse Rifkin. Again, it always makes me feel old when you find someone so young that seems so talented. But I digress.
So…the new album “The Low Hanging Fruit” is from JDub Records (see here) but alas, it is sold out currently from the site (but pre-order the bonus track version on iTunes). Good sign I think. So…what do you do now? Well you listen to the numerous available free downloads from the label of course! Well with that thought I have been listening to this fringe folk artist’s demos and earlier works and they indeed deserve a shout out for purchase. I have included a favourite track “Dear Mother” with the demo and final version from the Hospital Blossoms album. Its a great little diddy, especially the uber lo-fi start to the final version – frickin’ good. Also attached is the album title track for juxtapose (or not) to the remainder of the songs.
Find the remainder of the downloads on his artist page over on JDub (here) along with some bonus tracks from Archive.org (here). You can also find all the links in one convenient location on his MySpace page, along with a crap load of other info (here).
~Smansmith
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I know, I know, you can’t buy or grab any album i’m writing about. So if you’ve missed the last Brook Lee Catastrophe, here’s a new chance to discover this bright californian band ! They offer you for free and for a limited time their brand new album : American Hotel.
I’m just discovering this 11 tracks collection… And with no doubt – i’m listening to track 7 – I can tell you that the band keep digging their atypical explorations mixing an undefinable but addictive sound between rock, folk and americana. It’s brilliant, it’s simply gorgeous !
According to the band, this new album is the first of a two companion-pieces set to released summer and fall 2010 (woot woot hooray ) !
If “American Hotel” is designed to keep the intensity burning all the way to last call, “Motel Americana” (Fall 2010) is the hair of the dog—the cold comfort of the morning after, the soundtrack of the battered and the bruised. Squarely rooted in the folk tradition, “Motel Americana” also incorporates textures of country, bluegrass, and gospel in service of a song cycle that is at once melancholy and celebratory, the perfect antidote to a cold and cynical world.
Voilà de quoi nous mettre l’eau à la bouche ! In the meantime, let me tease you with the first track, then go and grab your album and please tweet about it as loud as you can, facebook it, myspace it, well spread the word, this band is huge !
For the regular readers of YCD, this name may ring you a bell but the picture. Yop, Ben Rogers is a new member in the bearded songwriter family. But far beyond this pilosity detail, Ben Rogers got 2 new tracks which both are on a heavy rotation in my itunes library : the really catchy ‘Criminals’ & the Dylan-like ‘Born to Move’. This guy is as discrete as talented ; I hope the canadian music blog squad could catch him live and grab some more information about an upcoming release… In the meantime enjoy the tunes…
With no doubt, the best album, 2010 gifted me is ‘Simple Hearts’ the first full length from the young Seattle band Washington Mile.
Chris Wise & Torry Anderson are distillating all along these 12 tracks collection a mixture that merge the best of Rock’n Roll and Folk. Tons of stuff should been said about this album but as usual i’m running against time and to sum up I would say their music is a big fresh breeze I was waiting for.
I first wrote about Essie here and have been keeping a close eye on her career since then. I recently contacted her in regards to playing a show for us here in Brighton (Drifter Promotions) and we got talking about her new album, Until The Light Of Morning which she then kindly sent me. To quote Essie from her liner notes she writes “This record is made for every parent and every baby(and anyone else) who needs to rest and head off into the land of sleep. The record is designed to unwind itself as it goes along, as the music becomes softer and more relaxed, eventually becoming as instrumental as the heartbeat”
It’s easy to think having read that this album is perhaps one dimensional with regard to it’s target audience, but I have no children, am single yet find myself completely submerged in it. It leaves me with a feeling of complete safety, of comfort, of peace. It’s as though when I play it, it wraps it’s arms around me and lets me into it’s mystical world, leaving me with a sense of wonder and hope . There is an ethereal quality to all of Essie’s music, so delicate and fragile that you don’t want to even move when you’re listening to it in case you break the magical spell it seems to cast upon you. It’s stunning! Her voice alone is enough to keep you enthralled, it’s so controlled and intimate with long, drawn out notes reaching right inside of you. As I say, it’s stunning, it’s a beautiful gift that she shares with us all.
To me, you have to listen to this whole album in one sitting and in the correct running order because it flows into one body of work rather than eight separate lullabies. Not only that but your day’s ill’s and woes will have been completely washed away for another time, this is therapy of the very best kind. Buy it!
No mp3 to download as yet because as I said, there is no single release from it, it’s one body of work and so one single track wouldn’t do it justice. However, her amazing daytrotter session has just been uploaded and I urge you to go and download it immediately and you can also listen to a couple of tracks here too.
The first thing I look for in music regardless of genre or mainstream popularity, is honesty. If I feel that the music is coming from the heart and it’s sincere then I will respect it. I may not always like it but I will at least applaud it for it’s earnestness. This is why I like Elephant Micah, the alter-ego of Joe O’connell. I first wrote about him here where he was kind of enough to grant us an interview and a couple of mp3′s. Since that interview he still hasn’t created a myspace or facebook page and is still intent of getting his music heard by the old fashioned method of word of mouth. Well, this seems to be working as he has an abundance of live dates from now up until at least May.
His latest offerings really show his versatility as a songwriter but also his various musical styles.With Echoer’s intent we have an album which was recorded using more traditional recording methods and is eight tracks of sparse, intense beauty. During the interview Joe did with us I mentioned he reminded me of Low, early Smog and J.Tillman. Well out of those three this album has a definite J.Tillman ring to it although with a less whispery vocal style, especially on the stand out track for me, field notes, but there is definitely elements throughout the whole album, still life blues is another really beautifully written and composed song, you find yourself falling into it and then pressing the rewind button a few times. Personally, I think this is Joe’s best work yet mainly because I think each song flows into each other brilliantly, you hardley notice the gaps in between but you will have to decide for yourself because even at such a young age he has released umpteen albums.
Then we have The songs of bible birds which (and stick with me here) is, or at least was meant to be an album of bible bird covers, bible birds being a band that Joe himself invented when asked once if he had ever seen the bible bird man in Indiana. So in other words he’s covering his own songs, or at least that was the plan. Full story here. Eventually though what we do get though is an album that Joe in his own words says was produced using ‘weird recording methods’ originally back in 2006 but has only become avialable now after some tinkering which Joe is finally happy with. I perhaps should have listened to this album first and then Echoer’s Intent because the final products are very very different, especially in the sound which has some hissing in the background, sometimes distant vocals which are hard to pick out but after i played it first time I immediately played it again and then again and now I’m loving every pop, crackle and hiss. In fact, after a while you just hear the music, Joe with some female backing vocals (Beth Remis),odd sounds bellowing from a pump organ and although a very challenging album to listen to, it improves more and more with each hearing, I’m loving it. As I said, it’s honest to a fault but it’s also trying something different which I think is rather refreshing as well as challenging, both for the listener and the creator. I admit though, I would love to hear these songs live and get another take on them.
As both albums are only 8 tracks long I am only putting up the mp3′s that Joe himself offers on his website because if I was to put up a different one and then another blog does the same there could be half the album across the internet and for someone who is completely D.I.Y, this would be unfair. So please, if you like this then go and buy the album or if you buy both together you get them for cheaper. Please, enjoy and go see him play at any one of these shows. By doing so you will be supporting a totally independant artist and a really talented one at that.
March 2010.
26 Louisville, KY at the Lounge w/ Joe Manning
27 Nashville, TN at Betty’s w/ Kelli Hix
28 Memphis, TN at the Buccaneer w/ the Warble
29 Oxford, MS at TBA
APRIL
1 New Orleans, LA at Sidearm Gallery w/ Hurray for the Riff Raff
3 Athens, GA at TBA w/ Bubbly Mommy Gun, Steven Trimmer
4 Chattanooga, TN at JJ’s
6 Somewhere, TN at Ida
7 Asheville, NC at Harvest Records
8 Knoxville, TN at the Pilot Light
9 Lexington, KY at the Hive
III. ROUGH ROUTING
All shows with Mark Trecka except where noted (*)
13 Grinnell, IA at Grinnell College
15 North Manchester, IN at the Firehouse
16 Buffalo, NY at Sugar City
17 Rochester, NY at Casa Del Awesome
18 Montague, MA at the Book Mill w/ Oweihops
19 Portland, ME at TBA
21 Boston, MA at TBA
22 New Paltz, NY at the Inn
23 Purchase, NY at SUNY Purchase
24 New York, NY at TBA
26 New York, NY at Bruar Falls w/ P.G. Six*
28 Philadelphia, PA at Robin’s w/ Strand of Oaks
29 Baltimore, MD at 2640 Space w/ Small Sur
30 Columbus, OH at TBA w/ Time & Temperature, Deadsea
I first came across Hush Arbors around a year ago when Uncut magazine put one of their tracks on a compilation cd they give away each month. Signed to the brilliant ecstatic peace label I was immediately struck by the sadness in Keith Woods voice, it reminded me a lot of the late Saint Thomas who I am a massive fan of and the second track (Lisbon) on the new album which just came out this week in the U.K yankee reality is uncannily similar. This is completely accidental as when I saw Keith play a solo set recently in London he said he’d never heard if him when I asked him.
Hush arbors earlier albums blends fuzzy lo-fi psych-folk with country but on the new one, which is produced by Dinosaur jr’s J Mascis there’s an added rockier edge to it, namely on fast asleep and the blistering final track Devil made you high but it still manages to maintain the default sound on so they say and one way ticket. If I had to pick out my favourite track from this album which quite frankly doesn’t have a bad one on it, i’d probably go for take it easy only because it’s completely different to any other they’ve done, more country sounding in the style of say The Byrds but you could ask me again tomorrow and I could plump for coming home with it’s chugging along riff and mellotron (played by J Mascis) with the first line ” I was thinking about the country, walking down these city roads, thinking about the space between, the silent and my soul” I love shit like this, it resonates with me.
When I was in London and I saw Keith play rue hollow I remember sitting completely transfixed by him and coming to the realisation that I was in the presence of a genius. He’s got that certain thing no one can name or put a finger on, the same as Elliott Smith had or Nick Drake, just that something. His songs seem to come from somewhere deep within him very few of us ever reach, the bit where the real honesty lays and he’s bearing his very soul. Very few songwriters do this in my opinion, it takes guts to lay it all out on the line for everyone to hear and that leaves a certain vulnerability, it’s risky because it seems so fragile and any criticism could easily break it, or at least try to. Criticism must be hard to take when you’ve just bared your soul.
Now based in London there’s a couple of dates in Italy and then London at the end of October. Info here
Kindly I have been allowed to put up a couple of mp3′s for you to download but please please please, if you like it go and buy it here, you will not be disappointed I promise you. Enjoy.
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