Personally, I didn’t need a reminder to include The Midnight Organ Fight on my year end list, but just in case you did, here’s a free track the band has given away through the magazine The Lifted Brow. Its slower, acoustic based arrangement is pretty different to most of the album’s frayed, earnest rockers, but overall it doesn‘t show the band doing something completely different so much as the same thing kind of quieter.
The dust hasn’t even settled on my copy of Phosphorescent’s Pride, one of my favorite albums of 2007 and still hanging strong a year later, when news came today that Matthew Houck has already recorded the follow up. To Willie isn’t a typical follow up though - Houck decided to tip his finest cowboy hat to one of his biggest inspirations with a full blown tribute album. According to Dead Oceans the album is a complete reimagining of 11 under appreciated and overlooked Willie Nelson classics, and is set for a February release - something else to look forward to during the early months of the new year. The tracklist:
This week I’ve come across more new music that I’ve really dug than the past 2 months combined. The latest breath of fresh air is Peasant - a folk-rock act from Doyleston, PA whose music, despite its name, is overflowing with rich melody. Peasant is the band name for Damien Derose, the singer/songwriter behind the gentle, aching ballads that comprise On The Ground, the debut record set for a January 27 release on Paper Garden Records. Fans of Elliott Smith should take note.
Apparently I have some catching up to do. The Capstan Shafts is the code name for hyper-prolific songwriter Dean Wells, a Vermont native who has been making home records since the late 90’s. According to All Music, there have been 18 releases in just the past 8 years, including the 22 song (and 30 minute!) Fixation Protocols from just this past summer. Since then Wells has released a “free” (although a $2 or $3 donation is requested and well deserved) single called Cretin Flowers - which is 6 songs/10 minutes long and available at Archive right now.
MP3 :: “space nut to ape length”
(from Cretin Flowers single/EP. Buy here)
Though the long tracklists/short running time may not seem like wise eMusic purchases, the last 3 Capstan Shafts albums are all available at the mp3 superstore right now and are well worth checking out.
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The first comes from Spoolwork - the remix project of David Fischoff. You may remember earlier this year I offered a version of Jens Lekman’s “I’m Leaving You (Because I Don’t Love You)” that Spoolwork diced up into something (arguably) even more interesting than the original. Here he is again, taking just the vocal track of Thom Yorke and reimagining the sonic setting entirely. If you dig it head over to the Radiohead remix site and vote for him - hopefully they’re still running the contest.
MP3 :: Reckoner (Spoolwork remix)
Spoolwork is putting together a free mixtape download of these and other remixes he’s been behind, including some by RZA, Erykah Badu, Nico, and Public Enemy - so keep an eye out for that early next year, it should be cool.
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The Chairs are a band from Wisconsin who plays a skewed kind of take on Americana and electro-pop. The have a new EP available for free download on their website (out Tuesday 11/18) that features a drastically reworked version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s classic “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”. Fans of the original would really appreciate this - it sorta sounds like Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide fronting a high school version of Joy Division. I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Stream :: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - by The Chairs
(from The November EP. Download here)
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For those of us who first started listening to the songs of Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, when they were originally released way back in 2007 (forever ago, har har har!) the news today of the brand new Blood Bank EP was very welcome. Turns out the EP will feature 4 new songs and will be released by Jagjaguwar on January 20. The title track has been in rotation at the shows for a while and features and much more band-oriented sound than the album, check the vid:
I found Cryptograms to be a dense and difficult record - the kind that didn’t necessarily go down easier after multiple listens. The Flourescent Grey EP, which followed soon after and featured a much higher ratio of structure to noise, made it clear to me that Cryptograms was little more than a mildly exciting mess. Mix that with a handful of socially inappropriate and crude blog posts at their band website and my interest in Deerhunter was running on empty by the end of the year.
Hey there loyal PHW reader!! We are all set up in the new (temporary) digs and back online as of earlier today. And what better way to celebrate a connection to the outside world, as well as follow up a review of last year’s best music, with a look ahead at a great new song from an upcoming 2009 release?