White Rabbits and their marvelous percussion gun

This new track from Missouri+Brooklyn’s White Rabbits pounded its way out into the world a few weeks ago, and it is a flipping fantastic song.

From their sophomore album produced by Spoon’s Britt Daniel, it is all chaotic and visceral, all laughing and yelling and drums that shake my insides. And these are the best kind of drums, the primal and unrelenting ones that make me want to run off into the jungle with Brendan Fraser, and not the drum-circle kind that makes you want to punt a hacky sack at a hippie.

Percussion Gun – White Rabbits

You feel the minimalistic space and echo in this song and throughout their sophomore album, with all the best things I love about Spoon leaching into Britt’s production here. I saw White Rabbits at Monolith in 2007, and at the time I wrote that “the band had a disproportionately high number of short guys wearing dapper suits in it, and I thought that it was fronted by Fred Savage at first, which was awesome. This song boasts a ferocious thrumming piano line that I miss each time it stops.” There’s the same ragged edge and ferocity on this release as well that latches onto me.

The story of the album goes like this:

After enlisting tourmate, friend and songwriter Britt Daniel (Spoon) as producer, the pair began the process of exchanging demos between Brooklyn and Portland. The sessions were recorded over four weeks by visionary engineer Nicholas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Deerhunter) at Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, NY. Taking special care to recreate the unhinged nature of the original demos, the band utilized the wide range of tools in the analog-friendly studio to shape the personal spirit infused in the new tracks. Upon the completion of tracking, White Rabbits traveled to Austin, TX to mix the record with studio wizard Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Trail Of Dead)….

It’s Frightening is out May 19th on TBD Records (the U.S. label home of Radiohead, and Other Lives, who I just saw Friday night with the jaw-dropping Elvis Perkins).

You can stream the full album on their MySpace page.

And just off a few tour dates with Spoon, the White Rabbits are all over the place this summer:

WHITE RABBITS TOUR DATES
5/21 – Bowery Ballroom – New York NY
5/30 – Grog Shop – Cleveland OH
5/31 – Do Division Fest – Chicago IL
6/01 – Summit – Columbus OH
6/02 – Rock N Roll Hotel – Washington DC
6/04 – Middle East – Boston MA
6/05 – Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia PA
6/06 – Brillobox – Pittsburgh PA
6/09 – Mojos – Columbia SC
6/10 – Firebird – St Louis MO
6/11 – Bonnaroo – Manchester TN
6/14 – Emo’s – Austin TX
6/16 – Club Congress – Tuscon AZ
6/17 – Casbah – San Diego CA
6/18 – Troubadour – Los Angeles CA
6/20 – Independent – San Francisco CA
6/22 – Crocodile Cafe – Seattle WA
6/23 – Doug Fir – Portland OR
6/24 – Neurolux – Boise ID
6/25 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake UT
6/26 – Bluebird – Denver CO
6/27 – Slowdown JR – Omaha NE
6/29 – 400 Bar – Minneapolis MN
6/30 – High Noon – Madison WI
7/1 – Empty Bottle Chicago IL
7/02 – Pike Room – Pontiac WI
8/1 – All Points West Festival – Liberty State Park NJ

As we hide ourselves in the last of the melting snow

The Leisure Society might seem like a tongue-in-cheek name for your band when the daytime occupation of the frontman is at a fabric and wallpaper warehouse. Although Nick Hemmings has been making music for the better part of fifteen years, of course there are bills to pay and for now he does it through labor, not leisure.

But that may be fixing to change, as Hemmings and Leisure Society were nominated recently for the British Ivor Novello Award for The Last of The Melting Snow — “Best Song Musically and Lyrically.” There’s a lush and gorgeous loveliness to their sound, with rootsy warmth lying just beneath the surface. On this track I can almost hear the last rivulets running off the tin roof and dripping onto the bed of pine needles outside; the end of a very long winter.

The Last Of The Melting Snow – The Leisure Society

Their debut album The Sleeper is out now on Rough Trade; The Independent wrote, “It’s a uniquely British take on Americana: almost as if Scott Walker or Nick Drake had ‘gone country,’ making music for coalminers rather than cowboys.” I also hear distinct flourishes of simplified American ’50s summery-pop on tunes like “A Matter of Time,” like the Brit answer to Grizzly Bear’s aesthetic — listen here.

This album is a magical listen from start to finish. It makes me feel all golden warm, and drowsy with good dreams.

Nick Cave scores Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

While I don’t recommend reading the entire book in one rainy night alone, as I did, The Road by Cormac McCarthy is certainly a riveting, visceral work from one of my favorite authors. My friend Ben started reading it on a Kindle on our drive back from SXSW, and we lost him for the rest of the trip (with a headlamp after dark, even). It is a formidable book, all-absorbing and astounding.

I am quite curious for whatever I can learn about the upcoming film adaptation, featuring Viggo Mortenson and directed by Australian John Hillcoat. The musical score for The Road is being written by one of my other favorite Aussies, Nick Cave.

The two previously worked together on a few features — from Cave contributing writing and acting in Hillcoat’s 1989 movie Ghosts of the Civil Dead, to Hillcoat directing the 2003 music video feature for Nick’s song “Babe I’m On Fire.” Cave also wrote the screenplay and soundtrack for Hillcoat’s 2005 film The Proposition.

The recent 4-minute BBC clip below unveils some of Nick Cave’s musical score for The Road for the first time – elegiac and stirring piano, which is an interesting choice. In my mind, the story in the book is accompanied by a deafeningly vacant amount of pure silence.

BBC Featurette – Nick Cave and Cormac McCarthy

Even though some of my favorite moments from Nick Cave are of the rocking variety, he undeniably does the pretty stuff so well — evocative and sad. Check this live video of “Into My Arms,” also from the BBC:

I don’t believe in an interventionist god
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Oh, not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
If he felt he had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms…

God I love that man.

UPDATE: The official movie trailer is now online.

Two new songs from The National this weekend

I am pleased as punch at the audio which has surfaced from this Sunday’s Dark Was The Night benefit show at Radio City Music Hall. How this event did not sell out is beyond me — a superb lineup of The National, Bon Iver, David Byrne, Dirty Projectors, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Feist, Dave Sitek (of TV On The Radio), My Brightest Diamond and Annie Clark of St. Vincent.

You can see Amrit’s excellent pictures from the evening here, and a million thank yous to the awesome NYCTaper site who captured this National audio. Even from the opening notes of Slow Show, this set is warm and full with additional orchestration.

You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you….

THE NATIONAL
LIVE AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL / DARK WAS THE NIGHT
May 3, 2009
Slow Show
England (new song)
So Far Around The Bend
Vanderlylle Cry Baby (new song)
Big Red Machine – Bon Iver & Matt Berninger from The National (bonus from later in the night)

ZIP: THE NATIONAL AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL
(FLAC files available through NYC Taper)

The two new songs sound lugubrious and richly elegant, as can be expected from The National — just gorgeous. “Leave your heart, change your name, live alone, eat your cake….” urges the cryptic Vanderlylle Cry Baby, “the waters are rising, still no surprise.” I love the power of several strong voices all swelling together as the song is sliced through at the end by that loud and ferocious squalling electric guitar. If this is the direction of the next album, I am even more in love with them.

[image via Amrit at Stereogum, the man with the lens. Also, visit NYC Taper for more amazing live recordings — one of my favorite sites.]

Monday Music Roundup

Tonight after work I went down and pushed my fingers through the dark, rich-smelling soil in my little garden plot and breathed in the smell of newness on its way. I turned over the black soil with a vengeance, and added some organic fertilizer/compost stuff into it, even planting a few swaths of seeds before the sun slipped behind the peak and the wind grew cold on my damp and dirty skin. I have never ever had a garden before. Other than one notable exception, I’ve never even had much luck growing anything, ever. I feel I’ve always been totally disconnected with the simple profundity of seed to plant.

I am thoroughly, wildly, stupidly excited about this prospect before me that seems like magic right outside my door. Scarlet nantes carrots, Oregon sugar pod snow peas, Cocozelle summer squash, “Contender” beans, Farmer’s market blend mesclun lettuce, Little Gem romaine lettuce, and for good measure and sheer pleasure — Shades of Blue larkspur, snapdragons, and Sunspot sunflowers. The earth is black and soft and smells incredible. My heart is beating a faster just telling you about it.

The last two hours have been thoroughly good medicine after the week I had last week of illness and caretaking — the bastard flu that wouldn’t quit. Mostly recovered now, time spent quiet in a garden is amazingly good for the innards. Before I took sick, here are few songs that I was enjoying. While I was sick I mostly just listened to things like the theme song from The Office and The Daily Show, and that eerie vacuousness from LOST.

The Only One
Manchester Orchestra
Over that zingy opening riff and pummeling percussion, the lyrics pop in with “I am the only one that thinks I’m going crazy and I don’t know what to do / And I am the only son of a pastor I know who does the things I do.” Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra are kids in their early twenties with a terse vibrancy and big bright punk-rock sensibilities beyond their tender years. The Paste review that I read this week claimed this track “recalled power-popsters Supergrass at their most chipper,” which of course immediately caught my attention. The new album Mean Everything To Nothing is out now, and they hit Denver next week at the Marquis, with fun supporting (the new band from The Format frontman Nate Ruess) and Oakland’s Audrye Sessions. Also — Manchester Orchestra is doing an in-store at Streetlight Records in San Jose on May 18; my old stomping grounds. Woot. Plus — Rainn Wilson loves ‘em?

Rebels In The Roses
(live on Daytrotter)
Everest
Last Monday night as I lay near dying (or so it felt), the timeless Neil Young took the Denver stage at Magness Arena. Although I couldn’t make it into a standing position, I was pleased to hear that his opening act was Fuel/Friends favorite Everest, in a custom-built pairing. Everest possesses some of that great heart-on-their-sleeve lyricism with drawling country rock that Neil epitomizes. This live track was recorded recently for the excellent Daytrotter sessions, and as the band explains it is “a letter to someone that will never receive it. It’s set at Cave Hill Cemetery in Kentucky, and is the first song on Ghost Notes” — an immense album.

Too Much Time
John Vanderslice
“Woke up on the sand and I tied up my sleeping bag…” Over a majestically orchestral opening, this newest song from John Vanderslice‘s forthcoming album Romanian Names sounds like a blazing sun rising over the San Francisco beach, strong and sure. Thanks to my recent pledge to myself to check out more JV after he wowed me in concert, I am deeply liking all the shimmering dense colors on this album. Something about this song reminds me of Nada Surf’s “The Fox,” one of the darker songs on last year’s Lucky — struggling with the weight of loss and responsibility, but still stirring and sparkling. Before setting out on tour with The Tallest Man On Earth (love him), Vanderslice is playing an in-store at SF’s Amoeba on 5/18 and then a CD release show the following night May 19th at Rickshaw Stop.

Moth’s Wings
Passion Pit
Last summer I saw Passion Pit play at the Monolith Festival, where their set shoehorned as many people as you would believe humanly possible into a tiny subterreanean dance party. Their nascent sounds then were irresistible, built largely around the addictively sped-up-crack sounds of “Sleepyhead” — a song which, once heard, will stick in your head for days. This track off their forthcoming Manners (out 5/19 on Frenchkiss) shows that there is another dimension to their uber-compelling sound.  “Moth’s Wings” feels more organic and symphonic — “you come beating like moth’s wings, spastic and violently whipping me into a storm, shaking me down to the core.” It reminds me, actually, of the shimmering, bright cascades of another Monolith standout, Pomegranates. There’s a sharp iridescence here.

Early Aubade
Roman Candle
I’ll end with my favorite new discovery. I should say FAVORITE in all caps.

Like the fiery sparkly namesake of the band, Chapel Hill NC’s Roman Candle explodes into my night. What I’ve heard of their upcoming third full-length Oh Tall Tree In The Ear (May 12) is one of the best new things I’ve listened to in a long while. They’ve been around since 1997 (with connections to other locals like Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary) but are new to me. And while Roman Candle is often compared in the same breath to some pretty solidly enjoyable stuff like summerteeth and good vibrations, today on this song they are all young and hungry Rolling Stones. After you’re done with this one, go listen to “Eden Was A Garden” on their MySpace, and then download the free EP on their website that I’ve listened to 24 times since yesterday. Then come back and we’ll talk about how good they are.

I didn’t know what an aubade was so I looked it up: “A poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn; a song suggestive of morning.” What a freaking marvelous word to write a song about. Handy with a lyric, this song starts with this fine turn:

“I’d like to thank my lucky stars just for shining out tonight
like a hundred scattered eyes in the ether
I know it ain’t normal thanking stars but it ain’t normal seein’ stars
Outshine the London streetlights either.”

“Start seeing the beauty of fullness” :: New models of paying for music

All of us are scrambling to figure out how we will consume, produce, distribute, and enjoy music in these nutty digital times where anything can become a fluid mp3, slipping from here to Kazakhstan and back before you finish that sip of coffee.

Mp3 blogs are, of course, shaping and reflecting this new system of music in 2009, as are torrent sites and message boards and a thousand of you and your friends forwarding YouSendIt links. There are many, many positives to this new model of musical exploration and discovery, but also ethical questions for consumers — as well as very real financial and creative questions for the artists who make the music.

Since Renaissance painters pimped out their brushstrokes to the highest bidding of their patrons, we’ve been selling and commissioning art. I’ve often wondered about that critical shift from art to commerce, and have wondered aloud many times how compatible the two can ever be. The fiscal realist in me argues with the idealist creative dreamer.

San Diego musician Joel P. West had similar thoughts and feelings about what we see in art, namely beauty in flawed honesty. When he completed his newest album, he decided that instead of selling it, he would send it out for free — in exchange for an honest creative work of your own. Thus the Dust Jacket Project was born.

From the project statement — amazing how much sense this makes:

…When somebody is willing to see things as they really exist, particularly when one is honest with themselves, they leave the limits of their expectations and start seeing the beauty of fullness. They recognize their rough spots and become gracious toward the rough spots in others. Honesty is contagious and it spreads appreciation for what we have and encourages confidence in our unique attributes. Perfection is not found in flawlessness, but rather in the collection of honest people who each bring unique experiences and perspectives into the whole.

This website is a project with the goal of collecting honest pieces of thought and creative work from all, not only those who consider themselves to be artists in the traditional sense.”

In order to obtain his newest album (Dust Jacket), you must send Joel “something of your own creation that describes a part of you … Whatever you send, it should be something honest or candid.” By my count, he has close to 600 submissions so far. Photographs, poems, anonymous confessionals, original songs, paintings… I could get lost in this site for a long time.

And it all started because someone wanted to trade his music not for money but in order to unearth more of the creative wonder out there all around us, sitting in each of us waiting to be heard. So very cool.

28th and NE Davis – Joel P. West

I think you should consider submitting something honest into the project, as I plan to.

Go take a look at the Dust Jacket Project and the music of Joel P West.

U2: “Jesus Christ” (Woody Guthrie)

For a bunch of Irishmen, U2 has always been capable of throwing down a pretty darn soulful gospel jaunt in my book. Rattle and Hum is one of my favorite U2 eras (along with Achtung Baby. And maybe, oddly, Pop. I like Pop).

My friend John just brought this 20-year-old U2 cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Jesus Christ” to my attention, an mp3 I had in my iTunes library but had let settle to the bottom of the unlistened pile. Today is a grey and drizzly Saturday in Colorado, after a very long and difficult week, and this bit of handclapping, foot-stomping folk gospel is just the right medicine.

U2 originally recorded this in 1988 for the Woody Guthrie tribute album Folkways: A Vision Shared along with a pretty formidable collection of other artists. If this jubilant cut sounds reminiscent of Rattle and Hum, it’s for good reason — it was recorded during the same sessions.

The vinyl single of “Jesus Christ” was released as a promotional single in the Netherlands only.

Jesus Christ (Woody Guthrie cover) – U2

The original Woody Guthrie recording of this song was first captured on tape as part of the 1940 Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax — the first recordings of Woody Guthrie ever, that I am aware of. When I was trawling around in the Library of Congress audio archives last May (talkin’ to rad people) I remember seeing these in the  American Folklife Listening Room. I could have gotten permanently lost there, happily.

Jesus Christ (ripped from vinyl) – Woody Guthrie

[release info via U2wanderer]