Nada Surf covering Spoon

Are you aware that Nada Surf has an excellent new album of covers? If I Had A Hi-Fi came out a few months ago, after being first available only on tour at their merch booth, and is now consumable by the general intelligent public. That includes you, dear reader.

I love covers because they show the diverse range of influences on a band, and it is fascinating to hear your favorite musicians interpret another’s work. Nada Surf has chosen old and new songs from folks as varied as Kate Bush, The Go-Betweens, Depeche Mode, and The Muslims (now The Soft Pack). Matthew Caws told me about this idea back in November of 2008, and I’ve been waiting with bated breath ever since.

This Spoon cover is absolutely ace. Ira Elliot of Nada Surf is one of my favorite drummers in all of rock and roll – so feisty and precise. Here, he just makes me smile. This is a great song, and sounds marvelous filtered through Nada Surf’s harmony and clatter.

The Agony of Lafitte (Spoon) – Nada Surf

There are handwritten notes from the band behind the disc tray in the CD case about each song and why they picked it. Matthew writes, “The same ‘Sylvia’ dropped us from Elektra right after we made The Proximity Effect.” Ouch.

The Agony of Lafitte – Spoon

If I Had A Hi-Fi is available now on Mardev Records.

[top photo credit the superb Peter Ellenby in SF]

i’m not yours, i am mine

On Friday afternoon, I got my advance of the forthcoming Lissie album Catching a Tiger (out 8/17 on Fat Possum) and so far I haven’t been able to stop listening to it, happily. I was out on a mini-roadtrip vacation around Colorado these last few days and had it on repeat through mountain towns and downtowns.

Lissie wowed me at SXSW, and knocked me out with the spacious beauty of the Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses) produced “Everywhere I Go.” Several of the best of those songs from last year’s Why You Runnin’ EP show up on the new full-length, sounding better than ever. It’s rich and varied and fun, but with that voice that still holds so much power and earthy emotion. This is an excellent debut, showing intuitive development in her Heartland-meets-California sound.

STREAM: Stranger – Lissie

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I’ve listened to this song the most off her new album so far – an immediate favorite. It starts with layers of modern sonic echo, then chimes into a ’60s girl-group reminiscent song that skitters happily with some feminine empowerment. Lissie lectures a man who is a) taken and b) too pushy and c) not good for her: “I covered up my bruises and gave away my sins, so what makes you think that I would let you in? / Excuse me – I’m not yours, I am mine. I am mine.”

Yes.

She’s on tour all throughout Europe during these late summer months, and on through the fall. She is completely captivating live, with a voice and an honesty that demands you listen. Go on ahead and pre-order the new album from Fat Possum.

when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

This song came up on my shuffle on this sunny Saturday morning with all the windows open and the sun glinting off the wooden floors. It sounded so, so right that I’ve put it on repeat and it hasn’t stopped looping yet. That harmonica solo at 2:45 is delicious.

Everyone should have this mp3, and play it loud.

Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan cover) – The Rolling Stones

New Frightened Rabbit: “Son C”

Selkirk, Scotland’s resident gutwrenchers Frightened Rabbit sent a new song out to their mailing list today, complete with an image of the lyrics and a strangely disembodied drawing (which would fit well with Tuesday’s post).

Frontman Scott Hutchison attempts to explain “a bit about the song”:

As is often the case, death rears its head. Most days, I think briefly about the way in which I may die, and what will be left behind aside from a collection of fat, muscle, bones and apparently a fair bit of carbon and water. Death is really what defines life – without it the whole endeavour would feel a bit mundane and pointless. Procrastination would be extended to years, even decades – what would be the point of doing anything if you knew you would live forever? So death is what keeps me going, even more so than effervescent tablets…

Son C – Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit is playing Lollapalooza this weekend (where I have a staff of talented writers reviewing the show for us), and they have a host of shows coming our way, including a lengthy fall tour through the States. Frightened Rabbit puts on an incredible, cathartic show and you should go.

if this was our last time / what would we do, what would we say then?

The first time I heard this song, it knocked me flat, literally – I laid on the carpet of my living room with it on repeat for a good dozen times before I would resume normal life. It’s a track from The Clogs’ richly lovely album The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton, and Matt Berninger’s baritone mutters ruminations over a gorgeous, wandering symphony of loss and last times.

The Clogs are Bryce Dessner, Padma Newsome and friends (see previous post here). The album came out in March, and this track gets a starring role today with the release of the Last Song EP on the Dessner brothers’ Brassland Records.

This video is everything I could have ever hoped for to accompany such an unspeakably perfect song. Jagged-edged line drawings of partial people materialize and vanish, focusing for moments on the angular bend of his hand or the way her nose sloped just so. My memory is admittedly sometimes sketchy where I’d like it to be clear and crystalline. As Frightened Rabbit sings, “like a drunken night, it’s the best bits that are coloured in.” The video feels like a visual journey into the way my memory works; I’m not very good at remembering the specifics — how your eyes looked, yes. Exactly what you said or the day you said it, no.

By the end of this video, it gets so crowded with all pieces of fragmented memories competing for space in the the blank white landscape. People entering, others leaving. Faces with eyes you remember and mouths you can’t see anymore.

The blurs of color bleed in and obscure things — warm wet red, icy blue, a dark shadow of black to fuzz out the edges I want to remember.

it’s not like i believe in everlasting love

Barely twenty years old, Laura Marling is from England and channels a young and earnest Joni Mitchell, if Joni had Mumford & Sons as her backing band (no, really, Laura does). I just started listening to Laura’s gorgeous folks songs at the beginning of the summer, very belatedly because she has everything I love.

There are certain things we can sing wholeheartedly at 20 that the older version of ourselves might obfuscate or not believe in anymore. Marling is still fresh and smart and perfect.

Ghosts – Laura Marling
(with Marcus Mumford)

Goodbye England – Laura Marling
(“and I tried to be a girl who likes to be used / I’m too good for that”)

I also smiled recently when Ryan Adams twittered about Laura, saying: “My god that new Laura Marling album is so insanely good. Made me feel rather insignificant at songwriting…now that is songwriting!”

Laura’s latest album I Speak Because I Can was produced by Ethan Johns, who, it’s interesting to note, also worked on several of Ryan Adams’ finest. Her album has just been nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize for ‘Album of the Year,’ and is thoroughly superb.

Earlier this year in Nashville, Laura recorded a cover of Neil Young’s “Needle And The Damage Done” with Jack White at his uber-cool Third Man Records studio, along with a cover of a song that is much beloved in my musical lexicon – Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run The Game.” I cannot WAIT to hear that; it will be released on Monday (August 9th) as part of Third Man Records’ Blue Series. The 7″ is limited to 1500 copies and is available for pre-order here.

If you want to hear more from Laura, she was also on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic last week, playing songs from both her newest album and 2008′s fine Alas I Cannot Swim. Laura also travelled to India with Mumford & Sons last December, and while there they collaborated with the Rajasthani folk collective Dharohar Project. The resulting iTunes UK EP is close to transcendental.

i believed the stars were wishes

There’s a humble little new iTunes EP out from Radical Face, one of the musical projects of Florida’s Ben Cooper (the other one being the equally fantastic Electric President). The six-song Touch The Sky (Welcome Home) EP is a collection of alternates and b-sides, and includes an alternate version and a reprise of the song “Welcome Home” (which I fawned over here, one of my favorites of his).

Here’s one track from the new EP, all about the things we believed in when we were kids. Maybe I just have Arcade Fire on the brain, what with the rush of heat surrounding their new album, but I can’t help feeling like this song sounds like a kindred spirit to an Arcade Fire demo:

Doorways – Radical Face

The next full-length album from Radical Face is fully tracked and will be out soon. I can’t wait. It will be the first in a trilogy of albums, and is called The Roots. I am growing seriously, deeply attached to all of Ben Cooper’s output these days.