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mp3:
Forest Fire – Sunshine City

Quote of the day: “Days like today are why fall was invented.”

Bowerbirds are the latest band (and arguably my favorite to date) to get p4k’s Cemetery Gates treatment.

The band plays a splendid 4-song set highlighting their newest album including my favorite “Northern Lights.”

Enjoy.

If you’ve never heard Patrick Watson before let this live set from this year’s CMJ, courtesy NPR, is a fantastic introduction.

It’s 30+ minutes long, but worth every second of your time. Simply amazing.

mp3:
Fionn Regan – Protection Racket

Somewhere near the top of my non-physically-existent “most anticipated” list lies Irish singer/songwriter and folk darling Fionn Regan’s forthcoming release, The Shadow Of An Empire, due out early 2010 via Lost Highway. I listened to Regan’s first proper full length, The End of History, last year front to back more than any other album and it still finds itself into my stereo with alarming regularity.

Fionn has released the first single from the album, “Protection Racket,” a song he posted a teaser video of on YouTube back in June. It’s uncharacteristically up tempo and playful, much more so than anything on History, and the lyrics are to-the-point political. This is to be expected I suppose on an album called The Shadow Of An Empire. I’m intrigued to see where this album takes Regan, as I find he works best in soft and delicate settings. This single leads me to believe the album will be the exact opposite. Wait and see, I guess.

In case you missed it (with only 3,000 plays it’s not exactly screaming internet sensation), here’s the rough cut video from June as well:

Papercuts, Jason Robert Quever’s California-based project, stopped in with San Fran video blogger’s Yours Truly to do a two song set from their last album You Can Have What You Want (on of my favorites from earlier in the year).

They’ve also been working on new material, and will release a new 7″ and digital single for the brand new song “White Are The Waves” on Nov. 10 on Gnomonsong. Until the single drops, enjoy the videos.

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mp3’s:
Bear in Heaven – Wholehearted Mess
Bear in Heaven – Lovesick Teenager

Beast Rest Forth Mouth is the newest album from Brooklyn’s other Bear band. “Wholehearted Mess” opens sounding an awful lot like Lonesome Crowded era Modest Mouse before electronic instruments and vocals kick in and put to rest any real comparison. Semi-spacey, semi-tribal sounding both singles and the album as a whole are certainly growing on me with every listen.

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Stevie Wonder + Sesame Street = Greatest television performance of all time.

Imagine how awesome kids would be if they got doses of this today instead of Disney Channel ‘rock’ bands.

mp3:
Daniel Johnston – Without You

Daniel Johnston has long been, based on appearance and demeanor, perhaps the least likely indie icon of his generation. Between Kurt Cobain’s affinity towards wearing his ‘Hi, How Are You’ t-shirt and 2006’s documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, the eccentric and at times disturbed songwriter has occasionally flirted with mass recognition.

Johnston’s latest album Is And Always Was is an interesting step for the now 48 year old Johnston. The album consists of some bouncier numbers (see ‘Without You’) and some stream of consciousness cuts (see ‘I Had Lost My Mind’). Nothing on the record is quite as perplexing or dark as his work in the early ’90s and nothing is quite as innocent and personal as his earliest works on records such as 1983’s ever-so-wonderful Yip Jump Music.

mp3:
Daniel Johnston – Chord Organ Blues

“Chord Organ Blues,” from Yip Jump Music, has long been one of my favorite recordings ever. It’s sloppy, it’s primitive and it’s incredibly juvenile sounding, but therein lies its charm. Just a confused kid in a garage banging on his Casio and singing his heart out. What more could you want.

Yip Jump is impossible to replicate, a messy time capsule that never gets old. While Johnston’s latest is a fresh sounding album, its best gift has been that it has inspired me to dive back into the archives of his expansive career once again.

Sure, lots of Johnston’s work is downright un-listenable to.

But, then there are plenty of moments throughout where everything. just. makes. sense.

mp3:
Daniel Johnston – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Your Grievances

“Everybody! Woo! Sing It!”

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It’s about 52-degrees outside and this is about a week overdue. In the last week I’ve traveled to cities so vast and felt so insignificant. I’ve been denied employment and collected spare change. It’s been… interesting.

This summer saw this blog really take form and start to be something real, and so the music that has shaped it along the way holds a special place with me. There has been a lot of fuzz, some folk and more garage pop than I know what to do with.

Without further adieu here is part one of my summer rewind, I will be adding to it as the week progresses. Enjoy

mp3:
Washed Out – Feel It All Around
Washed Out – You’ll See It

Columbia, S.C. native Ernest Greene pumped out a plethora of summer jams that, while they do contain samples, are hands down some of the most infectious of the season. If you are sick of seeing the term ‘chill wave’ everywhere you can thank him and hipster runoff for coining the most overly blogged about genre-title in recent memory. Regardless of the hype, Washed Out delivers the goods and I have been hard pressed to get Life of Leisure out of my stereo.

mp3:
The Smith Westerns – Be My Girl
The Smith Westerns – Boys Are Fine

Young, young kids singing bubblegum garage pop. Be My Girl is as close to a perfect summer track as they get and the entire album is a refreshing slap in the face compared to the majority of the tragically congested “lo-fi/garage/trashcan” genre.

mp3:
Christians & Lions – Bird’s Milk
Christians & Lions – All My Dead Friends

I write about these guys a lot, and for good reason. Christians & Lions made their triumphant return this summer and with it released quite a wonderful little EP entitled Bird’s Milk. The title track is a simplistic tune propelled by ‘bah bah bah’s’ and some clever wordplay. Album opener “All My Dead Friends” utilizes the bare bone pairing of voice and guitar to perfection.

Also, be on the look out for Ben’s newest project, Girlfriends, a trashy garage pop kind of deal, that have put out some really great sounding demos already.

More to come, I promise…