Category: Reviews

Other Stuff You Might Like: NPR Music

Chances are, you’ve already met NPR Music on your travels.  From their excellent programs like All Songs Considered to their wonderful First Listen series, NPR Music is an amazing repository of live, archived, and upcoming music. You can find weeks’ worth of live concerts, in-studio recordings, music previews, and more.   And best of all, it’s free.  At least, to listen.  You all know the deal: Public Radio is funded by listeners like you, and, in today’s corporate-dominated environment, independent music is an even more precious commodity than it used to be.

Of course, I’m not here to tell you what to spend your money on… oh, wait, that’s exactly what I’m here for.  But I’ll tell you what: I think that NPR Music is quite possibly the most important music program in the industry.  Yeah, there, I said it.  Without it, I would have never met Joanna Newsom, The Mountain Goats, or even Vic Chesnutt.  So, for me, it’s special.  I’d like to show you around some of my favorite bits of the site, and invite you to head on over and become a part of all the wonderful things they do.  Follow me!

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Coming Soon: Tired Pony – “The Place We Ran From”

I’m often a bit uneasy when it comes to “supergroups.”  I mean, what does that really mean?  As far as I can tell, it’s a bit like the musical equivalent of the All-Star game.  Yet, the bar can be a bit low at times (I’m looking at you, Tinted Windows).  And so, I initially approached Tired Pony – a new group featuring Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol), Richard Colburn (Belle and Sebastian), and a cast of guests that includes M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel (She & Him) and Tom Smith (Editors) – with a bit of hesitation.  Thankfully, after seeing the performance video over on their website (which appears to have been shot in my old basement), I can finally set aside my doubts…

In an interview with BBC’s 6Music, Lightbody describes the forthcoming album – The Place We Ran From – as a “twisted love letter to the States.”  Of its country-tinged construction, he adds: “I can’t get away with writing pure country music because I haven’t lived that life, but I love it so much that I always wanted to try my hand at it.”   On its themes: “It’s inspired by my love of Wilco, Calexico, Lambchop, Palace, Smog – these bands that look at the darkness in America.”

The album is out July 12th on Fiction.  (Available for pre-order in the U.K. on Amazon.)

Follow me to find some useful links, and hear a bit of Lightbody performing a Tired Pony track acoustic.

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Mountain Man – “Soft Skin”

It’s true that our brains are fundamentally designed to perceive harmony.  We separate the world out by like and unlike, and we order things based on categories of similarity.  It’s what we do, and, in some cases, it happens entirely without our knowing.  Musical harmony is one of those things that just happens.  The brain already knows about musical patterns.  Play an ascending scale for someone, stop on the 7th, and their brain will still resonate at the missing frequency (octave).  When it comes to harmony, we have all kinds of ideas about consonance and dissonance, and these are directly tied to our emotional centers… Harmony simply flows through us, and stirs heart and mind in equal measure.

All of this being a roundabout way of saying that it’s no surprise that the gorgeous, haunting harmonies of Vermont’s Mountain Man are often the focus of reviews.  Stereogum writes:

As everyone mentions, Vermont trio Mountain Man doesn’t include any men. What they don’t always mention — Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Amelia Randall Meath often harmonize like one person ghost lost in the Appalachians, all shadows and dew and shooting stars (even when they’re playing indoors in the afternoon at SXSW).

And their bio at Partisan – the label that is releasing Made The Harbor on July 20th – adds:

The music of Mountain Man is nestled in the tradition of American folk, but shoots like diamond dust out of the nest into the high, wide atmosphere. Their songs are shaped by three searching voices, encompassing harmonies and a shared belief in and love of the world.

There’s not really a lot to add.  The music is, indeed, ethereal, and it commands your full attention.  It has a beauty that speaks of ancient ways of storytelling, and also a vibrancy that speaks to a living, oral tradition.  It is both earthy and sophisticated, and, above all else, it is beautiful.  Follow me for some songs from their 2009 Mountain Man, a copy of “Soft Skin” from their forthcoming Made The Harbor, and a performance video:

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Ghosts I’ve Met: “Payphone Patience” EP

Sometimes, though not often enough, the Fates conspire to start your day off just right.  And so it was, this morning, when Ghosts I’ve Met‘s debut EP on Yer Bird Records – Payphone Patience – arrived in my Inbox.  Ghosts I’ve Met is – according to Yer Bird – “…a musical project that came to be in Seattle in 2005 by singer songwriter & musician Sam Watts.  There are often a cast of musicians that find themselves anchored by the songwriting talents of Sam Watts that then become “Ghosts I’ve Met”.”  Those musicians have included Margaret White of Sparklehorse, Darren Jessee of Ben Folds Five, Brent Arnold (Modest Mouse, Built To Spill), as well as Michael Lerner of the Antlers.  Jessee plays piano on Payphone Patience.

The music itself is beautiful, lush folk music that reminds me of so many late nights spent driving through the sparsely-populated expanses of Western Massachusetts.  There’s a frost that attends Payphone Patience, and it feels that only the delicate, warm layers of harmony and strings keep it at bay.  Indeed, much like the campfire that you would expect to find these songs by, the warmth of the EP seems to swell over its five-song play list.  Listening to the album, one feels as if the ghosts that Watts’ evoked in the EP’s title are only just out of sight, and that they might very well come to sit with you – or, perhaps, within you – for a good long while.

I confess that this is the first I’ve listened to the music of Sam Watts, but it feels so very much like something that I’ve known and loved for ages.  It’s calming, and, in the best sense of the word, precious.  A feeling that’s truly hard to capture without using a phrase like “a giant reflecting pool for the soul.”  But as I’m no longer in tenth grade (I am, in fact, in the 21st grade), I’ll have to let that one go… Instead, I’ll tell you that it makes me think of dusk, and of breathing in some strong lapsang souchong while a hint of Autumn air moves gently under my collar…

I strongly encourage you to head over to Yer Bird and grab a copy.  It’s out today in digital release.  They’re absolutely right when they say that “you won’t regret it.”

Follow me for a sample and a video, and then go check out Ghosts I’ve Met on myspace:

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New Music: Lizzie Nunnery – Company of Ghosts

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I met Lizzie Nunnery while I was a student at Oxford, and I’m still a little bit afraid of her.  Lizzie is one of those quiet, unassuming people who, once you get them going, just explodes with sound and light.  I met her while working on one of her student plays, and I have followed her over the years as she tours the U.K. with her music and her drama.  She is most prolific.  As her biography notes: “…her most recent stage play “Intemperance,” receiving a 5 star review in the Guardian. Her play with songs, “The Singer”, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 08 and she co-composed the soundtrack to her short film, “Monkey Love”, broadcast on Channel 4 in September 2009.”  Gosh, it’s a long way from sitting around in Oxford and thinking up comedy sketches (which, of course, I will use to blackmail her when she’s rich and famous.  Don’t tell!).

But what’s best about Lizzie is that her art always speaks to something inside you that you weren’t quite aware of.  Her voice carries a sincerity of purpose, and a measure of spirit, that is beyond compelling.  Indeed, I suspect that you will spend most of the time that you listen to her debut album Company of Ghosts (out now on Fellside Recordings, Amazon, and others) looking off into the distance for something that you suddenly sense but can’t quite see.  Lizzie has released two EPs previously – Monkeys & Devils and Hungry – which are, sadly, sold out.  Of course, I won’t leave you hanging, and you can find a taste below.  And really, I think taste is the right word.  No one passively encounters Lizzie… you take her in deep, or you don’t take her in at all.  Follow me, have a listen, and see for yourself.  Then, hop over to her myspace page for more:

And hey, if you ever see her, ask her when “Llama! The Musical” is coming out.  Seriously.

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