Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
So while everyone will surely be all excited to see Sufjan Stevens at Trinty-St Paul’s this coming Saturday evening, the wise will be those who show up early enough to catch tour opener Laura Veirs and her band The Tortured Souls. The Seattle-based singer-songwriter just released her fifth album Year Of Meteors, her first second for Nonesuch. It builds on the stark, literate country/folk structures of her earlier work, but fills it out with subtle electronic flourishes and electrified band arrangements. The songs still maintain a wintery beauty though, mainly thanks to Veirs’ pure, guarded voice. Pop hooks are present, though subtle. These are not songs that reveal themselves immediately – you have to gain their trust first and coax them out, but it’s worth the effort.
Seattle Weekly conducted a quick Q&A with Laura about her inspiration on the new record while Spin made her the artist/band of the day last month. Stereogum has declared his love of Year Of Meteors and Metacritic agrees. You can stream the album in its entirety here or check out the video for first single “Galaxies”.
Video: Laura Veirs – “Galaxies” (.mov)
Cloak & Dagger has a special Feist feature right now where they get Ms Feist to offer up some insight into how she wrote the original songs on Let It Die. Click on “Features” off the homepage to find it – and note the other fine songwriters in their archives, including Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. The Metro Times also has a short Feist profile, Metromix has an interview. Don’t forget Feist is playing the Danforth Music Hall on October 17 and 18. Not sold out yet, but it will be.
It looks like Magnet is using Carl Newman’s yearbook photo for their upcoming New Pornographers cover…
And speaking of Ms Feist AND Mr Newman, thanks to Soaring With Eagles for the tip that this month’s Air Canada in-flight magazine En Route is running a music feature, and has pieces with Carl Newman interviewing Ron Sexsmith (link) and Jann Arden interviewing Feist (link). I am not going to read these interviews yet because I am flying Air Canada to Europe next week and don’t want to use up those precious 10 minutes worth of reading material.
Billboard says that Nellie McKay’s Pretty Little Head has had its October 18 release date bumped all the way until January.
This guy needs to get beat up. By an indie-yuppie. Via Largehearted Boy.
np – Wilco / Being There
Tuesday, September 6th, 2005
The observant will have noticed that I’ve mentioned I’m going to be in Europe for a while this month. I will, indeed, be in the Old Country starting next Sunday for a fortnight – yours truly will be partaking in a good old fashioned cruise with my dad around the Baltic Sea, hitting no less than seven countries. On days I’m not in either Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Tallinn, Gdansk or Oslo, I’ll be whooping it up playing shuffleboard with Isaac and Gopher.
This has been brewing since February, but it’s only just hit me that I’m actually doing this – and I’m getting excited about it. This is a Europe not many people I know have seen, and while a cruise may seem like an odd way taking my first-ever trip to Europe, you can’t fault its efficiency for getting around. For shore excursions, I’ll be playing straight-up tourist and sticking with the tour group, so if you’ve got some little out-of-the-way coolio place in Helsinki you think I just have to see… maybe next time. My overwhelming fear is wandering off, losing the group and missing the boat. I mean, I’m sure there’s worse things in the world than being stranded in Sweden, but all things considered I’d rather make it home on schedule.
Getting away will be a welcome respite from my soon-to-be-ex work. It’s still a little weird to be in the office when I know I’m leaving, so the getaway will be welcome. I am bringing my laptop along and the ship is wifi enabled, so I expect I’ll be able to check in throughout the trip. Blogging it as I go is much more preferable to trying to sum it all up with some uber-post at the end. And there will no doubt be lots of photos, the best of which I’ll Flickr.
The live Wilco album appears to have been given a release date of November 1. No further details at present, but it’s probable that it will be a double set with CD and DVD packaged together. Update: They’re now saying on Via Chicago that the Nov 1 date is premature and that it will actually be a little later than that.
Links du Largeheart du jour – The Scotsman gets a primer on the dirty South from the Drive-By Truckers and SFGate talks Okemah with Jay Farrar of Son Volt.
Check out the video for Doves’ new single “Sky Starts Falling” in RealVideo, courtesy of Cliptip, who just posted a slew of updates.
A couple show announcements courtesy of For The Records – Art Brut at Lee’s Palace on November 14 and Freakwater at the ElMo on October 22.
Pernice Brothers are doing their bit to assist in relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina by making their rare but oft-traded 5-track Sandwich EP available for download – with artwork – from their bargain centre for a minimum $5 donation to the Red Cross.
Alex Chilton is okay.
np – On! Air! Library! / On! Air! Library!
Monday, September 5th, 2005
No, I’m not dead. But I have been in a sort of Limbo.
This morning was the ol’ TIFF ticket pick-up party, which basically meant I was playing box-office relay, lining up for two hours at the processing centre to pick up the tickets for films I did get and vouchers for the ones I didn’t, then a dash across the street to the box office to swap the vouchers for whatever films weren’t sold out – which weren’t that many, from my POV. Seems everyone had the same tastes as me.
Anyway, cue another two-hour lineup at the box office, listening to people who take the Fest far far more seriously than I do agonizing over how they’re going to make up the 20-30 films they didn’t get in the first round. Some of the people in line talked about doing five films in one day. That’s insane. INSANE.
The one film I will be seeing is Neverwas, which has a pretty decent cast of Aaron Eckhart, Ian McKellan and Nick Nolte, among others. Nolte plays a crazy person – I think he can pull it off. It’s Joshua Michael Stern’s directorial debut so I don’t know what to expect in that department, but the man did write Amityville: Dollhouse so I expect great things. Seeing as how this is the premiere, director-boy will probably be there. Maybe Gandalf will show up too!
The other sets of tickets will be distributed amongst friends and acquaintences who will surely regret asking me to get them tickets and pick the films for them. Even though I didn’t do so well in the initial lottery, I think I came out with some solid films that I’d enjoy if I was actually going to them. The concensus amongst my fellow line-standers was that the Festival lineup this year was weaker than past years, but to be honest, that’s a pretty relative statement. Now the logistics of it all, that’s something that could use some tweaking.
Anyway, that’s all for today. It’s a holiday, after all!
np – The National / Alligator
Sunday, September 4th, 2005
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The Russian Futurists / Our Thickness (Upper Class)
Matthew Adam Hart’s love of synths and working alone often get his Russian Futursists project compared to the Magnetic Fields, but with his third album Our Thickness, a more apt reference point would be The Flaming Lips. The production has the same sort of transistor radio symphony quality as the Lips’ older sound, but the songwriting is less deliberately wacky and bombastic. What it is is relentlessly melodic and poppy and a feast for the ears. There’s so much going on sonically that it can sometimes be a challenge to pick out the vocals over the sleigh bells or drum machines or answering machine samples, but this is a record that’s probably meant to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, lying on your back with the headphones on. |
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Sparrow / The Early Years (Absolutely Kosher)
Sparrow is the new nom de plume of Vancouverite Jason Zumpano, namesake for the band which till now was best known for spawning The New Pornographers’ Carl Newman. After Zumpano (the band) dissolved in 1996, Zumpano (the dude) laid low till 2003, when he released Sparrow’s first self-titled record. Despite the name, this album was actually recorded after the first album, in the Summer of 2004. Sparrow offers up wonderfully gentle and melodic slices of pop, augmented by strings, horns and harmonies from Young & Sexy’s Lucy Brain. The nine tracks zip by in just over half an hour and if there’s a complaint, it’s that it’s too laid back – the hooks bump you but don’t catch and ultimately you find yourself wishing it had that one killer pop song that raised the level of everything around it. Maybe next time. |
Again, only a pair today. Maybe I’ll be able to get back to three once I’m properly unemployed.
np – Bob Dylan / The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home – The Soundtrack
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
Psst, want a tip on who the next big indie band is going to be? They’re from Brooklyn and they’re called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and — what? Really? Oh. Well then.
So yeah, tonight is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s big Toronto debut and this show has been sold out for ages and ages. I had a pair of tickets but opted to pass them on to some friends as I really don’t think I’m in the mood to be out super-late at the Shoe tonight. I’ve had a long week, the GF is sick, and I’m just generally wiped. I do admit that the CYHSY album has been growing on me (though I would still pick sliced bread over it) and under other circumstances, would probably quite enjoy the show… Just not tonight. As expected, the local media has been running pieces on this show as the must-see for the week. I did so for Torontoist on Thursday, and there’s also pieces from NOW, eye and Chart. Anyone who’s going tonight – hope it’s a good show and lives up to the hype.
But on the plus side – it looks like I’ll still be able to go to the Sufjan Stevens show next week – I had been afraid that my flight to Europe had been moved up by enough hours that I’d have to leave town Saturday rather than Sunday, but that’s not the case. So that’s something.
Sad to see Pitchfork confirm what I’d suspected but not seen official word on – On! Air! Library! is no more. I guess I only discovered them after they were technically defunct, but their only album remains in moderate rotation for me. Usually when I want to listen to something equal parts compelling and unsettling. Daylight For The Birds, which features two-thirds of O!A!L! and half of the twin sisters who fronted that band looks interesting, though.
Your daily salvo of Largehearted links: The Courier-Journal profiles Portastatic, JamBase interviews Son Volt and The Orlando Sentinel talks to Pernice Brothers.
The Cardigans’ new one Super Extra Gravity looks like it will be getting a North American release at the same time as the rest of the world, for a change. It’s due out October 25 on Koch, just a week after the European release – a nice change from Long Gone Before Daylight, which didn’t come out Stateside for at least half a year after the rest of the world.
Umbrella Music talks to Ottawa’s finest post-rock outfit, As The Poets Affirm, who will be playing the Ear To The Ground Fest on Saturday September 16. If you’re there and looking to pick something from the smorgasborg of performances, I recommend ATPA. And the Shiraz.
Anyone following the crisis in New Orleans has surely read quotes from mayor Ray Nagin in a radio interview yesterday where he expressed his anger and frustration about the slowness in the state and federal governments in getting aid to the people on the ground. You can listen to the interview here (.asf). To actually hear the desperation in his voice as he pleads for assistance is intense. And not to imply that one celebrity life is more important than anyone elses, but Big Star’s Alex Chilton is currently among the missing. He rode out the initial hurricane in his New Orleans home but hasn’t been heard from since Monday. They’re trying to keep tabs over at the Posies forum, but there’s been no word yet. Good thoughts go out to everyone affected by the disaster in New Orleans.
np – Laura Cantrell / Humming By The Flowered Vine
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