Category: song embed

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Willow Sea: Across the River and Into The Trees

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The songs on Across the River and Into The Trees by Willow Sea (Willy O’Connor) are, collectively and individually, balm for the weary soul. I listened to them a lot this winter, because this winter was very, very long.

Here are two I especially like. This one is a ray of cheery sunshine on cold gray days:
 

 
And this one sounds like the realization that the night be dark and deep, but it is lovely, too, and not full of monsters waiting to crunch your bones. The lights you can see are not an oncoming train, but rather the lanterns your friends have left on their porches for you to find your way home.
 

 
For more, go to CD Baby or iTunes.
 

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White Fence: To The Boy I Jumped in Hemlock Alley

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A couple of years ago, I went to a White Fence show for New Year’s Eve. They were in the middle of the bill. At the end of the show my friends and I agreed, that while the headliners were good, we would have been happy to listen to Tim Presley and friends noodle around on their guitars all night long. He is truly the king of gloriously weird psychedelia.

Here is To the Boy I Jumped in Hemlock Alley, from Cyclops Reap, White Fence’s most recent record:
 

 
You can listen to the rest here.
 

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Mud, Blood & Beer: The Sweet Life

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MBBTSL
 
On their second record, Mud, Blood & Beer have added some hard rock muscle to their country bar band sound, and the results are fantastic.

For example, there is this tune, which I love in part because they manage to make nasturtiums sound kind of dirty:
 

 
And also these two, which which I love because I love aggressive almost-fuzzy guitars and sing-along songs:
 

 

 
If you’re in New York this weekend, you can hear them play songs from the record at their CD release party, which is Saturday, April 13 at the Bitter End at 8 PM.
 

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The Big Nowhere: Don’t Burn the Fortune

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TBN2
 
Pull Down the Moon (2012) rollicked and rolled; Don’t Burn the Fortune, the second record from The Big Nowhere, is contemplative, quieter, and a little melancholy, more evocative of a piano bar than a frontier dance hall. Whatever kind of heartbreak you have, they probably have a song for you.

The following are three of my favorite tracks:

 

 

 

 
The record is available digitally right now, and as a limited edition 100 CD release on May 1, 2013. The CD booklet will include artwork from some of the Big Nowhere’s friends, including author and comics genius Neil Gaiman; legendary singer-songwriter and BBC6 Music presenter Tom Robinson; TROMA films head and director Lloyd Kauffman; author Christopher Moore; singer-songwriter Stephen Jones (Babybird); singer-songwriters Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri; and comedian Josie Long, all of whom were asked to draw whatever ‘Don’t Burn The Fortune’ brought to mind.

 

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[strangers], Something New

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Something New, from [strangers] featuring Eleanor Fletcher (Crystal Fighters), music for: Here we go over the falls, one more time. Maybe this is a terrible idea, but we don’t care. We can see the white water and the rocks but it doesn’t matter, we have each other. We’re too busy making new universes every time we kiss to care about things like logic and sense and appropriate planning. Are we doomed? Maybe. We’ll find out when we land.
 

 

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The Honorable South, Hide & Go Seek

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Do you need to kick yourself into gear today?

The Honorable South have a song for YOU. It is their take on a 1962 classic by Bunker Hill.

 


 

 
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Rhubarb Whiskey: Same Sad End

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Rhubarb Whiskey is Emchy (accordion, vocals), Boylamayka Sazerac (guitar, mandolin, upright bass, vocals) and Sizzle La Fey (violin, mandolin, banjo, piano), and they’re back and better than ever with their second record, Same Sad End.

There are, well, not murder ballads, exactly; maybe a murder waltz? Murder two-step? Songs which could be used to score a romantic montage for Bonnie and Clyde?
 

 
Dreamy sad wandering songs:
 

 
And this one, which haunts me. I keep listening to it hoping the story will change and Ella will get a happy ending and she never does.
 

 

Should you need a revivifying drink after that, the band does have a signature cocktail!

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Navy Skies: Cut My Teeth

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Today is the first day of spring.

Time to open the windows and get the air moving in the house.

Make sure there aren’t any cobwebs in awkward locations, like, say, stretched across the entrance to your front porch.

Lay out your garden – window gardens count – and start looking at seeds.

Gather up all the projects that fell by the wayside during the winter gloom and figure out which ones you can finish before the heat of summer makes you lazy again.

While you’re doing all of that, you should listen to this song turned up as loudly as possible:
 

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Alex Culbreth and the Dead Country Stars: Heart in a Mason Jar

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heartmason

Heart In A Mason Jar is the new record from Alex Culbreth (Parlor Soldiers) and his band The Dead County Stars. They play both kinds, country AND western.

The record is full of things I like, including some honky-tonk swing:
 

 

A variety of melancholy slow jams:
 

 
A sobering, bittersweet love song for a hallucination:
 

 
And a dollop of full-tilt bluegrass:
 

 
And if you need a live performance to sway you, here they are at Ashland Coffee and Tea with Bang Bang:
 

Bang Bang-Alex Culbreth&Dead Country Stars@AC&T 2012

 
They are touring just about all over creation in the next couple of months; go out and see them if they’re stopping near you!

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Fanmix: Warren Ellis, Gun Machine

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Fan mixes: collections of music created as both soundtrack and illustration for other works, usually works of fiction, intended as both appreciation of and enticement to read the work of fiction.

This one is for Gun Machine by Warren Ellis, who is author of, among other things, Transmetropolitan and Crooked Little Vein, and is NOT the dude who plays music with Nick Cave.

Gun Machine is a murder mystery set in New York. But not the New York you usually see on cop shows; the Financial District, which is older and darker. Down there you’re off the grid. The streets are narrow and twisty and reality can be very thin. Depending on how the wind is blowing off the water, it does feel like you could walk around a corner today and stumble into the 17th century, 1926 could be tomorrow and 2018 was last week.

“Off the grid” would actually sum up the book as a whole. It is also bloody, startling, deeply lonely, occasionally bitingly funny, like watching my own city from the wrong end of a telescope, a complex puzzle, and very, very good. If you pick it up, be sure to both read and listen carefully; Ellis uses music and sounds much like Nathaniel Hawthorne used light, that is, as both text and subtext.

The mix below is my attempt at capturing the spirit of the work. The songs chosen are intended to trace the outline of the narrative in broad strokes. All of them, save for two, are available for sale and/or free download from the artist.

The exceptions are Panic! at the Disco’s cover of Karma Police, which is a fan bootleg of a live performance, chosen for the quality of the static, and Kasey Anderson and the Honkies’ Abbaddon Blues, because it is from Let the Bloody Moon Rise, a record which saw only limited release before Anderson went on indefinite-but-hopefully-not-permanent hiatus and which is now (almost) out of circulation.

1.BT, Go(d)t
 


 
2. Panic! at the Disco, Karma Police (Radiohead cover)
 

 
(If you want a visual.)
 
3. Foster the People, Pumped Up Kicks
 
Foster The People - Pumped up Kicks

 
4. Breakfast in Fur, Whisper
 
Breakfast in Fur - Whisper (Official)

 
5. David C. Clements, Oh Child
 

 
6. Blondie, Heart of Glass
 
Blondie - Heart Of Glass

 
7. Jane’s Addiction, Chip Away
 
Jane's Addiction - Chip Away

 
8. Firewater, A Little Revolution
 
FIREWATER: A Little Revolution

 
9. Milan Jay, In the Shadows of Footsteps
 

 
10. BL/\CK CEILING, I’MNLUVWITCHU
 

 
11.Xiu Xiu, Hi
 
Xiu Xiu - Hi [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]

 
12. Kasey Anderson and the Honkies, Abbaddon Blues
 

 
13. Cage the Elephant, Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked
 
Cage The Elephant - Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

 
14. Blackwater Jukebox, Carousel
 

 
15. Willow Sea, Night Light