SPOTWLFY MIX #001 - The Fiery Furnaces

We have a new segment here at WLFY and we're pretty excited about it.  Spotify is a pretty incredible streaming service and we would be idiotic not to integrate it into our way of sharing music with you, the reader.  Every Sunday, Hank or I will compile a playlist exploring a particular section or entirety of a band's discography.  The hope with this project is to educate those who aren't familiar with the playlisted bands or create a nice mix for the fans who already like the band/artist.  This week I present a look at The Fiery Furnaces and their seven proper studio albums with seventeen tracks.

SPOTWLFY MIX #001 - The Fiery Furnaces

Matthew Friedberger - "Comforts Of The Coffin"

Matthew Friedberger's fourth offering from his solo (and solo instruments) project is set to be released August 8th.  The solo project is a six album package, with two bonus records, released on wax only and has already sold out (ltd. 700), however limited amounts of individual records can be found in select record stores.  The fourth album, "Cut It Out" finds Friedberger paired with percussion and on the released track, "Comforts Of The Coffin" it becomes apparent that Matthew is redefining how we hear familiar instruments just as he did previously with the guitar, piano, and harp.  Listening to the track without hearing the previous solo releases might confuse, but the solo series is shaping up to be a masterwork and still stands as the smartest vinyl purchases I've made in years.

Matthew Friedberger The Comforts of the Coffin

Thurston Moore on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic

If you haven't heard Thurston Moore's new album Demolished Thoughts, let this gem of a performance on KCRW be your entry into a little world of greatness. Check it out here.

Listen to the Flaming Lips/Lightning Bolt Collab. EP

It's on YouTube and all the pysch-punk messiness is over here. Oh, and drawings that look like little boys drew them with boobs shooting lasers and stuff.

Track Of The Day: Gauntlet Hair - "Top Bunk"

The shimmering guitar on "Top Bunk" should set your summer straight.

 Gauntlet Hair "Top Bunk" by DOJAGSC 

"Over the last year and a half, Gauntlet Hair has seen its noise-pop anthems released on 7"s by tastemaker labels Forest Family ("I Was Thinking..." b/w "Our Scenery") and Mexican Summer ("Out, Don't..." b/w "Heave") respectively. And with the self-titled debut, the duo of Andy R (guitar, vox) and Craig Nice (drums, triggers) fulfill the booming promise of those now collectible singles. Written and recorded in Spring 2011 at Andy's grandmother's Chicago-area house while she was away on vacation, Gauntlet Hair is a subtle refinement of the sounds we've come to associate with the band — the trunk-rattling bass; the ecstatic, tinny post-punk guitar; the din of ecstasy. But what was once simply jarring in its audacity is now also bursting with new colors. While the band continues to mine the pulse-and-clap cues of modern club rap, the intricacies of Andy's Durutti Column-inspired, circular guitar lines come a bit more to the fore on Gauntlet Hair. They are at once oblique and; pounding and glassy; melodic and exploratory."

50 Bill Callahan Songs

While we're busy sharing links. Here's this great one from The Awl.

50 Bill Callahan Songs in Order

IMO, "Ex-Con" has nice placement, but not high enough. "I Feel Like the Mother of the World" could go higher, and no love for "America!"?

See, We're Not the Only Ones Who Hate the Band Names "Com Truise"

LA Weekly thinks so too. Click here for more hate.

Wu-Tang Needs an Intern

Yep. Check it out here.

What we are looking for:
Excellent written communication skills, with ability to communicate with diverse audiences
Interest in the music/entertainment industry
Professional demeanor
Experience with social networking (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Blogspot, etc.)
Well organized with attention to detail and ability to carry out tasks independently
Ability to meet deadlines

Ability to be "Nothing to Fuck with"

Ok, so they didn't say that last one, but it would be awesome if they did.

Wild Beasts - "Bed of Nails" (VIDEO)

Right up there on my underrated albums of the year list. No frills. Who needs a concept when you're Wild Beasts?

Track Of The Day: The Shakes - "You Ain't Alone"

Aquarium Drunkard recently found a gem in The Shakes, a raw band from Alabama that makes the blues feel bluer and soul music, yeah, you know...more soulful.  As AD pointed out, this is the type of music that can't be faked, it's the real deal.  I can't wait to hear more from The Shakes and hopefully this track will rattle your senses like it did for me.

The Shakes You Aint Alone

The Flaming Lips & Lightning Bolt - "I Wanna Get High But I Don't Want Brain Damage" (VIDEO)

I always expected this collab to happen. But, somehow I never expected this.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah New Track - "Maniac"

CYHSY have a new track, "Maniac" off their upcoming album "Hysterical".  All you need to do to download is trade your e-mail.  Above is a first look at the LP's album art and here is the full track list:

1. Same Mistake
2. Hysterical
3. Misspent Youth
4. Maniac
5. Into Your Alien Arms
6. In a Motel
7. Yesterday, Never
8. Idiot
9. Siesta (For Snake)
10. Ketamine and Ecstasy
11. The Witness' Dull Surprise
12. Adam's Plane

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Maniac

  

Track Of The Day: Sophie Madeleine - "Oil & Gold"

Today is a back to back Sophie Madeleine post day.  Here is "Oil & Gold" off Madeleine's new album The Rhythm You Started.

(The Rhythm You Started Out Now)

Sophie Madeleine 30 Days 30 Covers

Ukulele songstress Sophie Madeleine first caught our attention a few years ago when she released some sweet and catchy songs on youtube.  Following her wonderful debut LP, Love. Life. Ukulele (2009), we lost track of Madeleine for a while.  Now she is back with a new album The Rhythm You Started and to celebrate the release she has recorded a cover song (requested by a fans) each day for thirty days.  The project just wrapped so you can watch all thirty cover videos HERE.  

Why You Should Care that Amy Winehouse is Dead

Amy Winehouse died. So what? And I'm not talking to fans here or family. These people are understandably upset and saddened by this loss. Truth is, I've listened and enjoyed Amy Winehouse, though I probably couldn't tell you an album title or a favorite song. Amy Winehouse's music isn't particularly my cup of tea, but I respected what she did--fusing cabaret and lounge with hip-hop, looking on the darker side of things, even celebrating them. And to that I say, Thank God that someone was doing it. So, on that sense, for me it's a shame.

Beyond that, that's why you -- person who probably doesn't care about it or like her music -- should care about her death. How many stories in the past 3 to 5 years have we passed by about her "drug abuse" or "recklessness" or "drinking" or "inability to stay sober" etc.? My guess is at least 1000, if not more. And that's as many times as I was nauseated by it. What you put into your body is your choice and your responsibility. And, yes, it can be an illness. However to treat it, as Amy Winehouse was so often treated (I'm looking at you Perez Hilton), as some sort of side-show is incredibly wrong. It's sad when people die and even more melancholy when they die young. But to forget to treat them as people when they are living is even more grotesque.

Hicks has it right. And how Winehouse was treated when alive is a testament to the Puritanical and, yes, sexist horror of the media. Keith Richards publishes a book about snorting his father with cocaine and putting a needle into any vein he can find and we go "Oh, Keith." Winehouse is a tramp, a skank, a whore. Why must everything be perfectly good or pure or morally acceptable to a media that generates its own rules and codes of conduct? Who said that makes any good art? If anything it dilutes it and makes for shitty music.

You should care, because you want to be judged on what you do, rather than by Puritans and rumor-mongers who shill on contrived controversy based on a fictional morality. You should care, because you're a person, too. And we should all be treated as such: glories and foibles together.

So here's to you, Amy. I'm having a glass of wine for you.

WWTAWWTAM: Eleanor Friedberger - "Last Summer"

A few weeks ago Eleanor Friedberger released her solo debut, Last Summer and as a die hard Fiery Furnaces fan I read every review of the album that I could find.  While almost every review was extremely positive, (spoiler: I really like Last Summer) I was fascinated, disgusted, and put off by a lot of the writing.  The cornerstones of current music journalism are context and comparison.  For some reason the majority of reviewers saw Eleanor’s solo debut as an open opportunity to take stabs at the Furnaces’ boldest album, Rehearsing My Choir, Matt for writing brainy “inaccessible” music, and an egregious amount of false or lazy comparisons. 

Let’s start with the actual links between Last Summer and The Fiery Furnaces.  Simply put, Last Summer doesn’t sound like any Furnaces album.  The only link in sound is Eleanor’s voice and that alone.  Yet, comparisons were often made to the Furnaces’ debut Gallowsbird's Bark and their latest LP I’m Going Away.  Gallowsbird's Bark is southern rock album with hints of blues influences and I’m Going Away was the Furnaces' tinkering with a garage band rock album sound.  Last Summer is all over the place stylistically; from the funky “Roosevelt Island” to the swinging hips pop rock of “I Won’t Fall Apart On You Tonight”, all the while rooted in Eleanor’s self proclaimed love for 70’s rock.  None of the Furnaces' records play off the same influences/sounds on Last Summer, yet the Gallowsbird's Bark and I’m Going Away are drawn upon because of that dirty word: accessibility.  I call it dirty because accessibility is on a listener-to-listener basis, yet reviewers use it as a factual marker to define an album to their readers.  One of the reasons the Furnaces’ are one of my favorite bands is that they adopted the credo from the beginning that they would never make an album just because it’s time to do so.  Matt and Eleanor always approach each record with a concept (not always a concept album) which acts as the basis for why and how the music is being made.  Last Summer is no different, it’s a well thought-out piece that exists, not because Eleanor wanted to break away and make something accessible, rather she had something to say, music to make, and executed the album based off how she thought that concept best needed to be communicated through sound. 

I think the most amusing part about the reviews that singled out the Furnaces’ most controversial album Rehearsing My Choir to point out the band at their presumed worst, is that Rehearsing My Choir is basically the only Furnaces connection I can make to Last Summer.  I’ll elaborate on this more in my actual review, but Rehersing My Choir is a concept album that explores the memories/stories of a narrator, each of these stories centrally taking place in Chicago.  Last Summer, hold the “Inn Of The Seventh Ray”, takes place in New York City.  The shared thread between the Furnaces and Eleanor’s solo album is how both albums take the listener to these locations and examine the details only known to songwriter(s), but craft their songs in such a way that the listener leaves the record feeling like they have been transported to those spots.  As a music listener who visualizes the narrative and makes images in my head out of the presented melodies, this technique is what attracts me to both Rehearsing My Choir and Last Summer.  The examination of place and focus on personal details to make the unfamiliar familiar is the only viable thread between the Furnaces and Last Summer outside Eleanor's voice.

I’m not sure why, but two of my favorite bands, The Fiery Furnaces and Deerhoof, are magnets for misguided context and comparisons.  I think the amount of uninformed text dedicated to these two bands is due to everyone (on the indie fan level) knowing their names regardless of time actually spent with the music.  This is a dangerous mix because it allows casual fans to have opinions before they ever listen to a single track.  The signifiers can be as simple as the Fiery Furnaces/Deerhoof, that weird band, with the weird lead vocals, backwards vocals band, etc.  These of course are wrong in the context of their full discographies, yet if enough people communicate these false identifiers they strangely become attached to the band.  One of my favorites concerning Eleanor is the comparison to Patti Smith.  Eleanor and Smith have the following in common: they are both women, play music, and have shaggy hair with bangs.  Basically, they look alike.  Yet, Eleanor is constantly compared to Smith regardless of their music sounding nothing alike.  Eleanor herself has addressed this trend admitting that she never looked to Smith as an influence rather molded herself from male singer/songwriters.  Why then, is this comparison peppered in reviews concerning the Furnaces or her solo record?  It’s easy, lazy writing. 

Before anyone feels like I’m talking down to other music writers, I promise you I’ve made these very same lazy comparisons.  Early on as a fan of the Furnaces, I'm sure I made the very same comparison between Eleanor and Smith.  The fact is music journalist/bloggers have a quick turn around and the more we write the quicker we have to do so and sometimes the band/artist gets wrongly profiled through lazy or unfounded context and comparison.  The point of this rant is for you the reader.  Question everything you read and challenge yourself to investigate what is true.  I know this isn’t Fox News or some great conspiracy. No music journalist is giving off false context and comparisons to skew something in their favor, but the job rests on the listener to read, question, listen, and then make your own opinions.  We get a lot of blowback from naming our site We Listen For You, as the title can be taken as we’ll listen for you, you don’t have to.  The real meaning is Hank and I listen to a lot of music, there is a lot of music out there, and we’ll be one of your resources to help narrow hundreds of thousands of records down to a manageable amount for you to listen, discern, and create your own opinions on.  You already know to question journalism/criticism, but I call bullshit on anyone who hasn’t developed an opinion on an album or band based off a review, album cover, band name, or any external component before fully investigating the music itself.  What I'm asking (and asking myself) is to be more aware and go back and think about how much you really know about the bands you have formed opinions of.  Like my thoughts on Steely Dan for years before actually listening to their discography, you might be surprised how wrong you actually were about bands/albums.  Yeah, you read right, I said Steely Dan.  

Albums We Love: Sleater-Kinney - "One Beat"

As a nascent blogger (in other words, a music reviewer for my college newspaper), I had to go and buy Sleater-Kinney's album to review it. And now, looking back over that review (almost 10 years later), what strikes me isn't just the embryonic pretension in my writing:

Ah, Oregon! That edenic northwestern state with forests stretching for miles, mountains jutting against the sea and female punk rockers bashing out political diddies worthy of the late Paul Wellstone.

Nor the overly romantic sensibility:

“One Beat” sounds like a symphony with a copy of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” tucked under its arm, screaming "Since when is skepticism un-American?"

But rather how this album has stuck with me as the epitome of what an album should be. What a great album is capable of, and probably most importantly, why music is necessary and essential.

Released in August 2002, One Beat was the sixth studio album from Sleater-Kinney and their last on Kill Rock Stars (the group would move to Sub Pop for their final release The Woods in 2005). While Dig Me Out (1997) and All Hands on The Bad One (2000) are probably the groups most celebrated releases, One Beat is their most musically accomplished. Sliding between genres Sleater-Kinney prove themselves punk masters of the American songbook. "Oh!" is a surf-rock inspired love ballad while "Light-Rail Coyote" takes on urban sprawl with a snarl that few bands could muster and "Sympathy" is a shudder-inducing blues song worthy of Lightning Hopkins. Despite being an all-female group with no bass player (remember this is just about the time that The White Stripes and the Black Keys were reaching broader appeal partially b/c of their non-bass status), two categories that could potentially marginalize members Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss, Sleater-Kinney never seemed put off and their music was too good to be labelled. Additionally, One Beat utilized Weiss's Quasi counterpart, Sam Coomes, who plays a killer theremin, and a small string and brass ensemble. Like their east-coast colleagues Fugazi who turned to friends and other musicians in making The Argument, Sleater-Kinney's additionally instrumentation and songwriting made One Beat more poppy and accessible than their other records. The result is a sonic timebomb that almost 10 years later still sneaks up on you.

To understand the other reason that this album is so important, time travel, if you will, back to the summer of 2002. The country was still reeling from 9/11 and the political discourse focused on issues of patriotism, retribution, and anger. It was a climate that fed into popular culture to devastating results (see Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue"). Everything was very much black and white. With us or against us. And it was driving US foreign policy to the various quagmires and complete tragedies that we are still living in. One Beat is Sleater-Kinney's strike on the crypto-fascist cultural and political bifurcation of the Bush era. "Far Away" focuses on Tucker's response to watching the 9/11 attacks, which are juxtaposed against an image of her breast-feeding her newborn. While the polemics aren't subtle (from "Far Away": "And the President hides / While working men rush in and give their lives") they mark a significant cultural stand against a political atmosphere which drew us into two wars. To those who think that music (or art in general) have no standing on the political spirit of an age or are not efficacious in remarking on (if not causing change) One Beat is Exhibit A for the opposite. Using ironic sloganeering (remember irony was considered dead after Sept. 11) Kinney's title "One Beat" is a reference both to change as well as the beat of America which was demanding blood for out blood spilled: "Our generations moving to the beat now / But we know where we get the oil from." The beat is also the potential for renewal through the dismantling of violence, discrimination, and prejudice: "When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet / Speak up, one time. To the beat."

The album ends with the sober, plaintive "Sympathy" which remains bone chilling: "I've got this curse in my hands / All I touch turns to black turns to dust turns to sand." It's a reflection of guilt and begging for change. As Tucker intones, we may not be believers, but we'll try anyway.

Buy it here. 

The Haret - Live in New Orleans

Exceptional video of the wonderfully rootsy The Haret bringing his one-man Americana to the place where all musicians play:

Ryan Baer (The Haret) - Live in New Orleans from Nicolas Romolini on Vimeo.

New (non-album) Eleanor Friedberger Songs (Live Video)

At the Hideout in Chicago, Eleanor Friedberger played a few new songs.  I know what you're thinking, she just released a new album, so they're all new.  Well, these are new new songs not on her fantastic solo LP "Last Summer".  Enjoy:

At 3:36

via Youtube User seijinlee (Full Live Set)

RIP Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse was 27 when she passed. 

Bear Hands - "High Society" (MUSIC VIDEO)

Track Of The Day: Matty Fasano - "Unkind"

I have a soft spot for winter music released in the summer.  That's exactly what Matty Fasano's two track offering is: cold, grey, and introspective.  "Unkind" is Fasano crooning over a simple piano and sparse percussion.  With that said, the end result isn't lacking an emotional punch.  Fasano is a careful songwriter, allowing his larger thoughts develop slowly and simmer in the mind of the listener, rather than displaying flashy choruses or moments that outshine the rest of the song.  The entire piece is the main focus and after the last seconds of "Unkind" tick away the emotion delivered by Fasano lingers long after in the silence.  

ARMS Preview Debut LP (VIDEO)

(via http://www.1000xpm.com/)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Tour Dates

 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "Little Blu House" by fatpossum 

07/22 Seattle, WA Capitol Hill Block Party *
07/23 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret *
07/24 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge *
07/26 San Francisco, CA The Independent SF *
07/28 Visalia, CA Cellar Door
07/29 San Diego, CA The Casbah *
07/30 Los Angeles, CA Troubadour *
07/31 Los Angeles, CA Satellite *
09/09 Athens, GA 40 Watt Club #
09/10 Raleigh, NC Hopscotch Music Festival #
09/11 Washington, DC Black Cat #
09/12 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church #
09/14 New York, NY Webster Hall #
09/15 Brooklyn, NY Glasslands Gallery
09/16 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club #
09/17 Montreal, QC Le National #
09/18 Toronto, ON Opera House #
09/19 Detroit, MI Majestic Theatre #
09/20 Bloomington, IN The Bishop #
09/21 Grinnell, IA Grinnel College Gardner Lounge
09/22 Urbana / Champaign, IL Pygmalion #
09/23 Cincinnati, OH Midpoint Music Festival #
10/03 Los Angeles, CA El Ray Theatre #
10/06 El Paso, TX Lowbrow Palace #
10/07 Dallas, TX Club Dada #
10/08 Austin, TX The Mohawk #
10/09 Houston, TX Fitzgerald's #
10/10 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jack's #
10/11 Tallahassee, FL Club Downunder #
10/13 Birmingham, AL Bottletree #
10/14 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade # 

* = w/ Yuck

# = w/ Toro Y Moi 

Eleanor Friedberger - "Roosevelt Island" (Music Video)

(via One Thirty BPM)

Two New Tracks From LA Font (Sharks 7")

Somehow Los Angeles has become the last stomping ground for bands who still look to Built To Spill and Pavement for inspiration.  While the rest of the world moves into electronics and wave based genres, LA has The Henry Clay People, Manhattan Murder Mystery, LA Font, and many more reminding music fans that rock can still just be rock, hold the bells, whistles, and made up genres.    

On LA Font's new 7", the track "Sharks" is a slow brewing rock and roll tune that features ragged guitars drifting around controlled vocals that appear on the edge of exploding at any moment (and they do).  Like most great rock song, the guitars are the all stars on this 7", driving each songwriting thought into the next.  LA Font isn't exploring new frontiers, but writing great rock songs is a high achievement on it's own...and LA Font succeeds.

LA Font - Sharks

LA Font - Lipsmack

BUY THE 7"

Track Of The Day: M83 - "Midnight City"

M83 is back with the first track off their new LP "Hurry Up" and in typical M83 fashion "Midnight City" burns across the speakers with an artful energy only they can summon.  Not sure what's going on with that single art above, but after hearing "Midnight City" I really don't care, just want to hit play again and again.

M83 Midnight City

Off "Hurry Up" (Oct 18th) 

Click HERE to trade e-mail for MP3 Download

Tracklist 

01 Intro [ft. Zola Jesus]
02 Midnight City
03 Reunion
04 Where the Boats Go
05 Wait
06 Raconte-Moi Histoire
07 Train to Pluton
08 Claudia Lewis
09 This Bright Flash
10 When Will You Come Home?
11 Soon, My Friend

2nd disc
01 My Tears Are Becoming a Sea
02 New Map
03 OK Pal
04 Another Wave From You
05 Splendor
06 Year One, One UFO
07 Fountains
08 Steve McQueen
09 Echoes of Mine
10 Klaus I Love You 

11 Outro

REVIEW: Radical Dads - "Mega Rama"

Radical Dads - Mega Rama

Release Date: June 6, 2011

Label: Uninhabitable Mansions

There's inspiration to be found all over Brooklyn-based Radical Dads first album Mega Rama from the Built to Spill tones of "No New Faces" to the abstract poetry of "New Age Dinosaur" and the joyful noise of "Harvest Artist." But perhaps the most inspiration is to be found by Radical Dads who, unlike most other artists out there, are just as comfortable in small moments as they are being awash in noise, who can slip from emotive to abstract to irreverent as easily as the album moves from track to track.

Given the band's pedigree, it's difficult to not be impressed right off the bat -- dual leads Robbie Guertin (who also plays drums and was in Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! and Uninhabitable Mansions) and Lindsay Baker (who is all over the guitar) are an incomparably fun duo and Chris Diken (Guitar also from Uninhabitable Mansions) makes enough noise to have Sonic Youth watch their steps. While CYHSY and UM dabbled in the folk pop sides of things the kind of British wave tracks that Wes Anderson has been mining for his entire career, Radical Dads toss out the acoustic hocus pocus for deep crunchy riffs like the sawing opening of "Alondra Rainbow Under Attack" which builds into raucous frequencies while Robbie's booming drumming provides the rhythmic heartbeat.

The group plays so well together that you might have forgotten about Robbie's other two bands, and in many ways this outfit feels like a catharsis. It's retro. 1990s retro. Which means that it's not super hip yet and gives the Radical Dads plenty of room to play around. In an era where irony isn't a statement but a fashion, Radical Dads don't employ it for either, but bask in a time when guitars were king, being curt and emotional at the same time were celebrated, and when attitude was all about sound and not about style. The lineup itself (sans bassplayer) hearkens back to Sleater-Kinney and the three guitar lineup of the aforementioned Sonic Youth and even early White Stripes. If that's the inspiration behind it, what's radical (yeah I said it) is the joy within this record and how being inspired doesn't mean playing by the rules, but recreating them for yourself.

Stream it and Buy it here.

Required Listen: Body Parts

Considering how irreverent Body Parts seem to be on their seven track offering On Purpose, one has to hope and believe that the awful album art seen above is just an inside joke or a sarcastic comment on the over wrought retro album covers trend.  Either way, band names and album art mean nothing. It's all about the music and Los Angeles' Body Parts have offered up one of the more interesting, unique, and personality driven releases this year.

On Purpose comes at the listener from all directions and demands full attention as a song can turn on a dime or a new section of a song can pop up and then disappear as quickly as it was presented.  There is a cockiness with Body Parts that never once feels pretentious, rather the band sprinkles in the right amount distain, humor, and wit. It would be easy to label Body Parts as sarcastic assholes, and they are on this album, but it's a label bestowed on them as a compliment.  The band knows what they want to say and with most sarcasm or ironic meddling it can be taken the wrong way in the wrong hands.

For my tastes, Body Parts are exactly what a great indie rock band should be.  There is a playfulness that never once compromises intelligent songwriting.  In metaphor form, Body Parts are like a teenager having the time of their life reading Nabokov's Pale Fire and never apologizing for it.  I'm always attracted to bands who don't have any comparisons to other bands and after hearing On Purpose not a single other band comes to mind.  Body Parts are unique to themselves only.  The music is fun, difficult, humorous, ironic, playful, sad, introspective, and if you think up the word, probably that too.  I don't think Body Parts are even close to reaching their full potential and considering how much I enjoyed On Purpose, this band is definitely one to watch in the future.  While we wait for their masterpiece, enjoy one the better releases of 2011: On Purpose.

RIP Facundo Cabral

Facundo Cabral, the great Argentine protest singer was brutally murdered by Guatemalan guerillas on Saturday while on tour. He was 74. In the USA we tend to think that protest begins (and for some of us, ends) with Bob Dylan, but Cabral was a source of optimism, of protest, and of a newly imagined world during the darkest days of dictatorships and repression in Latin America.

His music and concerts were part spoken word, part seance, part music, and part social justice. Exiled from Argentina in 1976, he only returned after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1984. His first success was the breath-taking “No Soy de Aquí, ni Soy de Allá” (“I’m Not From Here, I’m Not From There”).

A rough translation:

I like the Sun
Alice and the pigeon
good cigar and the Spanish guitar
Skip walls and open windows
and when a woman cries.

I love wine as much as flowers
and the lovers but no Lords
I love to be a friend of thieves
and the songs of Cabral.

I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.
I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.

UNLESS THE PEOPLE THE SINGS THE SONGS
SONGS ARE NOT AND WHEN THE SINGS THE PEOPLE
NO ONE KNOWS THE AUTHOR
SEEKS YOUR THAT YOUR SONGS GO TO THE PEOPLE
TO STOP THAN TO DUMP THE HEART IN THE POPULAR SOUL
WHAT IS LOST OF GLORY WINS THE ETERNITY.

THE BRUSH THAT PAINTS
NOR THE TIME WHAT TO DELETE AND NO ONE IS TO ENCOURAGE
TO CORRECT THE NON PAINTED FLAT WHO
YOU HAVE WANTED TO BUT WHO KNOW PAINT.

I like to always be drawn in the sand
or bicycle to pursue any or all
the time to watch the stars (if possible with)
(Paloma in the trigal).

I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.
I'm not from here nor am I there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.

(Thanks to YY.)

Generationals Offer Up Free EP

Hot on the heels of one of the best summer albums of 2011 (Actor-Caster), Generationals are giving a free four track EP for your sun soaked pleasure.  This EP just shines, with two new songs and two remixes.  The second track, "You Got Me" has a wonderful beat that drifts around calm lyrics and results in one of the bands' best tracks to date.  Give up your e-mail, get the EP for free, go home happy.

Ben Sollee (NPR Tiny Desk Concert)

One of the most talented musicians of the current music scene, Ben Sollee, stopped by NPR's Tiny Desk Concert video series and proved once again why everyone who sees him preform live becomes an instant fan.  The video link is above (audio only below). Also, make sure to check out Sollee's brilliant new album Inclusions.

Radical Dads - "New Age Dinosaur" (MUSIC VIDEO)

One of the best albums released in the last two weeks has to be "Mega Rama" by Radical Dads.  If you don't have it go pick it up HERE.  In the meantime check out their new music video for "New Age Dinosaur"

Radical Dads - "New Age Dinosaur" from Consequence of Sound on Vimeo.

via COS Cluster 1

Track Of The Day: Active Child - "Playing House"

Los Angeles Active Child (Pat Grossi) is releasing their new album "You Are All I See" (Aug 23rd) and today they are giving the first taste with the track "Playing House".  The track features How To Dress Well and acts as a promising sign that a strong follow up to "Curtis Lane" is on the way.

 Active Child - Playing House (Ft. How To Dress Well) by VagrantRecords