The Current Music Blog: September 22, 2009 Archive

New Music Added To The Current This Week!

Posted at 10:47 AM on September 22, 2009 by Melanie Walker (2 Comments)

Hey there! It's Melanie Walker the Music Director here at The Current! Check out the latest new music we'ved added to our playlists each week here on The Current's music blog! You can learn more about the artist or band and listen to more of their music by clicking on their name. It will link you directly to their website. Enjoy!

The Big Pink has a new album out titled A Brief History Of Love and it is our featured CD of the week! We'll be hearing multiple tracks from the record all week including "Velvet", "Dominos", "Crystal Visions", "Too Young To Love", "At War With The Sun" and "Countbackwards from Ten". A Brief History Of Love is in stores today. Childhood friends Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell formed the Big Pink in their home studio in London in 2007. Furze had previously been the guitarist for bands Panic DHH and Alec Empire, while Cordell's day job as the founder and owner of Merok Records which had him fostering the musical talents of bands like the Teenagers, Klaxons, and other British bands. They named themselves after The Band's Music From Big Pink, but their influences are far from The Band, sticking closer to what they grew up listening to like The Jesus And Mary Chain, Spaceman 3, Echo and The Bunnymen and The Pixies. Their success came quickly signing to 4AD records almost as soon as winning the prestigious Philip Hall Radar Award for best new act at the NME Shockwave Awards. A Brief History Of Love is The Big Pink's debut album.

The Bravery "Slow Poison" from thier new album Slow Poison in stores November 10th. Formed in New York City vduring the post-punk revival in 2003, the Bravery comprising of Sam Endicott (vocals/guitar), John Conway (keyboards), Anthony Burulcich (drums), Michael Zakarin (guitar), and Mike H. (bass). After the Unconditional EP appeared in early 2005, the buzz about The Bravery began. The Village Voice touted the Bravery as "New York's Official Next Big Thing" while MTV and Rolling Stone named them an artist to watch. Slow Poison is The Bravery's third album.

Built To Spill "Hindsight" from thier new album There Is No Enemy in stores October 6th. Built to Spill was one of the most popular indie rock acts of the '90s. They've remained as one of the premire independant acts of the last two decades and have had a lengthy association with the indie rock movement known as the Northwest sound along side Death Cab For Cutie and Modest Mouse. The band has been hugly influential for fellow rockers The Ataris, Modest Mouse, The Strokes, and Death Cab for Cutie; Isaac Brock and Ben Gibbard have both cited Built to Spill as a major influence. There Is No Enemy is Built To Spill's seventh album.

Edward Sharp and The Magnetic Zeros "Home" from thier new album Up From Below in stores now. Cultish 11-piece indie rock outfit Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros was formed in 2007 by frontman Alex Ebert. They draw their inspiration from the 60's and 70's communal musical communities of Southern California (specifically Laurel Canyon). The group released its debut EP, Here Comes, in May 2009 followed by the full-length Up from Below.

Lucero "The Devil and Maggie Chascarillo" from their new album 1372 Overton Park in stores October 6th. Formed by leader Ben Nichols in the late '90s, Lucero took their name from the Spanish word meaning "bright star" blending their love of alt-country and folk pop. Memphis alt-country rockers Lucero have suffered alot of the ups and downs that comes with the indie scene, yet they remain perseverant and their survival istriumphant. Director Aaron Goldman made a film about them mixing archival footage along with footage shot during the recording of the album. Goldman premiered his Lucero documentary Dreaming in America in September of 2005 to much acclaim. 1372 Overton Park is their eigth studio album.

Snow Patrol "Just Say Yes" from their new album Up To Now in stores. Snow Patrol, from Northern Ireland, originally included vocalist/guitarist Gary Lightbody and bassist/keyboardist Mark McClelland. They first teamed up in 1994 at the University of Dundee in Scotland. They began composing music under several different band names, including Shrug and Polar Bear, before adopting the name Snow Patrol and enlisting Jonny Quinn to play drums in 1997. Their first record, Songs For Polar Bears, was a large success across the U.K. Despite the band's growing success, founding member Mark McClelland left in March 2005. Shortly thereafter, former Terra Diablo bass player Paul Wilson and touring keyboardist Tom Simpson were permanently added to the band. They've continued to become hugly successful after countless award nominations and rave reviews. Snow Patrol also became the first U.K. rock act in 13 years to break into the Top Five of the Billboard singles charts in the United States with their song "Chasing Cars" from their 2006 album "Eyes Open". Up To Now is their 6th album.

Speech Debelle "The Key" from her new album Speech Therapy in stores now. Corynne Elliot aka Speech Debelle is a british-born Jamaican that grew up in South London. She took up rapping in her early teens, but fell in love with all kinds of music. She had a difficult upbringing with an absentee father, spells of homelessness, and other hardships that she eventually poured into the music on her 2009 debut, Speech Therapy. The record has had incredible reviews, and most notably won the 2009 Mercury Music Award beating albums from Sweet Billy Pilgrim, The Horrors, Florence and the Machine, Kasabian and Friendly Fires, among other artists.

Yo La Tengo "Nothing To Hide" and "Avalon Or Someone Very Similar" from their new album Popular Songs in stores now. Yo La Tengo is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984 and includes Ira Kaplan (guitars, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, vocals), and James McNew (bass, vocals). Despite having a great deal of success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential critics' band" and maintains a strong cult following. Additionally, the band is renowned for its incredible repertoire of cover songs both in live performance and on record. Popular Songs is their 12th studio album.

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Here be monsters... of Folk!!

Posted at 10:12 AM on September 22, 2009 by Barb Abney

The term "supergroup" may get thrown around quite a bit. I say, if the shoe fits, wear it, right?
Let's do the Monsters of Folk math...
Jim James from My Morning Morning Jacket + Mike Mogis (artist and producer in/for) Bright Eyes, The Faint, Rilo Kiley, Cursive, The Good Life and more... + Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes + M. Ward (who you should know VERY well from his multiple visits to our studios first in 2005 with Mark Wheat, in 2007 with me and with Steve Seel earlier this year) = an indie supergroup, indeed.

Monsters of Folk released their self-titled debut today. In celebration of this long awaited moment, you can grab the tune "Say Please" for free, on our Song Of The Day podcast.

If you're a new subscriber, you'll also receive new music from Langhorne Slim, The James Buckley Trio, Hockey and Jay Reatard. Later this week we'll be featuring new music from Sea Wolf, Arctic Monkeys and new local music from The Pines.

Catch Monsters of Folk on The Tonight Show Conan tonight.

They'll be playing The Orpheum Theatre on October 29th. While they're touring the band will be donating a portion of each ticket sold to a local non-profit. They've chosen Honor The Earth as the non-profit for their Minneapolis show.

Here's some of the buzz about the band..

Paste's interview
Pitchfork's review of "Say Please"
an article that calls the band a "three-headed vocal hydra"

Check our Air's new album "Love 2"

Posted at 4:21 PM on September 22, 2009 by Michael Wells

Air's new album - Love 2 - is being released on October 5. We were given a sampler of the new album as well as a track-by-track breakdown from Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin. Give it a listen and tell us what you think.

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HEAVEN'S LIGHT
Nicolas Godin: It's JB on vocals and this song is very classic. It's all about keyboards and this has got the real classic Air chords. It has a John Barry feeling.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: We wanted to get the feeling of climbing higher and higher into the light but with this sort of melancholy. It's also very romantic and a celebration of women like all Air songs. We always see women in a romantic, idealised way.

SING SANG SUNG
Nicolas Godin: The words are a joke about English grammar and again the vocal is by JB.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: The vibration of the song is that everything is fine. Just let your work speak.

SO LIGHT IS HER FOOTFALL
Nicolas Godin: It was inspired by Oscar Wilde and fog and Jack The Ripper. Very romantic! Our romantic vision of England.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: I think the title is originally from Oscar Wilde and it was about ghosts in a castle. We built the song from the title.

NIGHT HUNTER
Nicolas Godin: This was just a jam, but we wanted to put a different melody on top of it because otherwise it would just sound like a pastiche. So it has an Eastern melody with this Afrobeat feeling underneath. It's a meeting of culture.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: It's a like a little bit of a melting pot with a bit of Caribbean culture in there. There are tigers and lions in there, too, stalking the song.

EAT MY BEAT
Nicolas Godin: It's like a cop show. This was another one of our jams. I buy a lot of keyboards and I think I really make sure that I use them properly - because so many don't now - so they sound unique.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: Everything is in a rush. The guitars, in particular, seem to be in a rush and we can't stop them.

DO THE JOY
Nicolas Godin: It's our ecology song. It's about the imminent end of the planet so let's enjoy ourselves before it all goes.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: Our lives right now are in danger from work, from life, from everything. And it's important to be happy now because tomorrow you don't know what will happen. Because we have to enjoy life right now because the end of the world might be tomorrow.

LOVE
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: We are very interested in love. We try to show all aspects of love. We try to show how important love is in this technological world.

AFRICAN VELVET
Nicolas Godin: It's an old riff on the guitar we'd never got round to recording. I wanted it to be a little bit 'rock'.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: It's the softness of velvet. Anything can be like velvet. It's beautiful.

MISSING THE LIGHT OF THE DAY
Nicolas Godin: This is unexpected and really cool. We wanted to get these really interesting synth sounds in there and again it has JB on vocals.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: We miss the light of the day, especially in winter. It affects your mind. Or you might miss the light of the day in nightclubs!

BE A BEE
Nicolas Godin: This is a tune that we'd been playing at soundchecks for a while. I love it and I love the sound of it: Be A Bee!
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: It's a crazy instrumental but in a good way. The lyrics don't make any sense but the music is a freakout.

YOU CAN TELL
Nicolas Godin: Each time we make an album, we normally have all this slow music and we have to find something uptempo to add to it, but this time we needed some slower songs on there and this is one of them.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: It's a kind of love song. A hidden love. A lot of love sensations are obscured by things around you. Sometimes it has to be hidden to be shown.

TROPICAL DISEASE
Nicolas Godin: It's our vision of Brazil. The late 60s psychedelia in Brazil like Tropicalia but also it's got these jazzy influences like Alice Coltrane in there.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel: It reminds me of Rio de Janeiro. I've never been there, but it reminds me of what I imagine it to be. I have a vision of being in a plane and arriving in Rio de Janeiro. I don't know why. The song is like a trip.