Colombian band, Bomba Estereo, has been blowing up big and continuing to provide musical sunshine since we first heard them a few years back.  Their 2009 song Fuego was one of the Best Songs of 2010 (we’re a little slow).  Mixing traditional Latin/Caribbean rhythms with rock and reggae and other worthy world-music elements, they have always lifted us out of the foggy pit.

The band has continued to add complexity to their mix as is borne out on their fantastic new album Elegancia Tropical.   To get a feel, check out their performances below on KEXP while in Seattle earlier this month.  First up is the fantastically frenetic Bailar Conmigo (with its Nigerian juju-esque guitar), followed by more greatness.   This band can do no wrong.  If you like what you hear below, the full session, with interview segments, is at bottom.

We’ve been singing Phosophorescent’s praises for a long time.  Leader Matthew Houck and band, backed by full string section, appeared on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night and did supreme justice to the single Song For Zula off its bar-setting album, Muchacho.  Houck’s songs and vocals have always laid us out, gutted in a gutter in Gomorrah.  Few have conveyed desolation so well.  And though Houck’s vocals still convey on the new album, we hear a shift in tone and some loftier assessments and aspirations.  Check their outstanding performance out below (the song’s quotable lyrics are at bottom).  As the old folks say:  that’s what we’re talking about, right there.  And ferheavenssake, go buy Muchacho HERE.

Song for Zula:

“Some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream
See, honey, I saw love. You see, it came to me
It put its face up to my face so I could see
Yeah then I saw love disfigure me
Into something I am not recognizing

See, the cage, it called. I said, “Come on in”
I will not open myself up this way again
Nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand
I will not lay like this for days now upon end
You will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand
To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands
You see, the cage, it called. I said, “Come on in”
I will not open myself up this way again

You see, the moon is bright in that treetop night
I see the shadows that we cast in the cold, clean light
My feet are gold. My heart is white
And we race out on the desert plains all night
See, honey, I am not some broken thing
I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee
No my heart is gold. My feet are light
And I am racing out on the desert plains all night

So some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a caging thing
Just a killer come to call from some awful dream
O and all you folks, you come to see
You just stand there in the glass looking at me
But my heart is wild. And my bones are steam
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free”

Photo by Richard Dumas

We love all good music, and as a result, you may experience some whip-saw while winding along the Lefort way.  We will vacillate between good folk, rock, country, punk, R&B, gospel, EDM, classical, reggae and etc.  For example, in the last few days we’ve been focused on some quieter sounds.  But we couldn’t hold back London’s The Savages any longer.

Despite day-time slots at Coachella, the word from Hades was that The Savages’ live, post-punk performances had eclipsed the raving rumors emanating from across the Pond.  Without further adieu, check out The Savages and their brainy, superbly-muscular attack below.  Though the band savages as a whole, we particularly love Gemma Thomson’s complex guitar attack and the intelligence/intensity of singer Jehnny Beth.

First up is their new, official video for song Shut Up.  After check out the opening song from their debut (debut!) live show in London in January 2012.  At bottom is a stream of their song She Will. We think you’ll agree this is a new band to be reckoned with and one which adds to the promise of the female, post-punk pioneers in Britain that came before them (Siouxie Sioux, The Slits, The Raincoats, etc.).  Their debut album Silence Yourself is out May 7th in the US on Matador Records.  After you see and hear the evidence below, go pre-order their new album HERE.

We are big fans of Afie Jurvanen’s underrated Bahamas band, and have repeatedly praised Jurvanen and the “band” for their compositions, cavalcade of guitar-skills and concert performances.  Sometimes it takes the big names to garner the proper attention.  Hence today’s comely collaboration of Bahamas with fellow-Canadian k.d. lang on beautifully-restrained harmony vocals on Bahamas’ song Lost in the Light (from Bahamas’ brilliant Barchords album). Check it out below courtesy of QTV.

One of the better American teen rock anthems from the ’70s was Cheap Trick’s Surrender.  Surrender was a song that all could get behind:  jocks, aggies, surfers, cruisers, poets, nerds, etc.   A bigger citizen-slice glommed on because the lyrics gave voice to teens’ then-universal apprehension/distrust of their parents (oddly, this apprehension/distrust evaporated when we became parents and has not been observed since–what’s that you say?).

So imagine our delight when we stumbled upon the latest episode of A.V. Undercover in which Scotland’s fab Frightened Rabbit took on the song.  Check their performance below, which starts out a little awkward, but ends strong (kinda like a teen).  Check out the original after the cover version below.

To bring this home, Cheap Trick headlines the Santa Barbara Bowl on Sunday, June 9th.

Frightened Rabbit covers Cheap Trick

One of America’s best and most honest songwriters, Steve Earle (along with The Dukes & Duchesses), today released his new album entitled The Low Highway.  You can buy it HERE.  The album is roundly acclaimed by critics.  Check out Earle below performing four songs off the album unplugged for KINK Radio at the Bing Lounge. First up is the convicting song Invisible, about which we’ve written previously and Earle explains in his intro below.  Three other gems follow.  As usual with Earle, no punches are pulled.

Invisible:

The Low Highway:

Remember Me:

Burnin’ It Down:

One of the seminal, mid-70s, art-punk bands out of New York City, Television, has been away from the scene and hasn’t released a proper studio album since 1992.  Their first two albums. Marquee Moon and Adventure, remain amongst the best rock albums ever put to acetate.  Tom Verlaine recently pulled the band together (sadly, minus Richard Lloyd), and on Wednesday this week they played at Beco 203 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Check Tom Verlaine and the gents lay it all out on the classic Marquee Moon below.  Make sure you stick with the video for the entire 12+ minutes.  You can thank us later.  Alive and kicking Television!!  The setlist is at bottom.  Good luck finding much current information about the band on the interwebs.  Thus far, we’ve only been able to deduce that they will play a few festivals in Japan and Australia.

Set List:

Prove It
Jericho
Little Johnny Jewel
Glory
The Fire
Breaking In My Heart
Persia
The Sea
Marquee Moon

Encore:
Venus
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
(The Rolling Stones cover)

We’ve been following Seattle’s Pickwick for quite some time, and consider them a cut-above the fray receiving adulation (Allen Stone?  Please.).  And so as if manna from heaven, Pickwick has now released their official video for Lady Luck, their collaboration with the mesmerizing Sharon Van Etten.  The song appears on the recent Pickwick album, Can’t Talk Medicine.  The song is an addictive, repeatable offense and a defense against the humdrum world.

Matthew E. White (of Fight The Big Bull) has received critical acclaim for his multifaceted Mayfield-meets-Nilsson-and-pops-up-a-revival-tent debut album Big Inner.  White has now gifted us a new official video for the uplifting new single Steady Pace, which will be released on Domino on May 6th.  The video was directed by Travis Robertson.  Check it out, and go buy his superb album HERE.

Kopecky Family Band have been garnering deserved attention following the release this month of their well-crafted debut album Kid Raising Kids.  We were reminded of this chamber-folk-pop band when we recently saw their uplifting official video for Hope off the new album.  Speaking of chambers, check out the band performing Are You Listening in a cave for InTheOpenTV.  The natural reverb in the cavern is a perfect fit for the band’s superb group vocals.  Keeping with the chamber theme, after check the band’s leaders performing the new album’s Heartbeat in a drainpipe.  And finally, check them out performing in a studio chamber the song Angry Eyes (no, not that one) for HearYa.  This band can both ballad and bray well, and is well worth keeping your ears and eyes open for.  They play the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in August, with all their tour dates listed HERE.