And in our near-daily National news, QTV has eked out another song (Pink Rabbits) by the band from their recent live session in Studio Q.  We love the laconic, mournful horns and the contrapuntal uplift of Berninger’s burnished lyrics: “I was solid gold, I was in the fight, I was coming back, from what seemed like a ruin.” Our new counter-despair mantra. And Morrissey’s influence still abides. Check them out below. The song’s lyrics follow the video.

Pink Rabbits:

I couldn’t find quiet
I went out in the rain
I was just soaking my head
To unrattle my brain

Somebody said
You disappeared in a crowd
I didn’t understand then
I don’t understand now

Am I the one you think about
When you’re sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits?
Am I the one you think about
When you’re sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits?

And everybody was gone
You were staring down the street
Because you were trying not to crack up

It wasn’t like a rain
It was more like a sea
I didn’t ask for this pain
It just came over me

I love a storm
But I don’t love lightning
All the waters coming up so fast
It’s frightening

Am I the one you think about
When you’re sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits?
Am I the one you think about
When you’re sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits?

And everybody was gone
I was staring down the street
Because I was trying not to crack

I was solid gold
I was in the fight
I was coming back
From what seemed like a ruin

I couldn’t see
You coming so far
I just turn around
And there you are

I’m so surprised you want to dance with me now
I was just getting used to living life without you around
I’m so surprised you want to dance with me now
You always said I held you way too high off the ground

You didn’t see me I was falling apart
I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in a park
You didn’t see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

You didn’t see me I was falling apart
I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in a park
You didn’t see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

And everybody was gone
You were staring down the street
Because you were trying not to crack up

Bona Drag was still on
Now I only think about Los Angeles when the sound kicks out
Now I only think about Los Angeles when the sound kicks out

You said it would be painless
A needle in a doll
You said it would be painless
It wasn’t that at all

You said it would be painless
A needle in a doll
You said it would be painless
It wasn’t that at all (when the sound kicks out)

You said it would be painless
A needle in a doll (when the sound kicks out)
You said it would be painless
It wasn’t that at all

We were teased earlier with a trailer from the impending new album Repave from Volcano Choir (Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and musical pals), but now you can listen to Volcano’s song Byegone in its entirety below.  There is jangle-prog beauty.  And there is Vernon’s vocal volcano.  We assume Byegone is a  harbinger of similarly fantastic music on Repave, which you can now pre-order at Amazon, on iTunes, and from Secretly Canadian Distribution

Repave’s tracklist is below the video, followed by the dates for the band’s Fall tour.

Repave Tracklist:
1. Tiderays
2. Acetate
3. Comrade
4. Byegone
5. Alaskans
6. Dancepack
7. Keel
8. Almanac

TOUR DATES:
09/06/13 – Chicago, IL: Metro w/ Sylvan Esso
09/07/13 – Indianapolis, IN: The Vogue w/ Sylvan Esso
09/08/13 – Toronto, ON: Phoenix Concert Theatre w/ Sylvan Esso
09/09/13 – South Burlington, VT: Higher Ground w/ Sylvan Esso
09/11/13 – Boston, MA: Paradise Rock Club w/ Sylvan Esso
09/12/13 – Washington, DC: 9:30 Club w/ Sylvan Esso
09/14/13 – New York, NY: Webster Hall w/ Sylvan Esso
09/27/13 – Madison, WI: Orpheum Theater
09/28/13 – Milwaukee, WI: The Pabst Theater
10/18/13 – Minneapolis, MN: First Avenue

We loved Local Natives debut album, but have been slow to catch on to their recently-released, Aaron Dressner-produced second album, Hummingbird. Our bad. We have by osmosis figured out the error of our ways. Further evidence came to us today via their official video for song You & I off the new album. Check out below the depicted despair leavened at end by uplift. Not to mention the gorgeous song and singing. We were reminded of our Hummingbird ignorance when we recently caught the band performing two songs off the new album on Carson Daly, both of which you can watch further below.  Suffice it to say that Local Natives are not to be missed live.

The Postal Service is reunited and still out on tour in support of their 10th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue of Give Up. Having caught one of the first shows of their tour in San Luis Obispo, we can tell you not to miss their upcoming show at the Santa Barbara Bowl on July 20th and the triumphant return of hometown lad Jimmy Tamborello.  If you need an additional reason, their set was hailed by many as one of the best at Coachella.  Today the band released its official video for new song A Tattered Line of String off of the Deluxe Reissue album. Check it out below.

We have been thwarted on several fronts today when it comes to reporting The National news. Regardless, now comes the band below performing This Is The Last Time (sans St. Vincent this time) for Canadian Broadcasting’s QTV.

One of our most anticipated new albums of the year is Okkervil River’s The Silver Gymnasium.  And today we get a great glimpse of the new album. Over at the Okkervil River website there’s a lyric video for the first song, It Was My Season, from the new album.  The video was filmed last week at the Plainfield Town Hall, where a hand-painted backdrop by Maxfield Parrish has sat for decades. According to bandleader Will Sheff:  “The backdrop was created so that it could be lit to simulate different times of day, and in the video Nancy Norwalk – Plainfield’s Head Librarian and one of leaders of a 1990 restoration of the backdrop – takes us through the different lighting schemes, from dawn to nightfall. All those lighting and color changes aren’t computers – that’s Parrish’s painting and Nancy working the over-one-hundred-year-old Kliegl lighting system designed for it.”  Check it out below and enjoy this great new song from the band.  We can’t wait to hear more and to catch them live in Cali in October.

You, reader, might be experiencing National exhaustion on these pages.  We endeavor on in our ardor.  We continue to look forward to their consecutive hat-trick of shows in California in August and continue to encourage all to catch the band live along the way.  In case you won’t or to get you prepped, (up until a few moments ago) you can currently could have watched below The National’s entire 90-minute set yesterday at Bonnaroo.  The video featured superb sound and vision by the band and producers.  The strong setlist is below the video.  In addition to some surprising song arrangements, singer Matt Berninger was obviously comfortable on stage, engaging in repeated comedic banter with the crowd.  And Brooklyn neighbor St. Vincent (with Blondie-blonde hair) joined the band for This Is the Last Time.  It was also good to see that new songs Humiliation and Graceless have taken their rightful place in the set with some of the band’s older greats.  Hopefully Bonnaroo or The National will make the broadcast available again.  If not, you can at least check out an interview by Fuse with Berninger and Dressner at bottom.  We look forward to August.

Setlist:

I Should Live In Salt
Don’t Swallow the Cap
Mistaken for Strangers
Bloodbuzz Ohio
This is the Last Time
(with St. Vincent)
Sea of Love
Afraid of Everyone
Anyone’s Ghost
Conversation 16
Squalor Victoria
I Need My Girl
Abel
Apartment Story
England
Humiliation
Graceless
Fake Empire
Mr. November
Terrible Love

At last year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Howe Gelb’s Giant Giant Sand performed one of the best sets of the entire weekend.  To get a feel, check out the just-released Giant Giant Sand performances below recorded a week after HSB at KEXP.  The versatility and touch of Gelb and the gang was/is astonishing.  Watch as they flow mightily between country, rock, latino-folk and, yes, straight jazz.  Gelb is a national treasure that deserves more of a following.

Phosphorescent, the brain-child of Matthew Houck, has one of the frontrunners for album of the year with its Muchacho. We’ve been partial to the band since we first heard their seminal song Cocaine Lights, and it’s rewarding to see the “band” fulfilling that promise.  Muchacho is manned with well-wrought songs embellished with much instrumentation.  But, as usual, the heart of these matters lies in the basic songlines and the delivery of the singer.  Watch below as Houck performs three songs from Muchacho in the raw (including Song of the Year candidate Song For Zula) for Line of Best Fit and French mag Le Cargo.  The lyrics alone can take your short breath away.  Matched with Houck’s world-weary delivery, these songs can truly rend.

You say, “Oh, you’ll spin this heartache into gold”
And I suppose but it rips my heart out don’t you know.

Watch Houck perform Down To Go for Le Cargo HERE.

The Bonnaroo time, and Wilco’s set will stream live at 6:30 Central (4:30 Pacific) today. You can watch it (and a whole lotta others) below.

Video streaming by Ustream