Okkervil River has produced some of the best music in the indie-rock canon.  They are now adding to that largesse via their new album The Silver Gymnasium.  The album is a nostalgia-bomb set in leader Will Sheff’s home town of Meriden, NH around 1986, and revolves around Sheff’s own childhood there.  Check out the album’s evolutionary sounds that include more synthesizers.  This may be Okkervil River’s best album yet.  You can stream it now over at NPR.  Go HERE to listen in.  The songlist and the band’s tour dates in support are below.

The Silver Gymnasium:

1. It Was My Season
2. On a Balcony
3. Down Down the Deep River
4. Pink-Slips
5. Lido Pier Suicide Car
6. Where the Spirit Left Us
7. White
8. Stay Young
9. Walking Without Frankie
10. All the Time Every Day
11. Black Nemo

Tour Dates:

09/07 – Boston, MA @ Boston Calling
09/19 – Mobile, AL @ Alabama Music Box
09/20 – Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder
09/21 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
09/23-24 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
09/26 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5 *
09/27 – Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt
09/28 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
09/29 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
10/01 – Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
10/02 – Little Rock, AR @ Revolution
10/04-06 – Austin City Limits, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/11-13 – Austin City Limits, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/18 – El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls
10/19 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom
10/20 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
10/24 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
10/25 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
10/26 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
11/01 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
11/02 – Chicago, IL @ Metro

* = w/ Pickwick and Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

Typhoon’s 2010 album, Hunger and Thirst, was one of our Best Albums of 2010.   In the aftermath of the life-threatening illness  of leader Kyle Morton, the 11-member band Typhoon has at long last released it’s subsequent album, White Lighter.  The band recently performed a few songs off of the album for Portland’s KINK Radio.  for  Listen in to Young Fathers and hear Typhoon and its lead singer Kyle Morton get his Van Morrison on (along with the now-standard Typhoon group-activities). After, listen to two other songs off the new album, Dreams of Cannibalism and Reed Road.  All bode incredibly well for White Lighter.  At bottom you can stream the fantastic studio versions of two of these songs.  So very good.

The band will head out on tour in early September for an extensive tour in support of White Lighter.  You can find the tour dates, including UCSD and Los Angeles in mid-October, HERE.

YouTube’s “Crackerfarm” graciously shares occasional vignettes of The Avett Brothers’ members performing unplugged.  Today’s posting may be the best yet.  Watch below as Seth Avett, without accompaniment of any sort, sings the bejesus out of The Soul Stirrers’ gospel stirrer, Any Day Now.  Oh how the lad can sing.  Any day now indeed.

This is a good opportunity to remind that The Avett Brothers will play the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 10th.  Get your tickets HERE.

We were wowed by Cass McCombs’ 2011 pair of studio albums WIT’S END and HUMOR RISK, and by his subtly-sensational set at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in 2011.   McCombs has since been busy and will release his new album Big Wheel And Others on October 15th.

Big Wheel and Others will evidently consist of twenty-two songs that will, according to his PR, consist of “road songs, rock songs, folk songs, blues songs, country songs, rhythm and blues songs, skronk non-songs, cinema songs, cult songs, poem songs, jams, and ballads – to use however you wish.”

Listen to new song There Can Be Only One below.  With the subtle groove going on in this song, Cass McCombs may be the heir to the throne of the late, great JJ Cale.  And there can be only one.  This bodes phenomenally well for the new album.  The tracklist can found below the song.

Big Wheel and Others tracklist
Disc 1
01. Sean I
02. Big Wheel
03. Angel Blood
04. Morning Star
05. The Burning Of The Temple, 2012
06. Brighter!
07. There Can Be Only One
08. Name Written in Water
09. Joe Murder
10. Everything Has To Be Just-So

Disc 2
01. It Means A Lot To Know You Care
02. Dealing
03. Sooner Cheat Death Than Fool Love
04. Satan Is My Toy
05. Sean II
06. Home On The Range
07. Brighter! (Featuring Karen Black)
08. Untitled Spain Song
09. Sean III
10. Honesty Is No Excuse
11. Aeon Of Aquarius Blues
12. Unearthed

The National barrage will not stop. After performing This is the Last Time on his show last week, Conan has now released a web-exclusive of The National performing I Need My Girl. Watch it below.

Afterwards, check out at bottom The National’s Matt Berninger covering the sobering Prohibition-era song I’ll See You in My Dreams for the Boardwalk Empire show.

We were minding our own business when the music of Sam Baker fell out of the sky and turned the taciturn to transport.  We were taken away by Baker’s spare music and his deftly-sketched stories of happy old-marrieds, ditch-diggers, first-grade teachers, road crews, and lovers.  His voice recalls John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and (to our ears) even Joseph Arthur.  And it is his hide-nothing voice that carries you away.  This is especially true on his new Kickstarter-funded album, Say Grace, which will be released in North America next week.  You can buy Say Grace now, however, via iTunes.  Do yourself a favor and go buy this fine album.

Baker grew up in a small town near Dallas, and grew up in a music-filled house.  He went to college and then took various jobs in order to travel.  It was during that travel that Baker’s life would be forever changed.  While traveling by train in Peru in 1986, a terrorist bomb exploded and, while others died around him, Baker was severely injured, losing much of his hearing and suffering serious injuries to his arms/hands.  The next decade brought multiple surgeries and a healing process that eventually would inform his astute and sympathetic worldview.  Baker eventually relearned the guitar and overcame his hearing loss to develop his own performance style.  Baker, who now resides in Austin, has self-released three critically-acclaimed albums prior to Say Grace.

Despite (or, perhaps, because of) this backdrop, Baker now approaches life positively:  “Life is a gift. I went through a lot of bitterness- a lot of anger. But those things are toxic.  Gratitude for what remains is more helpful than resentment for what was lost.  Ultimately, I came to understand that these days are wicked short and terribly beautiful.  All I’ve got—no matter what I hold in my hands, drive around in, or put in the bank,-  all I’ve got is this one breath, and if I’m lucky, I get another.”

We’ll have a full review of Say Grace after we’ve given it it’s full due.  In the meantime, to get a feel for Baker and his songs check out the first lyric video from the new album for song White Heat (featuring video and photos of rural, tornado-torn Oklahoma), followed by Baker’s live performance of Say Grace.  The final video is Baker’s personal reaction (given his history) to the Boston Marathon bombing and performance of older song Angels (For the Bombing Victims).  Powerful stuff.  The lyrics to Say Grace and Angels are at bottom.

Say Grace

she was almost out of high school
when she left home
got a job in an office
she answered the phone

her boss was a creep he wouldn’t leave her alone
she had to go
middle of that mess she met a fine young man
they rolled into houston in a chevrolet van

louisiana tags a beautiful band of gold
they carried each other so long
but they drifted apart never really went wrong
they just married too young both moved along

c’est la vie

she starts every day
just fine
then she hears that voice
same place same time

her mother is in the mirror
with the same old lines to say
she says you know better say grace

don’t even try
you can’t take your brother’s place
don’t even try
don’t give me that face any more

so where does the time go
now there is gray in her hair
she sits at her dressing table
in a wrought iron chair

wears a terry cloth robe
with a tear
when she is alone
the tv says war in the holy land

she looks at the wrinkles on the
back of her hand
rubs her fingers where she wore a wedding band
she looks away

precious savior
she remembers a hymn
it is a hymn
she never liked

she goes to the gym
goes to work
dinner with a friend
falls asleep
with the tv on

you know better
say grace
don’t even try
you cant take your brother’s place
don’t even try
don’t give me that face anymore
say grace

you know how
all these years
even now
stand up
mother take a bow
cause you still
make her cry

Angels

Angels flutter around her heart
Love can heal they softly call
When trouble comes to the ones she loves
Her angels come

They ease all suffering
Heal all pain
Her angels come like healing rain

Love and angels conquer all
Like rain her healing angels fall
Love and angels conquer all
Her healing angels softly call

Amen

Call a truce
Call a war
Everyone is a bastard
Everyone is a whore
Everyone is a saint
Everyone is redeemed
Everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dream

Late at night when dreams are king
I get nervous about what dark brings
I call her name she holds me tight
She whispers everything’s all right

Call a truce
Call a war
Everyone is a bastard
Everyone is a whore
Everyone is a saint
Everyone is redeemed
Everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dream

In this post-analog era there are superb artists that have fallen off the collective radar and disappeared into other realms.  We’ll write soon about two such favorites of ours, Dumptruck and The Ass Ponys, which are amongst those desaparecidos.

But the artist whose disappearance boggles the mind (because of his brilliance, but also because he is a comparative contemporary whose music is of these times) is Britain’s Jamie T.  Jamie T released two albums (Panic Prevention in 2007 and Kings & Queens in 2009) that remain two of our favorites of all time.   He wedded his common-man, hip-hop vocals to a varied musical mash-up (including punk, pop, ska, disco and balladry) all to winning effect.  And then in June 2010 he simply dropped off the face of the earth and hasn’t been heard from musically since (except for a few unfounded rumors), much to the consternation of his fandom.

We’ll write much more about Jamie T and those two fine albums another day, but in the meantime check out the outstanding official video for his haunting lament, Sheila, which featured actor Bob Hoskins walking along the River Thames lip synching to the lyrics.  Come on back Jamie T!

We’ve gushed about Janelle Monáe repeatedly and about her impending new album, The Electric Lady (releasing on Sept. 10th).   The album is filled with big-name guests, including Erykah Badu (as already heard/seen on the driving Q.U.E.E.N.), Prince, Solange Knowles, and Miguel, who sings the second verse of the album’s latest track to be released, Primetime. It’s an old school, inflamed love song, and we like it like that. Listen in below and check out her newly-announced tour dates after (including Cali in early November).  Should be one of THE shows of the Fall.

Janelle Monáe 2013 Tour Dates:
10/13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
10/14 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
10/16 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
10/18 – Montreal, QC @ Olympia Theatre
10/19 – Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
10/21 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
10/22 – Minneapolis, MN @ Skyway Theatre
10/24 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre
10/25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
10/29 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
10/30 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox Sodo
11/01 – San Francisco, CA @ Warfield Theatre
11/02 – Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia
11/05 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues
11/06 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
11/07 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
11/09 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
11/12 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
11/13 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues
11/15 – Kansasi City, MO @ Uptown Theater
11/17 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
11/19 – Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
11/20 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte
11/22 – Orland, FL @ Hard Rock Live
11/23 – Miami Beach, FL @ Fillmore Miami at Jackie Gleason Theatre
11/26 – Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle

Volcano Choir (Justin Vernon’s side-project) has released two revelatory songs (Comrade and Byegone) off of their new album Repave.  And now the entire album is streaming over at NPR, so it’s time now to listen in and see if the remainder of the album is of such high quality.  We’re betting on yes.  Listen to the entire thing  HERE.

In two weeks La Reine de Reverbe, Neko Case, will release her first album in too long, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You.  This is her sixth album and, upon first listen, possibly her most personal and divergent outing yet.

The album was produced by Case and recorded in Tuscon, Portland, Los Angeles and Brooklyn with, amongst others, producer Tucker Martine.  Girl gets around.  Case is backed by various colleagues, including guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, vocalist Kelly Hogan and multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse, along with M. Ward, Steve Turner, the musical-gigantor Howe Gelb, and members of The New Pornographers, My Morning Jacket, Calexico, Los Lobos and Visqueen.  That’s a litany of musical wealth, which Case employs in full on several tracks.  But you can also hear Case going her own way, invoking new sounds and effects along the way and even eschewing all instrumental accompaniment for the devastating Near Midnight, Honolulu, and almost all instrumentation on the similarly evocative Afraid (a Nico cover).

Case has always rended and patched hearts superbly well with her songs, and with its new sounds and subjects, this new album might be her finest collection yet.  Check it out over at NPR HERE.