Crafty Canadian outfit Bahamas has been notably silent, so we were happy to learn that they have a new album pending entitled Bahamas Is Afie (self-explanatory since the multifaceted Afie Jurvanen is the heart and soul of the “band”) on Brushfire Records.  If you haven’t heard Bahamas, do yourselves a huge favor (particularly all you “boomers”–we guarantee you will love this album or your money back from what you paid to read this). You can currently stream the new album over at Spin HERE.

In conjunction with the new album, Central Coasters  will again have the chance to catch Bahamas in Santa Barbara when they open for label mate Jack Johnson at the Santa Barbara Bowl on August 31st (all you JJ fans–get to the Bowl early and catch this great opener).  We last caught Bahamas at Soho in SB in 2012 where they put on a fantastic show.  While Bahamas shines on record (and the new album is their best yet), where they really excel is live.  Jurvanen is an outstanding guitar-player and singer (vocally somewhere on a spectrum between M. Ward, Ron Sexsmith and the late, great Jesse Winchester, but with Afie’s own inflections and emphases).

To see what we’re talking about, check out their superb performances recently for KCRW below.  And at bottom check out Afie Jurvanen’s superb acoustic lead guitar-play for Exclaim!

To order Bahamas is Afie and see their tour dates, go HERE.

Just three weeks ago, Caribou unveiled the entrancing track Can’t Do Without You.  The “band” (primarily Dan Snaith) has now previewed the title track to their impending new album, Our Love, which will be released on October 7th.  While not as immediately catchy as Can’t Do Without You, Our Love is a tour de electronic-force that ebbs and flows using seemingly the entirety of the modern musical-kitchen sink.   Check it out below (via Pitchfork)

It’s been a busy and rewarding time for Jenny Lewis.  Her new album, The Voyager, has received near-universal critical-acclaim and reached No. 9 on Billboard’s charts.  Last night on Conan, Lewis performed hit single Just One of the Guys.  Check it out below, including Conan’s toast of Lewis at the end with her own The Voyager red wine (which comes with download code).

We were deeply chagrined to miss The Antlers when they played a series of sold-out shows in LA last month in support of their superb new album Familiars.  So we were thrilled to attend the invite-only show presented by Pandora and StubHub Friday night at the legendary Mack Sennett Studios in Los Feliz.

We have been huge fans of The Antlers (Peter Silberman, Darby Cicci and Michael Lerner) since 2009’s devastatingly good Hospice album and catching them enthrall in San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles concerts while out on their tour in support of that album.   Hospice was followed by the brilliant Burst Apart, and then their 2012 EP Undersea.  Familiars is recently released on Anti- Records, and we will have a full (rave) review of it soon.  Suffice it to say that on Familiars The Antlers continue to write beautiful, emotion-laden melodies, and Peter Silberman’s falsetto is set once again in the company of  angels.  But musically Familiars is a hornier album (as in employing more horns, ya guttersnipes) than prior albums, which helps to sell the mood evermore.  And on the album Silberman has newly adopted a two-sides-to-every-story, doppelgänger lyrical narrative that adds even more depth.

On Friday at the Mack Sennett Studios, the band came out and did what they do so well live:  melodically building their songs to intensely atmospheric climaxes, only to (oft-times) resolve in peaceful calm, all of which drives a crowd to emotional oblivion and back.  There were chills and tear-spills all over the set.  On stage, the band is led by Silberman’s scintillating falsetto and guitar-play.  The comparisons of Silberman’s vocals to Jeff Buckley are not inappropriate, though Silberman may have Buckley beat (we know, sacrilege, but we’re sticking to it), and especially live where (unimaginably) he goes beyond the recorded evidence.  While Silberman only briefly exchanged words with the audience, throughout the set his eyes sought out and connected with in-close audience members, adding a personal touch that trite words could not convey.  Charmed, we’re sure.

Their set was naturally dominated by Familiars’ songs, with highlights being Palace, Hotel, Parade, Revisited, Director, Suffering and Refuge (alright, pretty much every song on the album), all of which benefited from their enhanced live delivery.  Familiars songs were interlaced with Hospice’s touchstones Kettering, Sylvia, and Epilogue (one of their best quasi-anthems), and Undersea’s Drift Dive.  The band then closed strongly with reverberating renditions of I Don’t Want Love and Putting the Dog to Sleep off of Burst Apart.  Throughout the set, in keeping with the new album’s hornier sound, the dual horn/keys accompaniment of arranger Darby Cicci and newly added Kelly Pratt lifted the songs to new emotional heights, matched always by the mood-perfect playing of Michael Lerner on drums.  Cicci and Pratt at times took turns on trumpet, at other times harmonized on horns (oft-times while one or both of them also played keyboard with their other hands), while at others Pratt would open songs with his resoundingly evocative French horn.  Throughout the set Pratt added jazz-inflected coloratura to the soaring sounds that would not be out of place on ECM Records (high praise in our book).

Minor quibble:  as much as we loved their set, we share the desires expressed by many fans:  here’s to The Antlers adding additional moods and rhythms to their song palette to draw a broader audience to the deserving band.  But if not, we remain all-in on The Antlers.

And kudos to Pandora and StubHub for the perfectly staged and sound-mixed event, replete with custom commemorative posters screened on-site and complimentary t-shirts, all as set in the historic Mack Sennett Studios.

Check out the photos above and below courtesy of Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Pandora.

For those that could not attend, you can check out some recent, superb “live” (in studio) videos of this fine band in action by going HERE to see our post on their set at KEXP.

LA’s hip-hop vets Dilated Peoples today released their first album in eight years, Directors of Photography.  We’ve had the single from the album, Show Me the Way, on repeat for an embarrassing amount of time this past week.  On this track DP has smartly combined with Seattle’s Jake One to produce the track and hooked into Aloe Blacc for the hooky-chorus.  We love the above-the-morass verses, piano/horn-blaze and everything about it.  Check it out now (below some excerpted verses below), and go get Directors of Photography HERE.

Inspirational Verses:

“The harder the work well the longer the day
Easy may come but it sure don’t stay
Tryin’ to cope, boy I hope and I pray
Show me the way”

____

“Ride the wave like the world is a beach
Learn more I teach
I was raised by NWA and stayed CA
All day, same story different briefcase”

____

“I’ve been through some pitfalls that knocked me down
Made it through close calls and lost some ground
It’s a hell of a price I pay
Somebody show me the way
Somebody show me the way”

____

“On a planet in regression in a loft at the summit
Air is much clearer, catch me on the high road
Some fight to live, others settle for survival
It’s your world, you can write the line you live your life on
It’s heavy but you’re strong just hold on until that light dawns”

It’s finally happening.  Jenny Lewis is finally receiving the appreciation she’s long been due.  From the four highly-influential Rilo Kiley albums to Jenny & Jonny to her solo albums, Lewis (and her abettors) has built one of the strongest discographies in modern rock.  Not to mention she’s got one of the best voices in the business.  As evidence of her new-found popularity, her valiant new album, The Voyager, debuted at No. 17 on Billboard and has risen to No. 9.  Congrats to the deserving Lewis!   Her music video for Just One of the Guys with Anne Hathaway, Kristen Stewart, and Brie Larson surely has contributed given its 3,000,000+ hits.

To get a good glimpse of Lewis, check out three vignettes below from yesterday’s CBS Saturday Morning show.  Watch first as Lewis and band perform She’s Not Me, her new song that puts a twist or two on Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown.  Afterwards watch as Lewis performs her Ebola-catchy hit single Just One of the Guys.  And finally, listen to the interview with Lewis.

Ya gotta love those glasses, suit and guitar.

We’ve repeatedly voiced our appreciation for East Coast band Woods and their well-wrought and rendered psych-pop.  Their new album, With Light and With Love, continues their qualitative revolution and is a joy to the ears, and made more interesting with its searching lyrical bent from songwriter Jeremy Earl.   But where Woods really shines is live.  Check out the vignettes below from their recent session on KEXP.  With 60s and early-70s sounds clearly ringing in their ears, Woods delivers an outstanding set on KEXP.  In addition to Earl’s great songwriting and vocals, guitarist Jarvis Taveniere really stands out here.

The first song below, Leaves Like Glass, is sweet and soulful, followed by Green’s the Color featuring Taveniere on a Teardrop 12-string electric.  That’s beauty right there.  Next up is Shepherd, with Taveniere once again regaling with sweet and deft slide guitar notes.  And finally, for those that like an extended jam, check out the new album’s title track, With Light and With Love, at bottom.  The finale has it all, but especially superb ensemble interplay.

Woods is out on tour now and playing Outside Lands tomorrow.  Their tour dates and tickets can be had HERE.

Having declared this week Spoon Week, we bring you below performances by the consistently great band from this morning’s Morning Becomes Eclectic session on KCRW.  Watch the band rave through yet another great song, Rainy Taxi, and an electric version of the outstanding Inside Out, both off their much-loved new album They Want My Soul. Check it out below and go HERE to listen to the remainder of their Morning Becomes Eclectic session. Spoon plays the Hollywood Forever Cemetery tomorrow night. Be there.

Yes, we have declared this week Spoon Week.  But because Arcade Fire had the common sense to have Spoon open for them Tuesday night in San Diego, we will toss off our brief review of Arcade Fire’s show Monday night at the Santa Barbara Bowl.  What can we say about the near universally-loved Arcade Fire that hasn’t been said better before?  Practically zilch.  We are, however, gluttons for marginalia–so off we go.  Again.

Montreal’s Arcade Fire brought their big-top, confetti-cannoned, Barnum & Bailey production to the Santa Barbara Bowl Monday, and throughout there was joy in Sandville.  While we had caught them in 2010 on the Suburbs Tour, we had all waited, seemingly forever, for band and Bowl to stop flirting and finally hook-up.  At last it was unveiled that one of the great live bands would grace our hallowed Santa Barbara Bowl, and there was ecstasy amongst both the cognoscenti and throng.

Anticipation was high on Monday, and many gathered early for the show and were treated to talented and entertaining opening sets from Owen Pallet and Dan Deacon.  But finally it was showtime for the main attraction, and Arcade Fire and their bobbleheaded brigade hit the stage, opening with a curious cover of the Dead Kennedy’s California Uber Alles, the 1980 attack (of sorts) on then-governor Jerry Brown (replete with Win Butler’s Jerry Brown mask–see below).  What goes around comes around, eh?  At song’s end Win Butler properly taunted the half-seated audience to get up out of their seats, and the crowd obliged.  And the band proceeded to pound its way through a series of Reflektor songs, interspersed with confetti and ribbon, and Funeral’s riling Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) and Month of May.  All of the Reflektor songs of course reflect far better live (the Clash/Big Audio Dynamite homage Flashbulb Eyes in particular stood out), but the set really took off when the band downshifted to play the subtly-majestic sounds of the Suburbs.  And thereafter it was a mix of new and old, dominated by rockers (with the needed respite of Ocean of Noise) and capped-off with their much-sung anthems.  And more confetti.  It was a tour de force from a band that has achieved legendary status for their live performances (mention their April Coachella set to any who attended and they will immediately glaze-up in euphoria).  Though Win Butler was the focal point for much of the show, Régine Chassagne added immensely throughout the night with her smiling charm and magnetism, and all 90 members of the entourage performed admirably, each on multiple instruments.  The Bowl crowd ate up and sang back the chill-inducing anthems that set Arcade Fire apart, and especially the older anthems Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), No Cars Go and, of course, their standard night-ending, magnum-opus, Wake Up.  With the crowd singing along fervently and in unison, these Arcade anthems easily fulfilled all expectations and justified the love of the band.

Minor quibble: between the big production and total numbers of people on stage the show can come off as a bit impersonal (the “Arcade Fire Machine“) and perfunctory at times (of course they are at the tail end of their international tour, which never helps).  The band could perhaps connect better with the audience and evince more personality if they performed a song or two where only a few players participated and they focused more on their superb lyrics.  But this minor quibble aside, they are one of our best live bands extant.  Many loved the big production, stage design and artistry, so who are we to quibble?  Then again, that is what we do.

The setlist is at very bottom.

Photos courtesy of Greg Lawler (below unless marked “TW”) and Tad Wagner (above and below where indicated with “TW”).

TW:

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Lefort:

In these attention-deficit days during which pixels and pronouncements fly by un-apprehended, four years can be a millennium in the life of a rock ‘n roll band.  So forgive us if we had briefly forgotten the importance of the band Spoon.  They are simply one of the great (indie) rock bands extant and have been so for 20 years (we’ve been fans since we first caught them opening for Guided By Voices in SF in 1996).  It had been four years since they released their last proper album, but this week the band finally dropped its outstanding new, Dave Fridmann produced album They Want My Soul (you can buy it HERE).  The new album was well worth the wait and deserves your undivided attention.

Spoon is out on tour now in support of the new album (check the dates HERE), including what should be one of the LA shows of the year this Friday at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (sold out, though tickets are available at the usual sources–just be aware that if you buy second-hand tickets, you will not get in at HFC unless you go in with the original purchaser that has ID).  They also played the Tonight Show on Monday and opened for Arcade Fire in San Diego last night.

For those that can’t make the HFC show or other dates on their tour, we thankfully have the nine-song, in-studio set to view below via KEXP.  During the set, the band mixes it up with a few superb songs off of They Want My Soul and some older songs.  Superb performances all, with their trademark guitar-crunch (Gang of Four-influenced), and smirks and snarls.  The setlist is below.  Enjoy.

Knock Knock Knock
Rent I Pay
Who Makes Your Money
Rhthm & Soul
The Ghost of You Lingers
Rainy Taxi
Small Stakes
Metal Detektor
Got Nuffin