We were first introduced to Aloe Blacc via the throwback sounds of his addicting 2010 song I Need A Dollar (listen/watch at bottom).  Since then Blacc’s developed further and deservedly gained a larger following (most recently appearing as a coach on The Voice) for his music and Gaye-esque vocal shadings.  He has just released new album Lift Your Spirit that’s been warmly received.

We don’t know how it came about (possibly by running into The Voice’s other coach, Coldplay’s Chris Martin), but check out below as Aloe Blacc covers Coldplay’s new song Magic on BBC Radio 1.  We particularly like the Walk on the Wild Side intro and the Lovin’ Spoonful outro, but really everything in between too.  After Blacc’s interpretation, listen to Coldplay’s original off of their impending new album Ghost Stories.  While we like Blacc’s cover of the song, we don’t think the song itself measures up to Coldplay’s high standards (and certainly not lyrically).  We’re hoping there’s much more magic than Magic on Ghost Stories.

The essential Sharon Van Etten recently shared the fantastic first track, Taking Chances, off of her imminent new album Are We There on Jagjaguwar.  As we wrote, while watching the official video for the song below check out “the song’s big, dynamic sound, including Van Etten’s immaculate vocals, reverbed guitar and melodica-esque keyboards.  And woodblock.”  This great new song, coupled with the video’s homage to French New Wave cinema and its “godmother”, Agnes Varda, make this a particularly captivating video.

As for the video, Director Michael Palmieri explains:  “SVE contacted me a few months back to see if I’d like to come up with some ideas for “Taking Chances”, her first single off the new record. When I first heard the song the lyrics immediately made me think about the opening sequence to the great Agnes Varda film “Cleo from 5 to 7“, one of my favorites. I usually mull over ideas for days or weeks before coming up with anything decent to share with an artist, but this one just came out immediately. I sent a sketch of the idea onto Sharon and Zeke Hutchins, her manager, then I didn’t hear back from them for over a week, at which point I thought, well, damn, they must hate the idea, I blew it! But soon Zeke contacted me and asked if Sharon had sent me the album artwork. I said, no, I haven’t even heard anything else off the album yet, let alone seen anything from it. Sharon then texted me pretty much the same question, “Did Zeke send you the album before you wrote this?” Nope. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. Finally they sent me a photograph that’s a big component of the album artwork, it’s this beautiful aged picture of Agnes Varda standing in front of a bazillion reels of 16mm film. This image of one of my filmmaking heroes has been hanging on Sharon’s wall wherever she’s lived for years and years to the point where it’s all tattered and weather-worn. I like to think that Ms. Varda is standing in front of a bunch of reels from Cleo from 5 to 7, but who knows. It’s just one of the strangest coincidences, and it made us all feel like the video had to be made. So now I can safely say the video is inspired by two incredible women: Sharon, for her musical inspiration, and Agnes Varda, whose inspiration on the both of us is quite apparent.”

To see the referenced Cleo from 5 to 7 sequence, check out the video at bottom, which SVE tweeted yesterday.

We can’t wait for Are We There.

The week is barely half over, but the Song of the Week competition is officially over.   The winner was dropped yesterday by one of our long-time favorite bands, the redacted Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.  CYHSY (essentially, now only Alec Ounsworth) has delivered the outstanding Coming Down, the lead song off of “their” impending new album Only Run (out in June).  The song is a tour de (rock et) force beginning with its de rigueur fuzz-guitar and evolving quickly into a huge U2/Radiohead-esque anthem.  You’ll hear shades of both Bono and Yorke (as worked well through the CYHSY filter) in Ounsworth’s vocals, but will later hear the best (only?) counterpoint baritone singer in the business, The National’s Matt Berninger.  The two combine fantastically in this epic jam.

CYHSY were one of the original internet-indie blog bands and blew up huge like a comet in 2005.  They subsequently put out some great recordings, but in this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately era CYHSY were overlooked in the maelstrom. Now that The National have finally blown up (by way of the non-comet slow-burn) it’s great to see Berninger burnishing his baritone on behalf of fellow heyday-Brooklynites.  We can’t wait for Only Run.  Check out Coming Down below.

As advised last week, Athens’ magnificent Manchester Orchestra today released their new, decidely-heavier album Cope.  Last night the band showed up on the Letterman Show and simply let ‘er rip.  Cope with it will ya?  In front, you hear the metallic sturm und drang, but in back you hear a band with talent, touch and ‘telligence.  Storm and drive indeed.  For days.

Hilarious to hear Paul Shaffer exclaim at the end:  “White people party music!”  Well Paul…if you mean heavy music that wails and wallows, but then breaks you down and seizes your heart and your mind–then yes.  Finally, worthy “party” music for evolved people, whatever your persuasion.

Afterwards check out an outstanding raw and unplugged version of Cope by Andy Hull, beginning at 5:53 (after some hi-jinx and hilarity) in the band’s video at bottom.

Pardon us, but we got lost in that dream that stoked The War On Drugs‘ winning new album, Lost In The Dream.  As mentioned ceaselessly before, we have had Lost In The Dream on repeat for weeks on end and cannot see growing tired of it.  The album and sound speak to that part of our musical history when Dire Straits was strutting their sultanic swing, Springsteen was riding that Tunnel of Love, Dylan was busy being born again, and the Rolling Stones were waiting on that friend.  Those sounds and songs have now been taken by The War On Drugs for a longer and luminescent ride that is propelled further with enticing lyrics and the Dylan-esque (but not aping) vocals of leader Adam Granduciel (not to mention he’s got the best hoots of anyone currently in the business).  It’s a potent mix that continues to yield new treasures on each listen.  To get a feel for the band and their current tour, check out vignettes below of the band performing songs off the new album recently in KEXP’s studios.  And last but not least, check out the band at bottom (with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James) performing John Lennon’s Mind Games in Portland a few days ago.  We can’t wait to catch them this Friday at LA’s Troubadour.  We will have a full review of Lost In The Dream soon.

News to make our week:  one of our favorite bands, The Antlers, are set to release their next album Familiars (cover above) on June 16th in the UK (via Transgressive) and June 17th in the U.S. (via Anti-).  It’s the band’s first release since 2011’s brilliant Burst Apart, and you can pre-order the new album HERE.  The band today dropped the first taste of the album via the official video for new song Palace, which is directed by Hana Tajima.  Listen/watch below.  There will be beauty and build.  And elegiac horns to swoon over.  And an encouragement or three (the song’s lyrics are at bottom).  The Antlers doing what they do best.  We can’t wait for Familiars, which is one of our most highly-anticipated albums of 2014.

Palace

“You were simpler,
you were lighter when we thought like little kids.
Like a weightless, hate-less animal,
beautifully oblivious before you were hid inside a stranger you grew into,
as you learned to disconnect.

Now he hangs your mirrors separately,
so one can’t show you what the other reflects.

When he heard I was on his tail, he emptied your account and hid a part of you that’s so invaluable
(the part of you unsellable at any amount).
He left the tallest peak of your paradise
buried in the bottom of a canyon in hell,

but I swear I’ll find your light in the middle,
where there’s so little late at night, down in the pit of the well.

Then when heaven has a line around the corner,
we shouldn’t have to wait around and hope to get in
if we can carpenter a home in our heart right now
and carve a palace from within.

We won’t need to take a ton of pictures,
It won’t be easy to believe
the day we wake inside a secret place that everyone can see.”

There is something extraordinary gurgling in the musical waters in Australia.  Amongst others, Courtney Barnett continues to wow with her own inventions and sterling borrowings, and The Trouble With Templeton will soon take over your ears (an intro coming soon).  And there are ample more Aussie artists awaiting your adoration.  Specifically, Australian artists Holy Holy have recently released the official video for their rocker House of Cards.  Check it out below along with their prior single Impossible Like You.   The Aussies have always been jam-masters of the jangle (and history does repeat itself below), but Holy Holy add an aggressive shimmer to their chime that hasn’t been heard in quite some time.  Their The Pacific EP, is out on Wonderlick now.  Check ’em out.

A sterling ensemble of artists got together and filmed (via the great La Blogotheque) an ode to Johnny Cash to coincide with the release of “lost” album Out Among the Stars, which is a collection of songs recorded by Cash in the early 1980s.  Check out Dawes’ and Flower’s take on I Came to Believe, followed by Father John Misty’s Baby Ride Easy, and finished off by Local Natives covering Out Among the Stars (interviews included).

This has been and will continue to be a fully Nationalized week.  The boys have been getting around, still in support of 2013’s Album of the Year, Trouble Will Find Me, on 4AD.

After they headlined last weekend in Manchester, England at the inaugural BBC 6Music Festival, on Tuesday we caught the band’s concert and showing of Tom Berninger’s engaging/entertaining documentary Mistaken For Strangers at the Shrine Auditorium in LA, last night they appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and this Saturday will be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live (a repeat of their great showing earlier this month).  Whew.  Jet.  Setting.  We assume all is merely preparation for their most important concert date, their first headlining of the Santa Barbara Bowl on April 24th (get tickets HERE).

Despite the sound, size and squalor of the otherwise beautiful Shrine, the band put on a fantastic show in LA on Tuesday.  We trust that after this week, they will rest up and come to the Santa Barbara Bowl invigorated and throwing hard like the hallowed that have come before them (Bob Marley, The Band, Joni Mitchell, etc.).  To get a feel for The National, check out below their superb performance of This Is the Last Time on The Tonight Show last night.  The supplemental string quartet added vigor and spectrum to their already full sound.  Afterwards, you can watch their whole performance at the BBC 6Music Festival HERE, and check out their vilifying version of Graceless below.  We can’t wait for April 24th.

It’s throw-back Thursday.  We’ll throw back to last September and Janelle Monae (on Jools Holland), who in turn throws back a bit to James Brown and Earth, Wind & Fire in fine style, and then tosses in some rap and other updates to bring the sound to date and make it her own.  And oh how the girl can sing.  And dance.  She took over the stage on Jools’ show last September in the face of some prime competition (The Pixies and Chvrches).  If there’s any justice in the world, she will continue to blow up and be bigger than Beyonce and all the other wannabeyonces.  Pay attention world.  This girl rocks it.  Below is a medley of the three songs she performed on the show.  Dang.

JANELLE MONAE ” Medley ” Live At The Jools… by UnderProject