As mentioned before, the Mountain Goats are soon to release a new album entitled Transcendental Youth.  As funny-man John Hodgman said about the new album:  “Transcendental Youth is full of songs about people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won’t stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them.  I can report that it is a very good album and has many more instruments on it than his early cassette tapes, including Peter Hughes on bass, Jon Wurster on drums, and, for the first time, a full horn section [Lefort–more about them later].  And all of this makes a very joyous noise.”  You can read all of Hodgman’s missive on the new album at the link that begins this post, and can also read Darnielle’s own discussion of the new album HERE.

Now you can stream the first released track Crying for Judas below and download it HERE (as KEXP’s Song of the Day).  Darnielle himself has said about this song:  “This here album track, anyway, is called “Cry for Judas,” it is about survival but that’s kind of an oversimplification, it’s also about building a vehicle from the defeated pieces of the thing you survived and piloting that vehicle through the cosmos, it’s kind of complicated but people who know what I’m talking about will kind of intuitively get the idea and the rest of you will I hope be able to get a sense of it through the song.”

Check it out.

Who hasn’t thought to themselves, while visiting and singing (?) in the reverberating environs of an empty latrine:  wouldn’t this make a fine location to record that heartfelt ode?  Oh, so that’s just us?  Never mind.

The folks at Philadelphia’s Out of Town Films obviously have pondered the concept though.  Having been thwarted in their attempt to record Field Report singing their all-time song Fergus Falls at a sound-check this summer, they retreated to a nearby lavatory.  And therein magic was made (careful).

We’ve written of our affection for this song and its affect on us, but check out this performance.  At the beginning, the other sound-checking band bleeds in from afar, but Field Report soon seizes the sound and has its way.  The natural reverb can be heard beginning at 4:29.  But chills may ensue at 4:32 until the pay-off at 4:40.

And then there’s the unavoidable potty humor.  Boys will be boys.

The fine folks at Austin City Limits have been bringing music performances to us since 1976 (a year near and dear to us:  the year we escaped Maria).  To kick off ACL’s 38th season on PBS, ACL will give us a full hour of Radiohead on Saturday, October 6th, and a full hour of Bon Iver the following Saturday, October 13th. Check local listings for dates and times in your area.  The sequencing parallels the phenomenal one-two punch of these bands at the Santa Barbara Bowl this Spring.

You can check previews of both shows below as Radiohead plays Morning Mr. Magpie and Bon Iver performs Towers.

We love Jessica Lea Mayfield’s sound and detached delivery, and in particular when she breaks out one of her smoldering, pot-boiler lyrics (e.g. Sometimes at Night’s “I broke the little cabana boy’s heart, to let you fondle me in the dark; one of those city outdoor motels, in your bed swore I never would tell.”).

In this vein, check out new song I Wanna Love You.  We can’t tell exactly, but the target of her ardor is about to be loving life or lifeless.  Might look into a mail-checker.

Cat Power’s new album Sun will come out September 4, but you can listen to it now via NPR’s “First Listen”.  Sun is a sonic departure from Chan Marshall’s norm.  Check it out.

We posted in June the Bahamas performance of Lost in the Light on Conan only to have the video vamoos.  Thankfully Conan  re-broadcast the performance last week featuring Afie Jurvanen, his drummer and a bevy of back-up babes (notably including the Watson Twins).  Check out this Canadian band in fine form below.

Dan Deacon’s impending new album, America, will come out on Domino Records on 8/28 and is already garnering more buzz than any of his prior seven (7!) albums.   As you will see and hear, Deacon mines the fertile Flaming Lips/Animal Collective musical vein on the new album.  Check out below the official video for True Thrush off of America.  About the video we are told:

“The video co-directed by Ben O’Brien and Dan Deacon is based on a drawing game popular in the Baltimore art collective Wham City, which is in turn based on the game “telephone.”

For the video, Dan and Ben filmed a simple 13-second scene. That scene was then shown to the next team. After seeing the video that team had 1 hour to recreate it — characters, props, set, costumes, and actions — as close to exactly as possible from only their memory.”

You can go HERE to get more information and buy the album.

After True Thrush, next check out another track (Lots) off of the new album, and then a fun slice of Deacon’s live act (from SXSW courtesy of NPR) at bottom (the analog drumming and percussion are particularly commendable).

None other than the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle recently touted Christine Fellows’ devastating song, Vertebrae [Full disclosure:  Darnielle also touted Amy Grant’s Out in the Open and Chris Rice’s Calling Out Your Name–nonetheless….].  Darnielle called Vertebrae “the cryingest song ever,” and we can’t disagree.  For those that have lost parents or loved ones recently (or not), check out her performance of the song at the annual (New Bruswick, Canada) Sappyfest below.  The lyrics follow.

Christine Fellows—Vertebrae:

“A photo essay of a family in mourning
perforated ever so slightly to better let the lights
seep through
Sunday traffic clears a path
we float inches above the road
close our eyes and drive so slow
like we never need to get home

To clear the doorstep of flowers
throw open the blinds in his empty room
avert our eyes from his fingerprints
is there something I’m forgetting?

fall to my knees in the hospital parking lot
on the way in, arms full of branches
I am dead fall, dead fall
Last time I came here to visit him
I ran sunburn through the halls
my arms full of tiger lilies
I don’t remember this
I was told to go home

To clear the doorstep of flowers
throw open the blinds in his empty room
avert my eyes from his fingerprints
is there something I’m forgetting?

(Why, when you know you should go, is it so hard to
leave?)

Came this far to say goodbye, to make things right
instead I fiddle with his blankets
fetching coffee no one would drink
I am not prepared
Through the hush of debts and the roar of engines
struggled to recall, this is how it ended
this is how it ends

Home,
turn the key in the door and fall
for what it seems like an awfully long time
there’s something I’m both remembering and forgetting
a name on the tip of my tongue”

The uber-talented Brit producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, REM, Pavement, Travis, etc.) and Atoms For Peace member has teamed up with AFP’s mad-skills drummer, Joey Waronker, and London artist Laura Bettinson to form the band Ultraista.  Ultraista will be releasing its self-titled debut October 2nd on Temporary Residence.  The band has just released new song Bad Insect, the third track released from the album.  The song features Godrich’s electro-fandangle, Waronker’s usual and Bettinson on vocals.  After Radiohead and AFP, all else will will sound comparatively light and breezy.  But Bad Insect is a very listenable species indeed.  After Bad Insect, check out two other Ultraista tracks, Static Light and Smalltalk.

We previously posted what we believed to be Band of Horses’ Official Video for their new song Knock Knock.  Turns out we were deceived.  Check out the just-released Official Official Video for the song below, courtesy of NPR.

The director and band leader had these things to say to NPR about the video:

Director, Jared Eberhardt:

“A band spends all this time and energy making an incredible album. For a video director, the challenge is breaking into the club as an outsider and gaining the trust of the band. It’s the best when I feel I am partnering with the band, using their sensibilities combined with my own to do the part they can’t.

The “Knock Knock” video was the perfect combination of three things. First of all, as a fan, I had a genuine interest in making something that felt like the band had made it themselves. I didn’t want it to feel too slick. Second, I grew up in the area where we shot the video; when BOH wanted to shoot there, I already had all the locations picked. And third, I wanted to pay tribute to the old nature films I remember from school. Those old films were all about a bunch of guys going to exotic places and staging adventures, with very little craft or consideration to lighting or aesthetics: shooting in the middle of the day, staging scenes in really artificial ways, strange eye lines from reading cue cards, etc. It was really fun and sometimes difficult to get my head around trying to make things look bad, but not too bad.”

Band of Horses singer Ben Bridwell:

“We had some really great treatments sent to us from different directors, but this one stood out as the most interesting and fitting for our personalities. Jared really made us feel at ease, even in the planning stages before the shoot. He listened to our concerns and took extra care to make us feel like we stayed within our element, while at the same time pushing us to get good performances. It was a hell of a long day, but an exciting adventure for us in getting to see these beautiful parts of Utah and being around the great group of people that Jared hired for the shoot.

It seems fitting that we’d finally get to shoot a video around Salt Lake City, as we’ve got a song that pays tribute to the area called “The Great Salt Lake” from our first album. Better late than never.”