Photo by Sarah Jurado

Thanks to our Seattle friends who passed along the good work being done this week on behalf of Seattle’s Damien Jurado by Andrew Mattson of the Seattle Times.  In honor of Jurado and the issuance next week of Jurado’s new album, Mariqopa, Mattson has posted the Jurado Covers, a collection of Jurado’s songs covered by Seattle musicians, all as made available by Jurado’s wife, Sarah.  Click on the links below and check out (and download) four great covers of Jurado songs, varying from the clean production of Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate), and the appropriately plaintive and harmonious deliveries of Al James (Dolorean) and Jon Russell (The Head and the Heart).  But our pick of the four is the powerful cover of comparatively unknown I Am the Greatest Of All Liars by Pickwick (about which we’ve written before).   And then after checking the covers, check out Jurado’s stirring performance (at the Seattle Times’ “press room”) of a new song (Museum of Flight) off of the new Mariqopa.  As we wrote recently, you can currently stream Mariqopa over at the AV Club.  You can also see Jurado perform four other songs off of Mariqopa for the Seattle Times HERE.

Jeremy Enigk – “Last Rights”
Al James (Dolorean) – “Cloudy Shoes”
Pickwick – “I Am the Greatest Of All Liars”
Jon Russell (The Head and the Heart) – “Beacon Hill”

One of our other most-anticipated albums of early 2012 has been Sharon Van Etten’s Serpent.  It’s out now and doesn’t disappoint.  Pick it up now on Jagjaguwar.  In the meantime, coinciding with the start of her international tour, La Blogothèque has captured Van Etten in a phenomenal Take Away Show.  Filmed in early 2012 in Paris (natch),Van Etten gives a powerful intimate performance on acoustic guitar and joined only by Heather Woods Broderick.  We hereby offer Chez Lefort for your next House Concert Sharon!  Van Etten is developing into one of our best.  Check it out and catch her show on March 20th at the Avalon in LA.

Our apologies.  We were remiss yesterday.  In case you haven’t seen it, below is one of the best music videos for Valentines Day.  Check out Seattle’s We Are Augustines’ official video (released on Valentines Day 2011) for their Chapel Song off of their fine 2011 album, Rise Ye Sunken Ships.  The greatest of these is love….

As reported here back in November, one of our most anticipated albums of 2012 is Damien Jurado’s Mariqopa, which will finally be released next week on Secretly Canadian.  Jurado’s 2010 album, Saint Bartlett, made our Top Albums list for 2010 and his album, Rehearsals for Departure, is one of our all-time favorites.

As can be immediately heard on the opening track, Nothing Is the News, Jurado’s recent comrade on Saint Bartlett, the ascendant producer Richard Swift (Mynabirds, Gardens & Villa, etc.), has taken Jurado’s usual highwater songwriting and expanded his sound palette in fittingly ambitious ways to lift his songs even higher.  Jurado has never hidden his appreciation for Neil Young and has subconsciously (at a minimum; just listen to that falsetto) paid homage to Young over the years in his songs.   So it’s not a great surprise that at times on Mariqopa, Swift seems to be to Jurado as Jack Nitzsche was to Neil Young on Young’s seminal Harvest album.  Nitzsche reached high on the Harvest songs he produced, and the rest is beautifully bombastic musical history.  On Mariqopa we hear Nitszchean strings, waves of guitar, children’s choirs, keyboards, flutes, horns and most of the rest of the kitchen sink.  The Swift one also brings Phil Spector and Dave Fridmann production elements to the mix, though at the right times rightfully defers to Jurado’s vocals.

Highlights off the album (so far):  Reel to Reel (with its Flaming Lips feel), Working Titles (with its pointed lyrics and Motown-ish backup vocals), the very Young-ian Mountains Still Asleep and Everyone a Star, the poignant So On, Nevada, and Museum of Flight (with its propulsive rhythms and fab falsetto vocals).  That’s right, we didn’t leave many songs off the highlights list.  That’s because it’s a tour de force from stem to stern.  He’s one of our best.  Check it out.

Go stream Mariqopa over at the A.V. Club HERE.  And then pick up the album when it comes out next week.

So good to be back from the Grammys.  Nice vacation backstage with the kids and geezers.  Nicki…we’ll talk.

For something completely different, check out The Head and the Heart’s new video for their song Down in the Valley, which in a scant five minutes captures well the life of an American indie band.  Check it out.

James Mercer showed up on San Diego’s 91X Radio Station (of all places) recently and did a brief unplugged Shins set opening with Young Pilgrims, then playing new songs Simple Song and It’s Only Life, and then finishing with New Slang.   Check it out below and prepare for Port of Morrow’s imminent release.  Thanks to our San Diego friends for forwarding.

Former Port O’Brien frontman, Van Pierszalowski, graced 2011 with his new band, WATERS, resulting in a welcome new album (Out in the Light) and one of the Best Songs of 2011 (Oh Holy Break of Day).  We caught them live at Muddy Waters last Fall and highly recommend you dive in and check ’em out.   Now for something slightly different, check out this Tiny Telephone session below, and the group singalong on Waters’ song, Take Me Out to the Coast.  When in doubt get thee to the coast, where the Waters will wash over you.  And if you can do it at the holy break of day, everything will be all right.

As mentioned earlier, John K. Samson, leader of one of our all-time faves–The Weakerthans, just released a phenomenal new solo album, Provincial, on Epitaph-Anti Records.  Samson showed up recently at Exclaim! TV to perform one of the most affecting songs off the album, Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San.  Though nearly indecipherable without Master’s degrees in Icelandic and Canadian history, Epitaph tells us that the song “is set in a tuberculosis sanatorium which existed in the small town of Ninette, Manitoba from 1915 to 1973. The…lyrics are sung as a letter written by a fictional Icelandic immigrant patient residing in the San[atorium], to his brother back home in Riverton, Manitoba, sometime in the 1940s.”  Huh.  All we hear is desolation and shatterdom.  On the plus side, Samson’s perfect, world-weary vocals and delivery leave us comparing plights and counting blessings.  Samson never fails to move us.  Check it out below.

Update:  Exclaim! TV has now released the companion song to Ninette San, When I Write My Masters Thesis.  Check it out after.

Wilco was the featured band on Austin City Limits last weekend.  For a sneak peak of what you’re in for at the Arlington Theater this Friday in Santa Barbara, check out the entire Austin City Limits episode below (with Nick Lowe on one song).

Watch Wilco on PBS. See more from Austin City Limits.

The Shins have released another song, September, off of their impending new album, Port of Morrow, this time via website Record Store Day.   September is a lovely month and song, evidently written for James Mercer’s wife (Marisa Kula) and scheduled for release as a B-Side on, you guessed it, Valentines Day.  Chocolate and roses weren’t enough, eh James?  One-upped again.

The Shins: “September” (b-side of “Simple Song” 7”) from Record Store Day on Vimeo.