Two of our favorite singer-songwriters, Sharon Van Etten and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, collaborated last night when Vernon joined Van Etten and her band in Minneapolis to perform Love More and Every Time The Sun Comes Up.  Check out the heavenly harmonies and Vernon’s infallible falsetto in particular on Love More.  That’s beauty.  Right there.

While we were away, Glastonbury happened.  Regrets, we’ve had a few more (though we’ll take Pietrasanta this time ’round).  Amongst other things, Glastonbury means: Elbow at its best.  The Manchester band has made its mark via and on Glastonbury (headlining spectacularly on several occasions).  From this year’s Elbow set at Glasto (which was saved by their stage crew after a lightning storm), watch below as Elbow performs New York City Morning, one of the many highlights from their show at the Wiltern in LA in May.  Check it out, and get ye to Glastonbury next year.  For another great glimpse of Elbow at festival, check out at bottom their performance of Flyboy/Blue Lunette at the Radio1/BBC Three stage at T in the Park 2014.  Summertime in England.

Speaking of Sharon Van Etten…. On our recent hiatus, we realized we had let ten music-less days slip by.  Unimaginable.  And we hadn’t missed it at all.  But with the omnipresent Kanye, Iggy, bla, bla, bla, of the music blogosphere, it’s not hard to grasp the cumulative effect on the ears and the need for a music fast.  At the end of that 10-day period, however, we hopped a TGV north and, to help pass the kilometers, we threw on the headphones.  Sharon Van Etten randomly came on, and we were immediately transported by the songs on her phenomenal recent album, Are We There (easily one of the Best Albums of 2014).

Only then did we again recall the import of great music in our lives, especially where soundtrack and life coalesce and enhance each other.  Sitting with the ones we love (sur la vitesse), as the sunflowers, lavender and white-cow clusters blurred by, Van Etten sang (on Our Love) “I’m a sinner and I have sinned…it’s our love, it’s our love, it’s our love, it’s our love,” all to a warped melodic slant on The Lion Sleeps Tonight “weem-o-way” chorus (to our ears anyway).  Somehow our TGV mise-en-scène was enhanced greatly by the SVE soundtrack.  Each takes his own.

Coincidentally, Van Etten has today released the official video for Our Love, which you can watch below.  As conducted by Karen Collins, the video is…well…lovely.  Though we regretfully missed her recent California shows, Van Etten remains on tour and the remaining dates (through December) can be found HERE.

We left Paris last Monday.  Amongst the many regrets that day was the fact that two days later the fantastic Damon Albarn was set to perform at the Parisian festival Days Off.  So we were enchanted to find that the great French music blog La Blogotheque (together with Arte Concert) would capture and broadcast the concert.   Do yourselves a favor and watch the scintillating entirety of the show below while you can (setlist at bottom).  Oh to have been there and to still be in Paris.  Biensur.  Allez!

Setlist:

Lonely Press Play
Everyday Robots
Tomorrow Comes Today (Gorillaz)
Slow Country (Gorillaz)
Kids With Guns (Gorillaz)
Three Changes (The Good, the Bad & the Queen)
Hostiles
Photographs (You Are Taking Now)
You and Me
Dam(n) (Rocket Juice & the Moon) (with M.anifest)
Kingdom of Doom (The Good, the Bad & the Queen)
Hollow Ponds
El Mañana (Gorillaz)
The History of a Cheating Heart
Out of Time (Blur)
All Your Life (Blur)

Encore:
Strange News from Another Star (Blur; solo; first time played on tour)
Clint Eastwood (Gorillaz) (with M.anifest)
Mr. Tembo
Don’t Get Lost In Heaven (Gorillaz)
Heavy Seas of Love

Regrets, we’ve had a few more.  Tonight and tomorrow night one of our favorite bands of the 21st century, Brooklyn’s The Antlers, plays sold out shows at the Troubadour in LA (with Yellow Ostrich).  Regretfully, we won’t be in attendance.  Not many bands (save The National and Bon Iver, amongst a few others) can stir our souls like The Antlers.  Their heavy new album Familiars will undoubtedly end high-up on our Best Albums of 2014 tabulations.  On Familiars and now live, in addition to Peter Silberman’s superb falsetto, lyricism and playing, the band has thankfully added atmospheric horns (via the killing Kelly Pratt of Beirut and the band’s multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist, arranger Darby Cicci) to superb, jazz-infused effect.  Watch below as this fine ensemble pierced the veil on KEXP this past week.

Do yourselves a favor and pick up Familiars immediately HERE.   And then get ye to one of the dates of their tour, which continues per the dates HERE.

While we were away, one of our favorite finds of 2014, Hurray For The Riff Raff, performed The Body Electric on the Letterman Show.   As mentioned before we left, the song (from their spellbinding Small Town Heroes album) is leader Alynda Lee Segarra’s rending response to the murder ballad.  In the album’s notes, the song is dedicated to the Indian woman gang-raped in 2012, Damini, making a recent link between violence and women, and the murder ballads’ crimes-of-passion themes.  Check it out below.  If you like what you see, you can catch a repeat of the episode on Letterman tonight. Watch the official lyric video for the song below.

This year’s breakout duo, Sylvan Esso, have been trending higher and higher amongst the listening cognoscenti.  Last night they let a broader audience in on their secret by making their TV debut on The Tonight Show and performing their superb song, Coffee.  Questlove added superb analog drumming to the proceedings.  We love the minimalistic approach on this song in which melody and lyrics are given air to properly breath.  Check it out below.

Sylvan Esso will continue to tour through the winter, and you can check out the dates HERE.

While driving around in the Spring listening to KCRW, we were immediately mesmerized by a song (Moments) by LA’s own newish band, De Lux.  And then…life and memory-lapse.  So we were grateful for the reminder yesterday when the band appeared on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic.  Check out first  Moments below, and if you like what you see and hear, then go below to watch the entire set on KCRW.  KCRW is correct that the band resembles Talking Heads at times, but more importantly we hear early 80s Brit-bands A Certain Ratio, The Associates and a bit of Public Image Ltd. (KCRW also cites The Rapture as an influence.  Not to be snarky, but really?  When did The Rapture become a worthy benchmark?  Puh-lease).

Regardless, we like what we hear in De Lux.  They’ve got a signature sound and style that is far more than the sum of their influences.  KCRW likes ’em so much they’re having them kick off their Made in LA Music series at the Hammer Museum tomorrow (for free).

So we go away for a couple weeks with the Kanye, Iggy, bla, bla, blogosphere blaring in our ears and eyes, only to return to…yep, more of the astoundingly ignoble Iggy Azalea.

Thankfully, this version of Iggy came in the form of Jimmy “Neil Young” Fallon and Crosby, Stills & Nash for a “CSN&Y” tongue-in-cheek cover of Azalea’s asinine hit Fancy.  Watch below as Jimmy/Neil opens the song and is then joined by CSN.  After the fanciness, watch as CSN regaled on a beautiful rendering of their archetypal Teach Your Children, followed by their superb So Begins the Task.  Stephen Stills’ singing and the guitar-play on the latter song are particularly touching.

No time for that nonsense. We’re off on an adventure and will report back in due time. In the meantime, check out some artists/songs below that we’ve been obsessing over. And be good and kind.