We’ve been fans of Scottish band Frightened Rabbit for quite a while, but their new album Pedestrian Verse takes matters to a whole ‘nother level. You can still stream the entire album HERE.  Catch ’em in smaller venues while you can before demand pushes them into stadiums.  In contrast to the spangled anthemic arrangements found on the new album, check out the band below playing one of the album’s great songs, Late March, Death March, unplugged and open-booked.

Unbeknownst to us, in 2010 Kathleen Edwards and a host of Canadian musicians were featured in short film Dead Flowers  (written, produced and directed by Ryan Furlong) in which Edwards “plays an unhappily married woman who finds herself in the presence of two manipulative grifters (Tim Gibbons & Tom Wilson) and becomes overwhelmed by the possibility of something more than the safety of her suburban life with her husband (Mat Willson).”

Check out below a recently released trailer for the film that features the stellar song Break Your Body by Canadian band LeE HARVeY OsMOND (led by Tom Wilson).  The video and song serve as an announcement that the band will soon release their second album of “acid folk,” The Folk Sinner (which you can stream HERE).  The new album was produced by Michael Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) and features guest artists such as Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies), Hawksley Workman, Colin Linden, Oh Suzanna, Andy Maize, Paul Reddick, who are portions of Cowboy Junkies, The Sadies, Skydiggers, and Blackie And The Rodeo Kings.

Check out the video and song below in which the band’s Tom Wilson and Hawksley Workman trade singing leads in fine fashion, and sax, horns and vibraphone fill in nicely in the spare arrangement.  The song’s lyrics follow the video.  Oh, and Kathleen Edwards acquits herself quite well (as usual) in the film.  Spooky good.

Break Your Body Down

Now does anybody know, where the pain goes
All my enemies are diggin’ in , and I’ve lost sight
I want to tell you, but I’m keeping it cool
I’ve wasted…all these days

And oh little and wild
You’re my flame and I’m your charity
I need a Christ of change
Won’t you break your body down
Won’t you bring your body down
Won’t you break your body down
For me

We’re all built like bullets we love the speed
No one tells us,  when we’re gone
I’m alone in here, and the streets are dead
I’ve been dragging rusted chains
Hush hush baby , cause I’m keeping it cool
And I’m wasting , all these days
And I’m wasting , all these days

And oh little and wild
You’re my flame and I’m your charity
I need a Christ of change
Won’t you break your body down
Won’t you bring your body down
Won’t you break your body down
For me

Talented singer-songwriter Brendan Benson (Raconteurs) has an impending new album entitled What Kind of World on Readymade Records.  Benson has just released a get-happy video for Happy All The Time.  According to Stereogum, “the video is inspired by Benson seeing his son dancing to the song the first time he heard it, and it’s made up of footage of fans’ kids dancing.” As much as it’s been done before, there’s never a bad time to watch kids dancing and miming well to a well-crafted pop song.

Brendan Benson – “Happy All The Time” from stereogum on Vimeo.

Brit-band Daughter held sway with us the entire month of October and beyond last year.  We became hopelessly enamored by the songs and delivery of leader Elena Tonra while the band (including Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella) frolicked across North America and prepared their debut album If You Leave for release two months from today.  Comes now, the band has released the official video for Still off the new album.  For which couples has this video not at some point hit home?  Maybe not the tattoo part.  Come on–we dare ya.  Once again–you’re not alone.

We had an inkling of a (temporary?) seismic-shift in the band Of Montreal and its leader Kevin Barnes last summer when Barnes and crew appeared unplugged on Bandstand Busking.  Gone was a good portion of the flash and flamboyance the band is known for live, supplanted by four musicians playing unplugged and plucking at heartstrings.  Now comes an even-more subdued Barnes (together with Rebecca Cash–looking more like a Presley than a Cash to us–and Bryan Poole on first song Feminine Effects), performing three very personal new songs for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.  The net effect (e.g. on Imbecile Rages) sounds a bit like Stephen Malkmus-Meets-Bob Dylan-inside-Noah and the Whale.  All good in our book, though Barnes’ vocalistics at 7:28 set him apart from the others listed.  Check it out after the setlist below.

Set List:

Feminine Effects
Imbecile Rages
Amphibian Days

This is your weekly Palma Violets update.  As we’ve said, the band is making their way across North America.  They made their North American broadcast debut on CBR’s Studio Q show last Friday.  Check it out below.  Sweet music to our ears!  You can hear the entire Studio Q segment HERE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXZzZvfpyKs

Let’s not beat around the bush shall we?  Mr. Iron & Wine, Sam Beam, the leader/singer/songwriter of the band is one of the best songwriters extant.  In particular he is our finest lyricist.  There.  Said.

We have loved Iron & Wine since their initial appearance on Sub Pop (at the time a head-scratcher given the label’s rocking ways) in 2002 with the spare, plucky, much-loved Creek Drank the Cradle.  Since then the “band” has released four more well-crafted studio albums and one of the best-ever rarities/B-sides/discards compilation (Around the Well).  2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean was a departure from the early acoustic, virtually-solo albums, with its big-band sounds and arrangements and added rock/R&B elements.  Today Iron & Wine began streaming Lovers’ Revolution, the first track released from new album Ghost on Ghost, which will be released on IRS Day (4/15).  Check out the jazzy song below, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on an early Tom Waits album.  In other words:  we love it.

The new album was recorded in New York and produced by Beam’s longtime collaborator Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Califone, Fruit Bats).  Assisting were stellar musicians Rob Burger of Tin Hat Trio, Steve Bernstein, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollesen, and Briggan Krauss of Sex Mob, jazz drummer Brian Blade, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes of the Jazz Passengers, bassist Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan’s band), cellist Marika Hughes, Maxim Moston and Doug Wieselman of Antony and the Johnsons, and Anja Wood. Burger (Tin Hat Trio) also handled the string and horn arrangements.  For the album’s cover, Beam, who is also a visual artist, chose an image from the series Private Lives by noted photographer Barbara Crane.  The tracklist is below the song.

Tracks:

1. Caught in the Briars
2. The Desert Babbler
3. Joy
4. Low Light Buddy of Mine
5. Graces for Saints and Ramblers
6. Grass Windows
7. Singers and the Endless Song
8. Sundown (Back in the Briars)
9. Winter Prayers
10. New Mexico’s No Breeze
11. Lovers’ Revolution
12. Baby Center Stage

Once upon a time there was a brilliant, early-Brooklyn-adopter band called Hem.  In 2001, Hem released an album entitled Rabbit Songs that took over our ears with its heart-rending melodies, traditional instrumentation, stirring lyrics and singer Sally Ellyson’s luminous vocals.  Hem followed Rabbit Songs with two more similarly enthralling albums in 2004 (Eveningland) and 2006 (Funnel Cloud).   Over a decade after the release of their first album, Hem is back and will in April release a new album entitled Departure and Farewell on Waveland Records.  We can’t wait.  They’ve now released the first song from the album and animated video for Tourniquet, which you can check out below via NPR.  After the song’s lyrics and video, download the song via the provided widget.

Songwriter and pianist Dan Messe told NPR recently that he “discovered the healing power of his own music in a song he wrote called Tourniquet,” for the new album.   Check out below the song’s trouble-laden topics as depicted in the song and its new animated video from Jordan Bruner.  Dan Messe told NPR “the band fell for the idea of animals that come to the city and become human. ‘We in Hem are suckers for anything involving anthropomorphic animals, so of course we jumped at this idea. It was important to us that the video ended with the wolf finding his way back home. It makes me especially pleased to see him and his girl howling at the end.'”

Check out the song’s sterling lyrics below followed by the video.  The pain is palpable when Sally Ellyson ends the song’s first stanza with a barely-whispered “Where it sinks to the bottom, and it hurts like hell.” If you don’t know Hem, do yourselves a favor and pick up their entire discography.  And then pre-order Departure and Farewell.

“Brooklyn, I’m broken – I’m breaking apart –
Greenpoint pins down my hand, Red Hook pierces my heart –
And my blood runs into the Gowanus Canal
Where it sinks to the bottom
And hurts like hell.

The Prospectors still search for highs in the heights
‘Til their first bloody nose which they laugh off despite
How it seems that whatever gets left in a bar
Just becomes part of Brooklyn
And here we are.

Oh, here we are…

Brooklyn, your war was just won by the South –
Some kid’s shooting off rounds from the roof of his mouth –
And these trains held in Chambers are ready to blow
All the way back to Brooklyn
And here we go.

Oh, here we go…

Oh Brooklyn, your bridges are bound up in light –
Every artery’s clogged as you pull the belt tight –
And this tourniquet turns even tighter until
Traffic comes to a standstill.
We come to a standstill.
I come to a standstill.

Oh, here we are…”

© 2012 Peep Music, Inc.

We’ve written repeatedly of our love of Jessica Lea Mayfield’s music.  Turns out it runs in the family.  Check out Jessica and her brother David Mayfield below covering The Dillards’ ole chestnut There Is a Time.  David simply slaughters on mandolin.  After, you can listen to The Dillards’ perform their original on The Andy Griffith Show.  The Mayfields’ cover could very well be a eulogy of The Dillards’ leader Doug Dillard who passed away last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFU10kFu90I