Nov
On Monday Let’s Focus On The Big Picture: Watch Space-Bound Video for Jose González’s Encouraging Song “Every Age” Off Impending New Album
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“Build a place where we all can belong.” Wishful thinking you say? Well, we’ll take utopian over dystopian any day of the week, but especially on Mondays. ‘Cause it’s all we can do sometimes. The great José González gives us yet another reason to carry on today.
Late last week while we were away, González (of the groovy Junip, Red White + Blue’s Arthur Russell Tribute Album, etc.) offered up the first single (Every Age) and video from his next album, Vestiges & Claws, which will be released February 17th 2015 on Mute. Every Age has been on repeat at Chez Lefort every since. The melody and message are deceptively simple and heartening, and in the face of the surrounding turmoil, a great encouragement to the world. The lyrics can be found below the video.
The inspirational video for the song below uses 360° technology to create an all-sensory experience of space. Directed by Simon Morris and Chris Higham, the video was produced by global collective Eyes In Space whose aim is “to mesh artistic experiment with scientific innovation to open new worlds.” González sums up the video and song thus: “The lyrics [of “Every Age”] fit well in the sense of living on a globe together and how it can make us wonder and reflect on how we can make this the best trip ever!” Amen! Watch the 360° version of this galactic journey here, and watch the standard version below.
González ‘s self-produced new album is his first solo album in seven years and is filled with all-original material centered around concepts of civilization, humanism and solidarity. About the album, González has said (though Every Age doesn’t reflect the following): “I started out thinking that I wanted to continue in the same minimalistic style as on my two previous records, but once I started the actual recordings I soon realized that most of the songs turned out better with added guitars and a more beat-like percussion, and with more backing vocals.”
Every Age is now available digitally at the usual spots. Download it instantly when you pre-order the album here. We can’t wait for Vestiges & Claws!
González has also announced a European and North American tour in support and you can see the dates HERE.
EVERY AGE
every age has its turn,
every branch of the tree has to learn
learn to grow, find its way,
make the best of this short lived stay
take this seed, take this spade,
take this dream of a better day,
take your time, build a home,
build a place where we all can belong
some things change, some remain
some will pass us unnoticed by
what to focus on, to improve upon
in the face of our ancient drives
feels so clear, feels so obvious
to each one on their own
but we are here, together
reaping what time and what we have sown
we don’t choose where we’re born
we don’t choose in what pocket or form
but we can learn to know
ourselves on this globe in the void
take this mind, take this pen,
take this dream of a better land,
take your time, build a home,
build a place where we all can belong
Nov
Check Out Vaults Beginning with New Track “Poison”
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We’d been hearing great things about British trio Vaults, but until this week we hadn’t heard a song that truly vaulted them over a some of the better players in the synth-pop genre, falling somewhere between The xx, Florence and the Machine, Bat For Lashes and Purity Ring.
But with new track Poison, we’re beginning to fully appreciate the building buzz for this band. The track is from the impending release of the trio’s EP entitled Vultures. Check it out below. We love the almost-realcountry rasp in the (as yet) unnamed female singer. Afterwards, check out our other favorite from the band, Cry No More (from over a year ago) with its water-glass/wind-chime effects and soaring vocals. And then go HERE to hear more Vaults music.
Be open to being into Vaults.
Nov
Watch Bahamas Perform “Bitter Memories” In a Brewery
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As mentioned again and again, Bahamas (Afie Jurvanen) is amongst our favorite singer-songwriter-guitar players. Watch below as he deftly renders Bitter Memories at a Minneapolis brewery for North Shore Sessions. The song is off of Bahamas‘ latest, outstanding album, Bahamas Is Afie.
Bahamas music has also recently been featured in the James Franco Droid Turbo commercial. Check it out at bottom.
Nov
Watch FKA Twigs’ Visually-Inventive Performance on Fallon’s Tonight Show
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FKA Twigs has taken the pop world by storm this year via her debut album, LP1, and alluring live performances. She/they were the musical guest(s) last night on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and gave a visually-inventive (if nothing else) performance of the track Two Weeks. Check out the performance below, in all its blowing-fabric-looking-alternately-like-a-pyre-then-jellyfish glory. If your vocals are going to be a bit thin, best to break out some stunning, inventive visuals. Mission accomplished then. Fallon seconded by exclaiming, “Oh man, oh my goodness, I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Nov
If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Tei Shi: Listen to New Track “See Me”
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We are all in on exciting new artist Tei Shi. After being blown away by her newborn cut Bassically, and becoming familiar with her outstanding older tracks, we were thrilled today to find that the Brooklyn-sited artist has issued yet another scintillating new song entitled See Me. The track is co-produced with her normal collaborationist, the talented Luca Buccellati, along with the trending Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley (with whom she has collaborated before). Check out the shimmering new song below, with her now-standard electro-sheen and emotion, but with added drama via staccato guitar-play and sound effects. Superb stuff.
Tei Shi is also out on a mini-tour and you can see the dates at bottom. Catch her if you can.
Live Dates:
11/13 – U Street Music Hall – Washington, DC * w/ GEMs
11/15 – Babys All Right – Brooklyn, NY * w/ Yumi Zouma
11/17 – The Drake Hotel – Toronto, CA * w/ Seoul
11/19 – M For Montreal – Montreal, CA
Nov
Watch Elbow’s Official Video for Song “Charge”
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The electrifying Elbow today released an enigmatic visual ode to British Speedway racing via the track Charge off of the band’s album, The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, which is hovering at the very top of our current Best Albums of 2014 tally. Check it out below. The song’s elder’s-lament lyrics are at bottom and well worth your time, as with all Guy Garvey lyrics.
“I am electric
With a bottle in me
Got a bottle in me
And glory be these …. are ignoring me
I’m from another century
I am a preacher
When I’ve got it on me
And I’ve got it on me
And glory be these …. are ignoring me
We never learn from history
Hey
I am the beau who loved her so in every song
And I designed that little mystery on your tongue
I’ve broken jaws protecting laws to keep you free
I made your day so take a seat by me
I am an old tree
Gonna talk my jaw free
Someone come and get me
Another night beside myself would finish me
Give us G & T and sympathy
I am the diehard with an empty dance card propping up a young bar
I’m pouring oil in double time upon the troubled rising tide inside of me
Upon my history”
Nov
Listen to Damien Rice’s New Album “My Favourite Faded Fantasy”
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We’ve loved what we’ve heard so far from the impending new Damien Rice album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, from Warner Music. To get a feel, go over to NPR to stream it until its release next week. Produced by Rick Rubin, the album will likely end up high on our Best Albums of 2014 list. The title track has already been a Lefort Song of the Week, and we have raved about tracks I Don’t Want To Change You and The Greatest Bastard, all of which bodes incredibly well for the new album. Go listen at NPR and pick it up next Tuesday.
Nov
On Sunday: Watch Kendrick Lamar’s “i” Lyric Video–Guesting on SNL on 11/15
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Kendrick Lamar will appear on SNL on November 15th. Lamar has owned SNL twice, but when he performs this time he should be sporting a sack of new songs from his next album (to be released this year). One new song that’s been released to much acclaim and is loved by Lefort is the track i , the lyric video for which you can watch below. Lamar had this to say to Carson Daly recently about the new song:
“When I first started doing music, I did a lot for myself, just for my enjoyment, but then I started doing these shows and I start seeing these kids saying my song saved their lives [because] they were going to commit suicide. It got a little bit deeper than me, you know?
As for the song’s cover art, Lamar told Daly: “Where I’m from, there’s a lot of gang culture and things like that, so instead of throwing on up gang signs, which we used to, I put a Blood and I put a Crip together and we’re throwing up hearts. It got a little bit deeper than just going with a simple contemporary hit record cliché sound, and I said I’m going to use my pedestal and speak about something much more and do it my way because I’d rather go out like that.”
As you’ll hear, the song features an old Isleys sample from That Lady, including Ronnie Isley’s iconic guitar riff. Evidently Isley also added a few ad libs to the song himself.
Check it out, and get ready for Lamar on SNL on November 15th. We can’t wait.
Nov
Watch Elvis Costello (And a Cast of Greats) Killin’ “Six Months in Kansas City” from “Lost Songs: New Basement Tapes” Documentary
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T-Bone Burnett and an amazing cast of musicians, including Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons), came together last March to write music for recently discovered lyrics handwritten by Bob Dylan in 1967, the same era in which the recording of his all-time Basement Tapes. The result is the imminent album Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes.
To coincide, on November 21st, Showtime will broadcast the documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued. To see a sample, check out below Elvis Costello and that fine collection of musicians killin’ on Six Months in Kansas City. Costello must be a San Francisco Giants fan.
Afterwards, check out a trailer for the documentary.
Oct
Listen to New Damien Rice Song “The Greatest Bastard”
in Music
Damien Rice will release his long-awaited, Rick Rubin-produced album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, in a couple weeks. As a further preview, Rice has now released a great song off the new album entitled The Greatest Bastard. We love this song, having first heard Rice deliver a heartfelt, mesmerizing performance (see above) of it a few weeks ago on Later with Jools Holland (sure, we’d show you the performance, but the bilious BBC is unwilling to allow US citizens to view it on the web). You can at least hear the studio version below, embellished with strings. It’s a great one that bodes incredibly well for the new album.
