Here are a few songs to get you through this god-awful frozen Monday that’s nature’s equivalent to spitting in your face and slapping it with the forceful hand of the wind. Get me out of here. 

I was going to post the Cousins video, because I think it’s rad. But I’m a couple weeks too late- and so very passe now, huh? My dear friend Brandon seems to argue that no one ‘really’ likes Vampire Weekend, it was just one of those bands that we all collectively decided was cool, and everyone seemed to agree. Gee, I thought I really liked them though? I do, however LOVE the song ‘Daisy’ by Fang Island. Wait until the very end when it gets to this beautiful chorus of voices. It’s gorgeous. 

Vampire Weekend- Cousins

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Titus Andronicus- My Time Outside The Womb

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Fang Island- Daisy

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Best Coast (Bethany Cosentino) has that fuzzy surf punk sound that has graduated her to a rightful citizen of the (best) West Coast. A former East coast girl, her transition has made an indelible mark on her soul- stretching her melodies in a breezy, lazy 50′s beach bum kind of way. I have 35 days until I return to California, all. 35 days. The song, ‘When I’m With You’ will be playing as I try on old bathing suits and sunglasses for the big move ahead. Let the countdown begin. 

Best Coast- When I’m With You

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacist’s upcoming full length ‘The Brutalist Bricks’ off Matador will be out sometime in March, and their new track ‘Even Heros Have To Die’ has been floating around everywhere, I’m stoked to hear what else they have.I love that they’re an intentional, socially-conscious band that champion the “denim- clad, working class” aesthetic that still finds it’s roots in 80′s East coast post-hardcore culture. Old punks, in whatever genre they may now find themselves, never quite shed their radical rage.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists- Tell Balgeary Balgury is Dead

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists- Even Heroes Have To Die

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Memoryhouse are Denise and Evan from Ontario. Yes, my home province. They’ve got this dreamy bedroom pop that sounds very Washed Out with lo fi female vocals. With only a free EP to be expected in early 2010 while a full length is in the works- there is nothing but a simple description that says,”bedroom recording project of a neo-classical composer and a photographer.”

There is some great fascination with the sea among us, as sounds find new ways to bubble, and slip in and out like a tide, and songs about oceans that say, “these lungs are filled with water from the tide”. I’ve often lived near a large body of water, be it ocean or lake- and I’ve always wanted to bottle the sounds. There is a calming greatness to the sea that stretches beyond that reminds you of your own impermance and smallness. Memoryhouse bottles it with great simplicity that is like the lull of rhythmic tides.

Memoryhouse- To The Lighthouse

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Check out their website with some cool photography HERE

Harrison Hudson is a Nashville-based singer songwriter that I met sometime this year in Austin while he was likely making fun of my friend and I as we sold merchandise out of a suitcase. It seems like tough business writing songs in Nashville, a place where you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who found themselves there for reasons otherwise. A place where Christian rock royalty greets the Country-Blues Empire, the last remaining city where the music hasn’t died. And the rest are left with no ears to hear their carefully crafted prose.

It’s a real shame, because there are a few fine gems down there. Harrison being one of them. I feel like he’s got that thing, you know? He’s hopelessly in love with love, and his songs are simply about that. Then of course, there’s that Southern charm that we’re running a deficit on up in these Northern parts, with only Southern counterfeits and influences, but there is no substitute for that real Southern drawl. This is a rather old video of Harrison playing ‘Katy Perry, Could You Fall In Love With Me’. But he’s got some new songs up on his blog- so check them out. 

Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Adaline is one of the finalists in the PEAK Performance Project created by 100.5 The PEAK and Music BC to help emerging BC-based artists through a contract and grant. You can vote for Adaline HERE 

She’s such a gem, and she’s got some lovely songs. So support Canadian music, will you? 

 I’ve religiously and routinely professed my love for Frightened Rabbit. There is a life force pulsing through their veins that make you want to dance and drink beer and cry in madness and misery. Their music does something to you limbs. 

Lately I can’t stop listening to The Go-Go Girls by Frightened Rabbit, who just recently did a Daytrotter Session. I can’t wait for their new record. I’m expecting more of the same angst-infused ballads of ugly love and disgraceful thoughts. There is something unifying about these themes of spilling one’s guts. It’s liberating! Almost as if he just said, ‘there, I said it!’. More people need to just say it, these days. Don’t you think? Thanks to Frightened Rabbit for making us all a little less frightened. 

Frightened Rabbit: The Go-Go Girls

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It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to a marvelous boy-wonder named Nathan Finochio, wearing the moniker of Alexander Fairchild for his self-titled LP. His reputation precedes him, as it takes a witness to really understand the churning wheels at work in his mind. He is a musical person, if I’ve ever met one. He’s got this ability to resurrect old instruments, emitting sounds never-heard before on their tired keys and vibrating strings. What emerges are his beautiful songs, some borrowed from the great catalogue of nostalgia in his mind, most written as a letter to love and all it’s perils. 

With a restless spirit, he wears too many hats for any of us to track- a veteran music-maker, a producer, a youth pastor, a baseball-lover, a romantic, a writer, and likely juggling a few other jobs he’ll reveal when we’re ready for him. And I say this only in great confidence that you would be friends, should you ever meet. 

This project has grown it’s own legs since my quiet return home, as I’ve often wondered whether Nathan had fallen through a crack in the earth, or had gotten himself into some real trouble with the law and was paying for it. Yet amidst all the adventures I’d conjured up as to where my dear friend had gone- he casually returns from the still November with a stunning collection of songs. 

There’s a versatility in his prose, adopting a playful Southern drawl in songs like, ‘Battle of New Orleans’ and ‘Sarah A’along with mellow ballads likened to old Iron and Wine like, ‘Easier than Breathing’. The simplicity and repeptitve build of ‘Very First Time’ carries with it rythmic harmonies that stretch and rise to explode and fade like fireworks. His ‘Happy Birthday’ song is a transformation of the dulled tradition, finding himself wandering into new musical territories, while offering up the sweetest melodies for the sweetest girls. ‘Oh Lord’ is a fierce and perspiring Revival celebration jumping beneath the white tents of the South, with the Great Guest invited with words nothing less than pure joy.

Alexander Fairchild is a delight, re-affirming that the only certainty about Finochio is his wild unpredictability and remarkable talent. This is for the hibernating months ahead, may they be filled with the sounds of the lazy South and boys in love. 

Buy the album HERE

Alexander Fairchild- Very First Time

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Alexander Fairchild- Happy Birthday

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Alexander Fairchild- Oh, Lord

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  Yeasayer’s video for Ambling Alp is out. Lots of naked people!

Hype is somewhat of a social phenomenon. It spreads like literal wildfire, for a few good days- then it cautiously tapers off. Lately I have been reading about Beach House everywhere. I’m not too familiar with this band, but their much-blogged about new track ‘Norway’ is looping on repeat on too many speakers to count. The song is beautiful, but maybe I’m not getting something? There are fantastic bands everywhere, I’d be interested to figure out just what factors play into this hype game. I’m conjuring up a skinny man in a control room somewhere in this universe- choosing what music will be the next big thing, and we will collectively oblige and that will be that. 

Beach House is another case of musician-goes-to-woods stories. This duo shacked up in an old church somewhere in upstate New York for a month with their producer. I’m going to start taking notes and head out into the rural unknown as well. Expect my debut EP in a few months. Goodbye!

Teen Dream is out via Sub Pop on Jan 26th.

Beach House- Norway

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