Punch Brothers covering Bach

 

I was going to save this video till the next time I did "Bluegrass Week" however it's too good to keep hidden. Punch Brothers landed a spot on our top of 2010 list mainly because of their precise instrumentation. If you didn't believe me then, watch the video of them covering Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3. This truly is some next level shit right here. 

 

Kiss Each Other Clean

 

Ladies and Gentlemen we have ourselves here the first great record of 2011. Iron & Wine return with Sam Beam's most stylistically diverse record to date. I know the indie heartthrobs still pine over "Naked As We Came" but those days of his acoustic work is long over. I actually kind of prefer the current incarnation of Iron & Wine. Though there is a lot of love about a man and his guitar intertwined, there is just more to experience with the added band. Many folk singers have added backing bands and have failed (Devendra Banhart), but not Beam, he is able to create lush music to carry his poetic lyrics with any array of instruments. In Kiss Each Other Clean, there is everything from saxophone to marimba. The last song "Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me" takes the cake however. It is his most pounding jam to date. While I think Kiss Each Other Clean is second to The Shepherd's Dog in sheer flow and cohesiveness, there is still a lot to love about this release. 

Download via Mediafire:
 Big Burned Hand

Julianna Barwick

 

Ease yourself into the weekend with this airy ethereal piece of beauty from Julianna Barwick. Her new album The Magic Place will be released on February 22nd on Sufjan Steven's label. That's fitting since, I find a lot of similarities between the lush landscapes that Sufjan creates and Ms. Barwick's work. The Magic Place may just become the best record to do yoga to all year.  

Download via Mediafire:

The Magic Place

Toro y Moi

Toro y Moi made a splash last year, and it looks like in 2011 he already has his sophomore LP ready to go. He's cleaned up his production quality quite a bit, and who knows you might even find your self dancing a little in your chair to this one. He is also an artist that I predict is a sure lock for the Coachella 2011 lineup, which should be released by next week.


Download via Mediafire:

Still Sound

Like A Ship...(Without a Sail)

Start your week off right with some good lovin' gospel soul. Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir's album Like A Ship...(Without a Sail) is considered to be one of the most treasured rare records for collectors. Finally, it is being reissued in CD as well as vinyl to preserve this tremendous disc. This album was most likely recorded at The Mt. Zion Baptist Church where Barrett preaches. We've all seen ideas of what classic gospel church music looks and sounds like, for instance James Brown's sermon on The Blues Brothers is a prime example. However this record is a document of the real deal. You don't have to be religious to appreciate how groovy this music is.

Download via Mediafire:
Like A Ship...(Without A Sail)

AD Presents: Deadwood...Revisited

 My favorite blog in the universe Aquarium Drunkard recently posted a long ode to the defunct HBO western, Deadwood. I know this seems like a cop out of a blog post on my part, but this love letter is so accurate it is hard for me to not re post it. I finished watching the third and final season of Deadwood about a month ago, and I honestly have been depressed ever since then. I haven't seen anything close since then that is up to this show's intellectual par. Each and every character is so perfect, and so dense, it's impossible for me to not get swallowed up in it. Whether it be the rise and fall of E.B. Farnum, or perhaps one of my favorite characters the annoying, loud and violently racist drunk named Steve who when placed in a position of duress, his only savior comes in the form of a black man. 
If you haven't seen Deadwood, you must. It can be hard to follow since the dialogue is a combination of iambic pentameter and blank verse mixed with harsh vernacular. A lot of people are pissed off that this show got canceled, there was supposed to have been two movies that summed things up. Though there are a ton of unanswered questions that the audience is left with at the end of season three, I am glad the show ended when it did. By being canceled, a shroud of mystery was cast over this show, instead of seeing a storybook ending we instead got to take a short glimpse of life in the town of Deadwood. We may yearn for satisfaction and answers, but man, what a ride. 

Check out Aquarium Drunkard's take on this landmark show.

Click Here to Read

Cake

 

Seven years between albums is quite a long time, more often bands who take extremely long breaks tend to lose their edge, but not Cake. Showroom of Compassion is their first record since 2004's Pressure Chief, and I must say I was quite surprised when I started hearing snippets of this record. Quite simple, Cake is still funky as all hell. They haven't changed at all, but who would want them to honestly? They have such a unique sound that it would be career suicide for them to tinker with it. Instead here with "Mustache Man" they brush off the dust and find an impossibly infectious riff to carry them through. From what I have heard from this record (which is out next Tuesday), I would go as far to say Showroom of Compassion could be their best record since Comfort Eagle.

Download via Mediafire:
Mustache Man (Wasted)

Weekend

First post of the New Year! 2011 is off to a start, since it's only the first week there isn't a lot of brand new 2011 music out there yet. During the break, I had an opportunity to catch up on a bunch of 2010 artists that slipped by me. For instance, a lot of blogs and critics hailed Big Boi's album as a triumph and it wasn't until the very end of the year when I finally got a chance to listen to it ('tis quite good). Another band that passed me by is the impossibly hard to Google band from San Francisco, Weekend with their album titled Sports I expect big things to happen to weekend next year, these guys seem to have a lot going for them. They are a great blend of lo-fi, garage, and shoegaze. Check out the track "Coma Summer" which I feel like is a perfect song to accompany your soul as you take that first step into the new year. Get outside and do something.

Download via Mediafire:
Coma Summer