RELEASED: January 2008

The new releases at insound for the month of January, or at least, what remains of the month of January.

01/15/08 Constantines Hard Feelings b/w Easy Money 7" Arts & Crafts

01/15/08 Magnetic Fields Distortion Nonesuch

01/15/08 Mike Ladd Nostalgialator Def Jux

01/15/08 Rings Black Habit Paw Tracks

01/15/08 Steve Bug Fabric 37 Fabric

01/15/08 Various Artists Disco Not Disco: 1974-1986 Strut

01/22/08 Apollo Heights Babytalkk EP Manimal Vinyl

01/22/08 Baby Dee Safe Inside The Day Drag City

01/22/08 Birds of Maya Vol. 1 Holy Mountain

01/22/08 Black Mountain In The Future Jagjaguwar

01/22/08 Blood On The Wall Liferz The Social Registry

01/22/08 Bodies of Water Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink Thousand Toungues

01/22/08 Castanets Strong Animal 7" Asthmatic Kitty

01/22/08 Cat Power Jukebox Matador

01/22/08 Collections of Colonies of Bees Birds Radium

01/22/08 Daedelus Live At Low End Theory Alpha Pup

01/22/08 Damian Jurado One Side 12" Burnt Toast Vinyl

01/22/08 Envy Abyssal Temporary Residence Ltd.

01/22/08 Envy All the Footprints You've Ever Left… Temporary Residence Ltd.

01/22/08 Eric Matthews The Imagination Stage Empyrean

01/22/08 Evangelicals The Evening Descends Dead Oceans

01/22/08 Fleshtones Take A Good Look Yep Roc

01/22/08 Ghislain Porter No Ground Under Ninja Tune

01/22/08 Hello Blue Roses The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty Locust

01/22/08 Hexlove Knew Abloom (Life’S Hood) Holy Mountain

01/22/08 Hey Willpower P.D.A. (us edition) Tomlab

01/22/08 Instruments of Science & Technology Music From the Films of R/Swift Secretly Canadian

01/22/08 Jack Penate Matinee XL

01/22/08 Jason Ringenberg Best Tracks and Side Tracks 1979-2007 Yep Roc

01/22/08 Love Is All Mixed Up Phonica Records

01/22/08 Mahjongg Kontpab K

01/22/08 Matt Costa Unfamiliar Faces Universal Republic

01/22/08 MGMT Oracular Spectacular Columbia

01/22/08 MONO The Sky Remains The Same as Ever DVD Temporary Residence Ltd.

01/22/08 Munch Munch Wedding 7" Tomlab

01/22/08 Photon Band Back Down To Earth Empyrean

01/22/08 Rafter Sex Death Cassette Asthmatic Kitty

01/22/08 Robert Pollard Superman Was a Rocker Happy Jack Rock Records

01/22/08 Sam Shalabi Eid Alien8 Recordings

01/22/08 Saviours Into Abaddon Kemado

01/22/08 Steve Aoki Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles Thrive

01/22/08 Susumu Yakota Love or Die Lo Recordings

01/22/08 Team Robespierre Everything's Perfect Impose

01/22/08 Thuja Thuja Important

01/22/08 Times New Viking Rip It Off Matador

01/22/08 Vetiver You May Be Blue 12" Gnomonsong

01/22/08 Whigs Mission Control ATO

01/22/08 Whitsundays The Whitsundays Friendly Fire

01/29/08 Beck Odelay (Deluxe Edition) Geffen/ Ume

01/29/08 Chris Walla Field Manual Barsuk

01/29/08 Dirty On Purpose Like Bees EP North Street Records

01/29/08 Dub Trio Another Sound Is Dying Ipecac

01/29/08 Ex Building a Broken Mousetrap Touch & Go

01/29/08 Future of the Left Curses Too Pure

01/29/08 Helio Sequence Keep Your Eyes Ahead Sub Pop

01/29/08 Human Bell Human Bell Thrill Jockey

01/29/08 Ida Lovers Prayers Polyvinyl

01/29/08 Jeffery Lewis 12 Crass Songs Rough Trade

01/29/08 Kills U.R.A. Fever limited 7" Domino

01/29/08 Louis XIV Slick Dogs and Ponies Atlantic

01/29/08 Lungfish Rainbows From Atoms (Reissue) Dischord

01/29/08 Mars Volta The Bedlam In Goliath Universal

01/29/08 Quinn Walker Laughter's An Asshole/ Lion Land Voodoo Eros

01/29/08 Radar Bros. Auditorium Merge

01/29/08 Rites of Spring All Through A Life 7" (Reissue) Dischord

01/29/08 Scream Still Screaming (Vinyl Reissue) Dischord

01/29/08 Sons & Daughters The Gift Domino

01/29/08 Sun Ra Some Blues But Not The Kind That's Blue Atavistic

01/29/08 Thao We Brave Bee Stings and All Kill Rock Stars

01/29/08 These New Puritans Navigate, Navigate 12" Domino

01/29/08 Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend XL

01/29/08 Vandermark 5 Beat Reader Atavistic

01/29/08 Xiu Xiu Women As Lovers Kill Rock Stars

Marco Mahler: 'Design In Quick Rotation' Review

MARCO MAHLER
Design in Quick Rotation
(Self-released)

Marco Mahler’s vocals may lean more towards a conspiratorial whisper than a shouted ‘hey-look-at-me’, but it’s his music that rises above that charismatic whisper to snag your ear. Acoustic guitar lines cut through all else, crisscrossing, blooming, like kaleidoscopic patterns in tracks like the instrumental “Hike The Lake”. And yet it’s that very voice, that calming, quiet voice delivering Mahler’s abstract lyrics, that’s the perfect foil to the penetrating acoustic guitar. Although all this isn’t in sacrifice to melody, he does wield a number of strong melodies that will lodge like an arrow in your heart. “Orange Chinese Car” softly thumps like a basketball about to be taken hard to the hoop, while “Study Airports” is an anti-lullaby, a song to wake up to rather than deliver the lulling. Design in Quick Rotation is a surprisingly well-crafted debut from a man who, not surprisingly, is also a sculptor.


orange chinese car [mp3]
design in quick rotation [mp3]

Visit his myspace page for links to buy.

Hayden's New Album Due January 15th + Tour Dates

Toronto's Hayden Desser will release his latest record, In Field & Town (Hardwood Records), on January 15th. His myspace page has the eighth track "Where and When" streaming... and it's vintage Hayden--a great vocal hook in the chorus, a fascinating syncopated beat, and a trumpet that sounds fantastic in contrast to Hayden's smoky voice.

You can pre-order the album on iTunes (pre-order during the week of January 8th and get exclusive bonus track "Disappear"), also, you can see Hayden live across Canada beginning January 16th in Hamilton, see the dates below. Accompanying him on several tour stops will be fellow Hardwood Records artist, Basia Bulat. I've told you about her in the past a few times, for example here, and this is only more reason to get up off your butt and out to a show.


In Field & Town Track List:
1. In Field & Town
2. More Than Alive
3. The Van Song
4. Worthy of Your Esteem
5. Damn This Feeling
6. Did I Wake Up Beside You?
7. Weight of the World
8. Where and When
9. Lonely Security Guard
10. The Hardest Part
11. Barely Friends

TOUR DATES
12 Jan 2008 Toronto Broadcast Centre Toronto, Ontario
14 Jan 2008 Masonic Temple Toronto, Ontario
16 Jan 2008 Westside Theatre Hamilton, Ontario *
18 Jan 2008 First Baptist Church Ottawa, Ontario *
19 Jan 2008 First Baptist Church Ottawa, Ontario *
20 Jan 2008 Le National Montreal, Quebec *
22 Jan 2008 Market Hall Peterborough, Ontario *
23 Jan 2008 CBC’s Vinyl Cafe Keswick, Ontario
24 Jan 2008 CBC’s Vinyl Cafe Keswick, Ontario
25 Jan 2008 Gig Theatre Kitchener, Ontario *
26 Jan 2008 Aeolian Hall London, Ontario *
27 Jan 2008 SECOND SHOW-Aeolian Hall London, Ontario *
31 Jan 2008 Brunton Auditorium Sackville, New Brunswick
1 Feb 2008 St. John’s United Church Halifax, Nova Scotia
2 Feb 2008 LSPU Hall St. John’s, Newfoundland
3 Feb 2008 LSPU Hall St. John’s, Newfoundland
7 Feb 2008 WECC Winnipeg, Manitoba +
8 Feb 2008 Louis’ Saskatoon, Saskatchewan +
9 Feb 2008 McDougall United Church Edmonton, Alberta +
11 Feb 2008 Norm Theatre UBC Vancouver, British Columbia +
12 Feb 2008 Norm Theatre UBC Vancouver, British Columbia +
14 Feb 2008 Alix Goolden Theatre Victoria, British Columbia +
16 Feb 2008 Knox United Church Calgary, Alberta +
19 Feb 2008 Music Hall Theatre Toronto, Ontario

* w/ Basia Bulat
+ w/ Jenn Grant

MP3s
Hayden dynamite walls (live with The National November 30th 2007)
Basia Bulat snakes and ladders from Oh, My Darling

Sandro Perri: 'Tiny Mirrors' Review

photo credit: chris owyoung

Sandro Perri
Tiny Mirrors
(Constellation)

Tiny Mirrors, Sandro Perri’s first full length effort under his own name (he did release a five track acoustic reworking of his electronic work done under the moniker, Polmo Polpo), is imbued with a nonchalant elegance, a sound so free flowing and unforced that you can’t help but marvel at it. Toronto based Perri has been moving in music circles under several band names for a handful of years, but it’s this effort, bearing his name and voice, that should stamp his art on the minds of music fans. Trained as a jazz musician, Perri brings that genres’ improvisational beauty to songs that defy all labels excepting that of personal. Originals such as “Double Suicide”, with its lovely title refrain (a hook nearly lost in the song’s laid back charm) and his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”, which slows down to let the sadness of the song linger long after the music ends, stand out on a record that recalls Jeff Buckley mashed with Nick Drake. The term ‘under the radar’ was coined for just such an artist as Perri, and I pray that this handful of words lifts him high enough to begin flashing on radar screens.


double suicide [mp3 expired]
family tree [mp3 expired]

Crushed Stars: "Spies" MP3

This song by Crushed Stars, "Spies", is warm, but a facilitating warmth, one that easily brings you back to soft and tender moments that are long past. A liquid reverb ripples off of Todd Gautreau's vocals, lapping against the quietly seductive instrumentation. Yes... quietly seductive... even when you turn the volume up on Crushed stars you're simply moving closer to a purring cat. This is the kind of music that relaxes me, I don't even have to understand the lyrics, they could be Portuguese for all it matters... it's the vibe borne out of the various elements that makes this music magical. And you can find this song and more on the band's upcoming release, Gossamer Days, out Feb 19th.


from the album Gossamer Days
spies [mp3]

from the album Obsolescence (2006)
sleepyhead [mp3]

Gautreau is, or was, behind the ambient and electronic musical projects Tear Ceremony and Sonogram, and is the main force behind Dallas based label, Simulacra Records. You can visit the band's label page here.

Influences: Felt, Field Mice, Nick Drake, Epic Soundtracks, the clientele. the Apartments, Big Star's Third, The Sea and Cake, Steve Kilbey, Lloyd Cole.

You can download Crushed Stars first two albums at eMusic. If you're not already a subscriber, why not try eMusic's FREE trial offer of 25 DRM-Free MP3s... check it here.

The National To Tour Australia

My band of the year, The National, head down under for the first time this very month where they will play eight shows in four cities beginning January 15th. The five mainstays of the Brooklyn based outfit, Matt Berninger, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and Bryan and Scott Devendorf, will be joined by unofficial sixth member (and multi-instrumentalist) Padma Newsome. Padma is Australian, a native of the land where the toilets swirl counterclockwise and lots of other stuff (most of which are way better than the toilet thing), and I sent him a note asking about the upcoming tour, but first, here's what The National's Matt Berninger had to say when I asked how their critically acclaimed album, Boxer, was received on the road since it's release in May and over one hundred dates in support of it and if he'd seen any good Schwarzenegger movies lately:

We're now rested after a lot of touring. I spent New Years Eve in my apartment playing celebrity charades. Everything went very, very well for us last year. Boxer seems to have connected with people in a way we didn't expect. We knew it was a good record but we prepared ourselves to lose a lot of the fans that had found out about us because of Alligator. The screaming songs from Alligator got most of the attention and we were following that up with a record without a single scream. I think we hoped people wouldn't notice.

Suddenly there were so many more people coming to our shows than we'd ever experienced. For years we'd drive up to a club and cross our fingers that there would at least be ten or fifteen people there. This time around almost all the shows sold out in advance. We had a blast and met a lot a great people. It's cool to discover that most people around the world are very kind.

We're about to go to Australia for a couple weeks of shows which should be nice considering it's summer there. Padma is there now, probably spear-fishing or something. The rest of us are starting to write some new songs. We never write much on the road so we have a blank book in front of us. We don't really talk about what we want to do next or plan ahead. We just slowly start doing things and see where they take us. I'd really like to write a musical version of Predator, but the next record could be jazz metal for all I know at this point.

Thanks for that, Matt (and the dreamy show poster).

* * * * * * * * *

Here's Padma Newsome's response to a few questions I sent his way... thanks for this, Padma (Padma is also a key member of instrumental band Clogs, along with guitarist Bryce Dessner - don't miss the Clogs mp3s below):


Photo by Sergey Belyakov

How you feel about returning home with the band?
I feel good. It's about time they came over to my turf!

What kind of reception do you expect Australians will show? Is The National popular there?
There does seem to be some interest in Australia. This is first time touring, so it's never practical to imagine too much fore knowledge, but if we play well things usually go OK. I think the concerts are going to be a lot of fun.

And what things and places, if you have the time while touring, would you want to introduce your band mates to?
Into the sticks and out of the smoke.......I hope for a quiet country town in the heat, a moment down by the water somewhere, and lots of critters, since Americans are fascinated by critters. Usually, though, on tour, one only gets time for a quiet walk around the block.

* * * * * * * * *

Check tour dates for the band here and here.
BUY The National's music here and Clogs here.

A special thanks to photographer Sergey Belyakov for the use of his images. Go here to see all his great shots from the band's Moscow concert.

And now some mp3 treats from The National and Clogs:

THE NATIONAL
Boxer
fake empire

Boxer Demos
santa clara
brainy (alternate take)
slow show
rest of years
tall saint

LIVE - Copenhagen December 3 2007
intro
slow show
mistaken for strangers
brainy
secret meeting
baby we'll be fine
lit up
squalor victoria
abel
all the wine
karen
racing like a pro

LIVE - KEXP 2007
start a war
slow show
brainy
apartment story

LIVE - MTV
apartment story
mistaken for strangers

LIVE - XFM Radio
you've done it again, virginia

The National (2001):
theory of the crows

Rare Tracks:
minor star of rome

halo chagrin (this song is from 98 or '99 and is one of the first things the band ever recorded to 4-track)

And here's a taste of how CLOGS sound:
lantern
river stick
pencil stick