Iron and Wine - Around The Well

Ah, Sam Beam - think of him as a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy you would bring home to meet your mother (Will Oldham's much more likely to produce a guitar after dinner and compose a song about fucking the family pet). 

His contribution to the wonderful 'Dark Was The Night' CD apart, Iron and Wine have been in hibernation somewhat of late. But that's all about to change. 'Around the Well' is a 2-CD/3-LP collection of rare and out of print tracks (and no doubt a few that just weren't good enough first time around.)

It's out and in the stores on May 19th. Fans of the band had recently been given the opportunity to vote for the songs they'd most like to hear at 10 upcoming dates in the States. If you'd like to influence the vote, then you're out of luck as voting ended on March 30th. 

Good news though is that there's not one but eight tracks for you to download over on the official site. The band also released a very rare live CD entitled 'Norfolk 6/20/05' on Record Store Day. There are no plans to issue this as an official release. Expect to see it on an ebay near you soon.