Morning Becomes Eclectic: The XX & The Low Anthem

'Goodbye Sweet Dreams' - Roky Erikson & Okkervil River

True Love Cast Out All Evil, a collaboration between Roky Erikson and fellow Austinites Okkervil River is due for release on April 20th on Anti Records. The opening track can be downloaded for free here.

Roky Erickson and Will Sheff - Austin, TX from Roky Erickson w/ Okkervil River on Vimeo.

Knock, knock. It's Google here.

Yesterday I posted a brief message regarding the release of Bloodbuzz Ohio, a new track from the forthcoming album by The National. The content was as follows......

"Following on from the thrill of seeing Terrible Love on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, now this - available from the band's album specific site. Building up beautifully to the - by now - highly anticipated release of High Violet in May."

And that was it. At the bottom of the message I added a link to the aforementioned track which is available freely for download (for the price of your email address) on the band's site. So, the track is freely open and available, I wasn't offering it for download and you'd be stretching it to suggest that I was infringing any copyright laws. Not so say Google who, now that they're about to cut their losses in China (not that the Chinese will notice), clearly have time on their hands to continue their rather petty witchunt against alleged copyright infringers.

What fucks me off is that someone can make an arbitrary decision to change the status of a blog post to 'Draft' status on foot of supposed (and anonymous) complaint Google received regarding the content. It's unlikely the band's record company made a complaint given the fact that the track is freely available for download and given the fact that, whatever number of people read this blog - Pitchfork this ain't - I was merely advertising the product and pointing them in the direction of the official site.

It all brings me back to a post I made some months back regarding Google's heavy handed approach to bloggers in general with regard to copyrighted material. This is how it is to be it seems. Anyway, should you be interested, here's the text of the aforementioned email.

Oh, and in case you missed it yesterday, you can listen to Bloodbuzz Ohio for free here.

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again. A bit of background: the DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. If you believe you have the rights to post the content at issue here, you can file a counter-claim. For more information on our DMCA policy, including how to file a counter-claim, please see http://www.google.com/dmca.html. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org

. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can search for the DMCA notice associated with the removal of your content by going to the Chilling Effects search page at http://www.chillingeffects.org/search.cgi, and entering in the URL of the blog post that was removed. If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

The National 'Bloodbuzz Ohio'

Following on from the thrill of seeing Terrible Love on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, now this - available from the band's album specific site. Building up beautifully to the - by now - highly anticipated release of High Violet in May.

The Divine Comedy 'Bang Goes The Knighthood'

Ah, Neil Hannon. The first time I learned of the man was upon receiving a postcard - with a mail order arrival from Setanta Records - featuring a weedy looking man in a suit, holding an umbrella, standing, trousers rolled to the knees in a stream. It turned out that the postcard was a promo for the wonderful Liberation and I was hooked. That he followed it up with Promenade (Tonight We Fly remains the most thrilling thing he's done, and I can still recall that original grainy video of the tide rolling in and out which accompanied it on its occasional airings on No Disco) was confirmation of the man's Scott Walker-on-a-budget pretensions. In short, good enough for me.
Ah but there the story ends in some ways. His next album was Casanova and it was at this point in his career that Hannon seemed to blur the lines between his art and reality. Chris Evans liked him a lot but the truth was that he'd become the annoying fop he'd mocked on much of Casanova. A series of seemingly contract fulfilling dross followed until Hannon decided to call it a day.
Except, he didn't really. He kept the name and some of the band members and the show rolled on. Absent Friends proved that there was life there yet and Choice Music Prize winning Victory For The Comic Muse (which, if nothing else, paid for a new kitchen) was a slight yet likeable record. And now he's returning once more having hopefully grown tired of the novelty pop, lighting-your-farts-and-laughing-at-it dross of The Duckworth Lewis Method. Bang Goes The Knighthood will be released on May 31st and the band will be playing an intimate show in The Sugar Club on May 7th. Tickets are priced €25 and are available here.
Anyway, here's hoping for the new album but - I'm heading into book by cover territory - if the album cover and song titles are anything to go by, perhaps he's just not listening to Scott Walker any more.

Tracklisting
1. Down In The Street Below
2. The Complete Banker
3. Neapolitan Girl
4. Bang Goes The Knighthood
5. At The Indie Disco
6. Have You Ever Been In Love
7. Assume the Perpendicular
8. The Lost Art of Conversation
9. Island Life
10. When A Man Cries
11. Can You Stand Upon One Leg
12. I Like

Joanna Newsom live on NPR

There are some two hours of music on Have One On Me, meaning it's a record that's nigh on impossible to sit through in one listening session, but also one that's hard to tire of. Here's most of it live.
Live: Joanna Newsom on NPR

Tracklist

'81

Kingfisher

The Book of Right-On

Easy

Soft as Chalk

Inflammatory Writ

Good Intentions Paving Company

Have One on Me

You and Me, Bess

Monkey & Bear

Encore

Baby Birch

New Jonsi stuff

New album about to drop soon and there's an acoustic DVD to accompany it entitled Go Quiet. There's also a raft of covers and acoustic video performances from the new album, including a cover of MGMT's Time To Pretend.

The Middle East

They're from Townsville, Queensland and have been creating something of a stir at this year's SXSW. Blood, in particular, is a beautiful tune.

Get your Bonnie 'Prince' Billy wine stopper

Alas, these have now completely sold out.

To celebrate the release of the new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and The Cairo Gang album, The Wonder Show of the World, 150 Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy bottle stoppers have been commissioned and are now available to pre-order exclusively through Domino Mart. Each bottle stopper was individually hand carved by the artist Scott Millar, so each one will be completely unique. Anyone ordering the bottle stopper from the mart will be sent an email to download all the album tracks on the release date, 29th March 2010.

For this new album of songs, Bonny Billy and The Cairo Gang together have built a bridge forward, assembled with riffs and bits from Emmett Kelly’s guitar and the lyricism of Bonny’s heart. But mostly, The Wonder Show of the World was, in its making, about trust. It’s a record made eye-to-eye in a room, close and careful, by and for a few men who wanted to be together, who wanted to make music that sounds as good to listen to as it did to make, and who in doing so forged something new in space, the wonder of you and of them.

The Cairo Gang belongs to Emmett Kelly, alternately him and his.

Video: 'Odessa' - Caribou

New album Swim out April 20th on little ol' Merge Records.

Caribou - Odessa from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Daytrotter Session: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

New album due March 23rd - well it has been almost 6 months or so hasn't it? - entitled The Wonder Show of the World.
Where Is The Puzzle? - Bonnie Prince Billy
Full Daytrotter session available here

The return of Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub. For me the name conjures images of Everything Flows and A Catholic Education as much as it does Verisimilitude and Songs From Northern Britain. The band's early output, whilst lacking the more whimsical sense of melody of their latter years, is where I find myself most often returning. Alcoholiday trumps I Don't Want Control Of You every single time. Regardless, the band are set to return later this year with the release of their new album Shadows and they've just announced an intimate show at The Academy on Sunday, May 30th. Tickets - priced €25 - go on sale this Friday.

Magnetic Fields live @ BAM

Continuing the live theme - here's 4 songs recorded on Magnetic Fields' recent tour of the US flogging their latest product entitled Realism. Oddly enough, there isn't a song from said album in sight.

The Set List:
1. “Acoustic Guitar” featuring Claudia Gonson on lead vocals (from 69 Love Songs)
2. “The Nun’s Litany” featuring Shirley Simms on lead vocals (from Distortion)
3. “All the Umbrellas in London” featuring Stephin Merritt on lead vocals (from Get Lost)
4. “Fear of Trains” featuring Shirley Simms on lead vocals (from The Charm of the Highway Strip)

Four Tet Live @ LPR, New York 17th Feb 2010

Poles apart they may be but There Is Love In You and Have One On Me are the two most outstanding albums of 2010 thus far. Here's the Kieran Hebden experience live in New York. There's a high quality download of the one hour plus show here.
Live at LPR NYC 17th Feb 2010 by Four Tet

'Terrible Love' - The National

Opening track from the forthcoming High Violet as performed on US late night tv.

Daytrotter session: Ian McCulloch

Compelling evidence of the maxim that you should never go back are the reformed Echo & the Bunnymen. There was a widely held suspicion that the band had come to its natural end back in 1987 upon the release of their eponymous album, the last featuring the classic line-up of McCulloch, Pattinson, De Freitas and Sergeant. In the ten years between Bunnymen Mk I and II (let's ignore the Noel Burke fronted version eh?), Pete DeFreitas was tragically killed in a motorbike collision, McCulloch released some pretty but inconsequential solo albums and fronted the rather dire Electrafixion, whilst Will Sergeant indulged his penchant for trance-like instrumentals under the moniker Glide.
The band have released five albums since 1997, not that anyone's noticed. Sure, there was a thrill surrounding the release of Evergreen which swiftly died out as the band seemed to set out to confirm that they shared a name but none of the inspiration of Bunnymen Mk I. Anyone seeking a Best Of since 1997 would be hard pressed to compile an EP, much less an anthology. And yet Ian McCulloch is alive and kicking, folk still attend Bunnymen gigs in the hope of hearing the old classics. So it is with this Daytrotter session - sit through the three anodyne tracks to get to the ever sublime The Killing Moon.

Daytrotter Session

Think I Need It Too
The Fountain
Shroud Of Turin
The Killing Moon

Video: 'The Ghost Inside' (Acoustic) - Broken Bells

Acoustic version of the standout track from the forthcoming Danger Mouse & James Mercer collaboration. Sounds a little anaemic but the album version is a fantastic tune.

Video: The Antlers Live on AOL Interface

Interview with the band regarding the genesis of Hospice and live performances of Bear and Kettering from same.

Video: 'A Roundtable Conversation on Tomorrow, In A Year' - The Knife

The Knife discuss their recent soundtrack work for Darwin inspired opera. It's in their own inimitable style. Random quote: 'The way the feedback sound is changing is inspired by the way some birds learn their melody.'

A Roundtable Conversation on Tomorrow, In A Year from The Knife on Vimeo.

Video: 'Leap Year' - Port O'Brien

Port O'Brien will play Cork, Dublin and Galway on their upcoming European tour.
8th April Crawdaddy, Dublin
9th April Cypress Avenue, Cork
10th April Roisin Dubh, Galway

Mark Linkous R.I.P.

You are worth hundreds of sparrows. Other than that, words fail me.

Video: 'Hidden Lakes' - Shearwater

Unusual in a Jonathan Swift meets Crufts kind of way.

'High Violet' - The National

More concrete details available on The National's forthcoming fifth album. The record now has a title - High Violet - and a release date - May 11th on 4AD records. There's a website here which you can subscribe to for further updates.

And the winner is........

...well, well, well. So the truth did out and Adrian Crowley - creator of last year's best Irish album by some margin - won the Choice Music Prize for 2009. It's a wonderful boost for an artist still very much on the fringes and no doubt the wad will come in very handy indeed. Charming man and a wonderful artiste.

Adrian Crowley - "The Beekeeper's Wife" from Souljacker on Vimeo.

Video: 'The Adventures of Flannery' - Cathal Coughlan

A portrait of Ireland's finest artist as a young man fronting Microdisney, Fatima Mansions and some of the most perfectly formed solo albums of the last 20 years.

The Adventures of Flannery from Jessica Fuller on Vimeo.