I am absolutely ecstatic to have this wonderful quality recording of Norah Jones supporting her latest LP, Little Broken Hearts. The album is delightful and from a growth perspective I think it's the perfect move after 2009's The Fall. There is this perfect disconnect across the album that Norah is great at creating. The music feels like it's broadcast from outer space (not in an experimental way, it just seems seperate) while Norah is sitting properly on a wooden stool, seductively whispering each word into your ear. Chills.

Pick up her latest record, Little Broken Hearts, and make sure to catch Norah on the road this summer.

Norah Jones Official - Facebook - Twitter - The Treasury - Insound -

01 Intro
02 Good Morning
03 Say Goodbye
04 Little Broken Hearts
05 She's 22
06 Take It Back
07 After The Fall
08 4 Broken Hearts
09 Travelin' On
10 Out On The Road
11 Happy Pills
12 Miriam
13 All A Dream
14 Don't Know Why
15 Sunrise
16 It's Gonna Be
17 Come Away With Me
18 Stuck

DOWNLOAD - Norah Jones - 2012-04-18 - Alter Wartesaal - Cologne, DE

Exciting news for those headed to Louisiville this summer for Forecastle Festival!! Consequence of Sound will be getting the weekend started with the Official Forecastle kickoff party featuring Dean & Britta and Purity Ring.

Who: Dean & Britta + Purity Ring
What: Consequence of Sound Official Forecastle kickoff party
Where: Club 116, 116 E. Main St. in Louisville
When: Thursday, July 12

Then...can I get a drum roll please? The historic Belle of Louisville (a steamboat people!) will play host to the excellent Preservation Hall Jazz Band for an all ages event presented by Bell's Brewery. What is the only thing that could make this better? Members of My Morning Jacket will be making guest appearences! Just picture the beautiful Belle of Louisville, slow flapping down the Ohio to the big brass sounds of Preservation Hall Jazz Band on a humid Louisiville night...awesome.

Who: Preservation Hall Jazz Band + members of My Morning Jacket
What: Bell's Brewery Official Forecastle After Party
Where: Belle of Louisville
When: Saturday, July 15

Tickets go on sale this Saturday, May 19 at noon Eastern time at forecastlefest.com. Kickoff party tickets at Club 116 will set you back $22 + fees and the Saturday after-party on the big, beautiful Belle of Louisville will be $50 + fees.

More information:

From every ticket purchased for the after-party on the Belle of Louisville, a portion will be donated to the Center for Women and Families, a Louisville non-profit dedicated to helping victims of intimate partner abuse or sexual violence.

Forecastle 2012 marks the 10th year of the festival and this year’s line-up features My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Bassnectar, Andrew Bird, Girl Talk, Atmosphere, Neko Case, Sleigh Bells, A-Trak and many others. A full breakdown of artists by day can be found at forecastlefest.com.
 
Tickets for the festival are also available at select retailers throughout the region including: WHY Louisville in Louisville; Shake-It Records in Cincinnati; CD Central in Lexington; Indy CD and Vinyl in Indianapolis; and Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in Nashville. After-party tickets will only be available online.

With each purchase, 50 cents will be donated to the Forecastle Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit, dedicated to local education and international environmental conservation. For more information about the foundation, please visit www.forecastlefest.com/foundation.

Photo by TQ

Can't go wrong with a set from The National.

The National Official - Facebook - Twitter - The Treasury - Insound -

01 Anyone's Ghost
02 Mistaken for Strangers
03 Bloodbuzz Ohio
04 Slow Show
05 Squalor Victoria
06 Afraid of Everyone (w/Richard Perry)
07 Conversation 16
08 Apartment Story
09 England
10 Fake Empire
11 Start a War
12 Mr. November
13 Terrible Love

DOWNLOAD - The National - 2011-04-24 - UIC Pavillion - Chicago, IL

Another new group I've been letting creep into my daily playlist. It's still early for me but what I can say is that their latest LP, The Russian Wild, successfully fuses many different genres, sometimes within one song and it's filled with, to quote a friend, "some bad ass kick I in the teeth guitars."

Check it out!

Howlin Rain Official - Facebook - Twitter - The Treasury - Insound -

01 Self Made Man
02 Phantom In The Valley
03 Can't Satisfy Me Now
04 Cherokee Werewolf
05 Hung Out In The Rain
06 Calling Lightning Pt. 2
07 Roll On The Rusted Days

DOWNLOAD - Howlin Rain - 2012-02-25 - Doug Fir - Portland, OR

Great, high quality set from a seasoned Midwest songwriter that I'm only now looking into, largely because of "Now That I Think About It" author, Jorge. After giving this set a listen I'll definitely be picking up some of his albums.

Sufjan Stevens Official - Facebook - Twitter - The Treasury - Insound -

01 The 50 States Song
02 The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders
03 Prairie Fire + They Are Night Zombies…
04 Jacksonville
05 Casimir Pulaski Day
06 Chicago
07 The Predatory Wasp
08 A Good Man is Hard to Find
09 John Wayne Gacy Jr.
10 All the Trees of the Field
11 Seven Swans
12 The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

DOWNLOAD - Sufjan Stevens - 2005-10-27 - The Paradiso - Amsterdam, NL - pt. 1

DOWNLOAD - Sufjan Stevens - 2005-10-27 - The Paradiso - Amsterdam, NL - pt. 2

DOWNLOAD - Sufjan Stevens - 2005-10-27 - The Paradiso - Amsterdam, NL - pt. 3

Photo Credit: Joshua Anderson, here and here! 

Good evening, you lovely people! Weeks are certainly going by like days across the pond for this gal (I’m still over in Italy and time’s definitely running out). So I’m gonna try to take each moment, take it in, and enjoy the rest of my time in this wonderful place. I hope you all can do the same, no matter where you are!

Today I’d like to start your week with a peaceful yet evocative track from MMJ’s own Carl Broemel (sexy sax Carl)’s sophomore solo album from 2010, All Birds Say, track number 4, “Carried Away.”

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Mondays . . . I'm really starting to hate Mondays.  Monday has never been my favorite day of the week, but then again, I'm not exactly sure which day IS my favorite day.  I guess I'll have to devote some time to that at some point, but for now, let's just assume I'm choosing from the other six days of the week.

Last week started off great in regards to new music.  Then, just as great as it started, it ended with the kinds of hurdles that only grown ups have to address: scheduling.  Let me say it plainly: work got in the way.  That, essentially, is painful to say because who wants to be a responsible adult, right?  I just want to listen to music, read books and drink until i'm cross eyed, then take a nap.  At some point, I'd like to eat something that's not, in any conceivable way, related to pickles, then start all over again.  That's not too much to ask, right?  After doing that for awhile, maybe I'll hop in the car and just drive.  I'd just drive with no real destination in mind, just be on the road like Sal Paradise

That idea, the idea of just going with no specific destination, is what makes this week's album so perfectly fitting for a restless office drone.

Father John Misty is an eccentric guy.  Some of you may already know where I'm going with this, but some of you may not.  Father John Misty is the name under which one of my favorite singer/songwriters is now known.  He used to be the drummer for the Fleet Foxes and he also used to perform songs and music as J. Tillman.  To be quite honest, the incarnation is of no consequence because two things are certain: 1.) he writes great songs and 2.) his voice is unmistakenly great.

On his new album, Fear Fun, FJM has upped the ante a bit.  He's added more instrumentation and his voice has gotten BETTER.  His vocal range was always amazing, but now he's taken it to another level, incorporating a falsetto at times that reminds me of Roy Orbison.  It never sounds like he's trying to imitate anyone in particular.  It sounds as natural as the falsetto that we love some much as it leaves Jim James' lips, the imperfections are angelic.

Tillman's journey towards Fear Fun started from an emotional hole.  He was admittedly stricken with, what he called an, "immobilizing period of depression."  He had lost all interest in writing songs and, as he puts it, "I lost all interest in writing music, or identifying as a ‘songwriter’. I got into my van with enough mushrooms to choke a horse and started driving down the coast with nowhere to go. After a few weeks, I was writing a novel, which is where I finally found my narrative voice. The voice that is actually useful."

The result is a sound that feels like an album full of chapters to a book.  I'm not relating this to a concept album, just an album of a restless, depressed musician trying to find his honest voice, the voice that he was meant to have, but somehow lost along the way.  In an effort to find it, he found himself once more engaged in writing songs.  Tillman continues, "“It was a while before that voice started manifesting in a musical way, but once I settled in the Laurel Canyon spider-shack where I’m living now, I spent months demoing all these weird-ass songs about weird-ass experiences almost in real-time, and kind of had this musical ‘Oh-there-I-am’ moment, identical to how I felt when I was writing the book. It was unbelievably liberating. I knew there was never any going back to the place I was writing from before, which was a huge relief. The monkey got banished off my back.”

Fear Fun is an introspective romp down the highway.  For me, each track is great.  Tillman's voice echoes effortlessly through each and every song and, for me, "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" encapsulates his new direction.  It's a floor stomping song that's reminiscent of both The Beach Boys and The Brian Johnstown Massacre.  He sings, "Jesus Christ, girl, it's been so long so it seems, since I was picking out an island and a tomb for you, at the Hollywood Cemetery."  What follows the chorus is the haunting howl of Tillmans falsetto that sounds almost as if he's singing in the catacombs.

Songs that follow will address your need to hear a road album, drenched in asphault and experience.  Fear Fun came out on May 1, released by Sub Pop.  It's so well worth your time that I don't need to say anymore, except go out and get it now.  Here's how you can find him: 

Facebook

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Twitter 

GREAT recording of Ryan Adams in Oslo, Norway from a few days ago, thanks taper! I'm so ready for another record from this man. He's so ON right now - his voice is arguably at it's best, his acoustic guitar playing is crisp and imaginative like never before and his very obvious focus is bringing about a consistancy and level of professionalism that, historically, hasn't always been Adams' best quality.

Ryan Adams Official - Facebook - Twitter - The Treasury - Insound -

01 Intro
02 Oh My Sweet Carolina
03 Ashes And Fire
04 If I Am A Stranger (including false start)
05 Dirty Rain
06 tuning/banter
07 My Winding Wheel
08 Rescue Blues (piano)
09 Please Do Not Let Me Go
10 banter
11 Do I Wait
12 Ryan indroduces the sound tech guy/intro to Firecracker
13 Firecracker
14 Everybody Knows
15 Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)(piano)
16 Why Do They Leave?
17 tuning/banter
18 Let It Ride
19 Ryan rearranging stuff on stage/banter
20 English Girls Approximately
21 banter
22 Chains of Love
23 banter/Improv song: Captain Professional
24 Improv song about two improv songs in a row
25 16 Days
26 Mr. Cat (piano) >
27 New York, New York (piano)
28 Lucky Now
29 Come Pick Me Up
30 encore break/banter
31 Mother (Danzig cover)

DOWNLOAD - Ryan Adams - 2012-05-09 - Folketeatret - Oslo, NO - pt. 1

DOWNLOAD - Ryan Adams - 2012-05-09 - Folketeatret - Oslo, NO - pt. 2

DOWNLOAD - Ryan Adams - 2012-05-09 - Folketeatret - Oslo, NO - pt. 3

Welcome to your weekend, ladies and gentlemen! It’s a beautiful day, wouldn’t you agree? Summer is well on its way and festival season is in full swing. Can’t wait to get back to the states!

To kick off your weekend, we’ve got a nice little Bob Dylan ditty and a cover from our boys. Let’s dig the MMJ cover of 1970’s “The Man in Me.”

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I have to thanks Willsfc for putting this show together and lar for sending it to me. Great webcast rip of the gents' doing their thing at Jazz Fest. Enjoy this one, I'll be rocking it this weekend for sure.

My Morning Jacket Official - Facebook - Twitter - MMJ Archive - Insound -

01 Victory Dance
02 Circuital
03 It Beats 4 U
04 The Way That He Sings
05 Mahgeetah
06 Golden
07 Outta My System
08 Gideon
09 Dondante
10 Wordless Chorus
11 Off The Record
12 Holdin' On To Black Metal
13 One Big Holiday

DOWNLOAD - My Morning Jacket - 2012-05-05 - NOLA Jazz & Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA