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damien jurado / peter wolf crier
Damien Jurado, fresh off his Hoquiam project with Jurado hermano, Drake, has his own album coming out this May - Saint Bartlett - and his label Secret Canadian has just made available a preview from said release, the song “Arkansas”. A new, more “grandiose” sound is thanks to Richard Swift’s throwback production, emphasized on this track by tinkling ivories straight from the early 1960s. The song has a stately feel, accompanying Jurado’s lyrics of love lost, swaying gently between sad and sweet.
Also out now is a single from Peter Wolf Crier, newly-added to the Jagjaguwar stable. Home-recorded and produced by Minneapolis denizens Peter Pisano (songwriter, guitar) and Brian Moen (drums, production), Inter-Be will be released this May, and sounds like it could be a charmer based on the evidence of this single, “Crutch & Cane”. Though it begins as if Bon Iver had recorded “Flume” in June on a southern porch, in the throes of the early stages of romantic desire, not the shittier tail end, jaunty guitar lines and and tumbling drum fills pair with Pisano’s snapshots of the earlier, more pleasing stages of love, not the shittier tail end that Mr. Vernon came to know so well.
Peter Wolf Crier - “Crutch & Cane”
Damien Jurado’s Saint Bartlett and Peter Wolf Crier’s Inter-Be are both out on May 25th.
califone movie: tim rutili does ‘cinematic’
The Chicagoan bluesy soundsmiths Califone released their latest, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, back in October on Dead Oceans, a sister label of Jagjaguwar. Following closely along from their wonderful 2006 release, Roots and Crowns, it is yet more proof that there are few out there making stranger and more brilliant music.
Even more enticing about that latest batch of conjurations of blues forebears and more recent experimental artists was the news that a film of the same title would accompany it, as bandleader Tim Rutili - the film’s writer and director - adds another creative notch to his belt. The film will premiere at Sundance on January 26th in Park City, UT, and the band will perform the score live as the movie plays. Rutili’s first feature length centers on a fortune teller named Zel (played by Angela Bettis) who lives in a ghost-infested house, in which entrapment and chaos ensue when a bright light appears in the surrounding forest.
Influenced by a love for the Spanish surrealist giant Luis Buñuel - to whose 1962 classic, “Exterminating Angel”, this film pays homage - and a passion for cinema that often shines through in Califone’s work, “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers” has its share of thoughtful acting, odd imagery, non sequiturs, and of course, music. Rutili has plans for another film, a road movie, and, according to a recent interview with IFC, very much wants to make the soundtrack for a possible cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s staggering Blood Meridian. Someone call Rutili, Nick Cave, and Warren Ellis up, get them in a room, and make that happen immediately.
Califone will be heading back out on the road in February, touring with Wilco, but sadly will not be alighting on the Eastern half of the country. If you happen to be in Chicago on March 9th or 10th, be sure to try and catch one of their homecoming shows.
Have a gander at the film’s trailer, and have a listen to the fantastically ramshackle “Ape-Like” from the album.
the besnard lakes are releasing a new album
One of 2007’s sleeper hits, The Besnard Lakes’ The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, was a dense, orchestral, rollicking, and often epic record driven by the craft of singer/bassist, Olga Goreas and guitarist/vocalist, Jace Lasek. Those two, owners of a production studio in Montreal and, it is so interesting to note and compare to other similar Canadian pairings, a married couple, put all of their arrangement and knob-twiddling talent to wonderful use, and the end result was one of those great pleasures of art and music: a pair of artists swinging for the fences and creating an imperfect but glorious mess. Combining the grandiosity of some of their Canadian peers with a grittiness that keeps their songs from flying off the grid - think soaring melodies and crunching power chords, Wilsonesque harmonies, sonorous drums, and wailing distortion - The Besnard Lakes are heavy.
And the Besnard Lakes are coming back. This blog in particular has been anticipating with excitement their follow-up to the aforementioned record, officially their second long player. On March 9th, 2010, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night will be released in the USA by Jagjaguwar, everyone’s favorite little record label (and if it is not, shame shame). And it sounds most promising. The Besnardiers are moving into the mysterious waters of the concept album, as this one will spin a tale of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods: perhaps the love child of Roberto Bolaño and Robert Ludlum put to music.
From an aural perspective, things sound equally intriguing. The band used a vintage 1968 Neve germanium mixing console to record the album, the very same one used on Led Zeppelin’s magnum opus, Physical Graffiti, to accentuate even further their ‘classic’ wall of sound tone. According to their label, things will sound more atmospheric and with more “drones”. Hopefully those linguistic contortions do not necessarily mean a complete free-fall into boring, proggy territory, as The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse was so delightfully and sufficiently atmospheric, but suffered no lack of clarity in the assembly of its many parts.
Either way, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night should be one of 10’s most quietly anticipated releases. The first single from it, “Albatross”, will see the light of day as a 12” on February 9th, with a bonus B-side. Check out the track listing and other tidbits over on the band’s site on the label. The Besnard Lakes are ready to put us through a rough night.
