So, obviously I'm on a bit of a Bat for Lashes kick.  If you hurry up and snag her new album, you might see why.  

She recently made an appearance on BBC Radio 1 and performed two songs; the first, a great laptop version of her single "Daniel" and a surprise cover of the Kings of Leon hit "Use Somebody".  I haven't blogged about it, but I dig their album, Only by the Night - It's not typically a genre I'd reach for, but there's something about the quality and integrity with which these dudes from the southern US approach their cock-rock that works for me.  It's got swagger, but not the Chad Kroeger kind.  Natasha Khan's version is fairly loyal to the original, though interesting to hear it from a female perspective.  I like that she's sticking her neck out on something so commercial, so American, and so current - A smart marketing move, if nothing else.  Enjoy!

Download: Bat for Lashes, Live Lounge BBC Radio 1

For whatever reason, I've never gotten into Belle and Sebastian.  Like books and movies, oh-so-long is the list of music I can't seem to get around to.  Stuart Murdoch (of B&S) has put together an amazing project due out in early June on Matador.  While running he had a tune in his head he knew wasn't right for his band; it was a vivid wall of doop-woppy girl-group vocals and a 45-piece orchestra.  Culling together nine amazing vocalists (most notably, Catherine Ireton who worked with Belle and Sebastian in 2006) he recorded the album that had been ringing in his head for the better part of 5 years.  He calls it God Help the Girl and this YouTube clip tells you all about it.

The first single, "Come Monday Night" starts out sounding like something Snow White might trill amongst the wild flowers.  It then kicks into classic old school pop, riffing on the throwback-stylings of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel's Volume I, though moodier and less California.  If the debut has all the perfect pop of the single with just a bit more melancholic Scottishness, I suspect we'll be hearing a lot about God Help the Girl.  

Download: "Come Monday Night"

(While you're at it, check out Ireton's band, The Go Away Birds for a free download.  While it doesn't excite me half as much as GHTG, I do enjoy Ireton's voice.)

Metric's new album is pretty good -These acoustic versions of two of its tracks are, perhaps, even better.  If you haven't looked into Emily Haines' solo material, you should.  She's great. These stripped back tunes definitely come from that part of her brain.

Metric - "Gimme Sympathy"

Metric - "Help I'm Alive"

Gushing from the same vein as Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons is a folky, alt-country quartet out of England, of all places. I don't often associate the UK with this particular genre, but they're doing it right. They have two four-track EPs available for purchase at www.rawrip.com. As they say on their MySpace page, "country music is the future", and, inexplicably, I must agree. It's a return to the good old days when musicians played instruments and songs told a story.

A recent discovery (via the fantastic blog indiepassion) is The Middle East, a quintet from Australia. A quick-comparison would be Patrick Watson, the Montreal group specializing in atmospheric and dreamy folk-pop whose third album will be out in April. American Football comes to mind, too.

I'm an extremely adept Googler, but there's very little available about the unsigned band online; no Wiki page, no official site, just a MySpace. The album is out of print and impossible to purchase legally, so here's the link. Check it out. Girl-boy harmonies, twinkly pianos, whistling. It's sweeping and rich, moody and ambient. Buzz word buzz word. Buzzword. Buzzzzzzzzz.

If you haven't climbed on-board, come on! Allow me to satiate/convince you with one more track from Neko Case's incredible Middle Cyclone.

Download: "The Pharaohs" and head to iTunes for the rest. Seriously. You can't miss this album. Come December it'll be on all the lists and you'll feel like a fool for missing ten amazing months in its company.

Read the review I posted on These Roving Eyes for more info.




My friends and loved ones really like to rip on me about my taste in music. Jeff (whose favourite bands include Coldplay) likes to joke that I have the taste of your average Art House Lesbian. After all these years his prodding still gets me. I get my back up, reeling off the reasons why Rachael Yamagata is fantastic, or why Annie Lennox is a legend or why Neko Case is one in the making. My friend Nick got in a real good one just the other day. While listening to music, my iPod inevitably shuffles to any number of "girly" artists. In his hilarious accidentally-funny way he proclaimed: "Your iPod would make anyone get their period three days sooner." Now, while I resent the sentiment, I appreciate a zinger like nobody's business.

Neko Case releases her much-anticipated follow-up to the bananas-amazing Fox Confessor Brings the Flood on Tuesday and all I can say is: Jesus Christ. A perfect next-step, this album has a similar feel to Confessor, though stands on its own entirely. Case is an exacting musician, her phrasing and diction clean and organized, her tone effortlessly pitch-perfect. Listening on headphones (you must!) you hear every breath and each pause, utter control over every aspect of the record. That said, there's nothing robotic about her. It's simply pure talent and musicianship. And she surrounds herself with the same; guests on the record include M. Ward, Garth Hudson, Sarah Harmer, members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, and Calexico.

"This Tornado Loves You" gets the album started in a frantic and mildly-manic state, a runaway song convincing a man she loves him. "I miss the way you sigh yourself to sleep." With a jittering guitar under the whole thing, it races along and gets your feet stomping.

"The Next Time You Say Forever" is just shy of two minutes long. She has a way of writing chorus-less songs that just drive, leaving you wanting so much more. When each set of sounds happens just once, you pine for more. We're so used to a great harmony coming around two and three times, but Neko insists you just listen to the album on repeat if you want that. "I've been away for so long, I've lost my taste for home. And that's a dirty fallow feeling to be the dangling ceiling from when the roof came crashing down." And a wordplay mastermind to boot. Throughout her entire catalogue she dangles great runs or melodies, but sparingly. 1:16 into "Vengeance is Sleeping", a swell of harmonies never heard again makes you want it all the more.

"Polar Nettles" is a great example of something else Neko is skilled at. Sometimes the character she sings about doesn't particularly interest, the story, the setting, something doesn't grab you, but then a little detail in the music does: 1:23-in, a rattling snare drum makes this song. The first time I heard it, it caught me off-guard and I could feel my eyes widen, my smile too. My stomach dropped a little and I scanned back to hear that again. Fantastic. Those dangling moments, so unexpected.

"Did someone make a fool of me, for I can show 'em how it's done." At her best on tracks like this one ("Middle Cyclone") she sings three verses about something other than an old-timey murder, in this case, it seems, her own inability to get close to others, singing "I can't give up acting tough, it's all that I'm made of. Can't scrape together quite enough to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love." All to a quiet guitar and the twinkling of a little girl's ballerina musicbox. Economical songwriting like this is so rare, so perfectly restrained.

Download: "Vengeance is Sleeping"

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