This Friday I'll see Neko Case live for the first time.  A perfect primer, her recent concert in Washington, DC recorded and podcasted by NPR. I've edited it down for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Download: Neko Case - Live in Washington

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.

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"

Rating:

Ray LaMontagne
Saturday Night Live: March 7, 2009

LaMontagne continues the trend of late-blooming musicians to hit it big. With a very anti-Idol lean, he joins the ranks of Kings of Leon, Neko Case and others, gaining mainstream fame after several albums and years of touring small venues and even smaller towns. His folk-blues music is exactly what I've been in the mood for the past several months. Check him out on SNL this weekend and on iTunes. In the meantime, download the title track from his latest, the lovely "Gossip in the Grain".

I will swipe my first entry from These Roving Eyes. Cheap, I know.

A little Winter Mixed Tape for y'all. A collection of songs I'm loving - some old, some new, all receiving constant play in my world. Enjoy and check these artists out on iTunes.

1) Epilepsy is Dancing – Antony and the Johnsons
2) Went Walking – Bosque Brown
3) Tailor – Julie Doiron
4) Hold Time – M. Ward
5) Mykonos – Fleet Foxes
6) Paddy’s Gone – Antony and the Johnsons
7) Broken Chair – Jim Guthrie
8) He Doesn’t Know Why – Fleet Foxes
9) Another World – Antony and the Johnsons
10) Prescilla – Bat for Lashes
11) Aeon – Antony and the Johnsons
12) You Are Free – Cat Power
13) Streetlights – Kanye West
14) Oh My God – Gentleman Reg
15) Gossip in the Grain – Ray LaMontagne
16) Man Under the Sea – Patrick Watson
17) Oh Lonesome Me – M. Ward
18) Little Tornados – Aimee Mann
19) Call it Off – Tegan and Sara
20) Magpie to the Morning – Neko Case

Download the zip!